The Business Generals Podcast | Helping You Maximize Your Entrepreneurial Dreams - Every Single Week

Alex Charfen is as seasoned as they come, a diverse experience going all the way back to being trained in his fathers business at as a pre-teen, his challenges with standard education and overcoming that through his extensive reading about what it took to be successful in business and to eventually creating an international consulting brand that would peak at $250m in revenue. Alex had a false start at retirement after exiting his consulting business, he re-invested all his gains into real estate quickly which quickly grew into a $40m portfolio, but hurricane weather and the global financial crisis wiped out their portfolio and took him and his family into bankruptcy. In this show Alex takes the time to walk us through three main phases of two plus decades of his entrepreneurial journey, drawing out some key distinctions that any aspiring or seasoned entrepreneur can use to kick start a multiple seven figure business. With literally all odds against them, Alex shares how him and his wife, a real estate professional, designed a course for real estate agents and the financial services companies whose clients were facing foreclosures at the height of the GFC. Armed with real life experience after being served multiple property foreclosure notices, Alex looked for a way to bring all affected parties to a common negotiating table that would help more families keep their home, and help more lenders preserve their investments. This training course was developed while Alex was bankrupt and it was launched with zero money down, yet made a profit on day one and would sell over 48,000 courses averaging $500 per course, multiple millions of dollars from a standing start. Alex breaks down a simple methodology of how anyone can create a valuable information product that has high conversion and a high completion rate. * Identify your target audience or gap in the market * Research through direct surveys and find out what their pains are. Alex interviewed over 100 real estate brokers and agents, they shared their pain points and frustrations when it came to foreclosures * Develop a product that will answer the needs of your audience. No need for perfection here just let the creative juices flow, if using a computer slows your creative process then write it on paper, draw up all your illustrations or image guides and create the blueprint * Beta testing - Alex called his target audience and walked them through the course details. With their feedback and additional input he further refined the course and got their committee to to buy once it launched * Launch, don’t over complicate or wait too long, get it launched with a few people, see the response and then move on there. * Alex went on to be recognised as a key contributor to turning around the home foreclosure industry through the course. If you have any expertise or thought leadership, this methodology above that Alex uses is your guide to creating that service offering your clients want and desire so much they are willing to buy without you “over selling” it to them. We covered other ground during the podcast including: * How you can transition from a corporate consulting role into your own business; and * A case study of how Alex is helping entrepreneurs grow from $1m to $20m plus in annual revenues: Alex breaks down some of the key strategies that are helping put multiple seven figures in top line revenue for his clients today that you can leverage today Legacy Alex passionately shares about what he would like to leave as a legacy when all is said is done - this was a powerful moment during the show - - - make sure you check it out! Entrepreneurial books Alex recommends for any entrepreneur - - *

Timo Rein is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pipe Drive which is a simplified sales management tool that is helping over 60,000 sales teams around the world to get more organised, more focused and helping them sell more. You have probably already heard about Pipe Drive because they have done an amazing job marketing their service, this is a great episode with Timo, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I know we will receive great feedback on this one! Timo is based in Estonia with his wife and kids, born in the Soviet Union, studied psychology in university, he lived in the US for four years and is now back home living and running his business from north eastern Europe in the wonderful Estonia. He co-founded Pipe Drive 7 years ago with 4 other founders, prior to that was a partner is a sales training business for 10 years, so Timo is a seasoned entrepreneur with 17 years in the game of running his own business. Show notes and links at: https://www.businessgenerals.com/timor Revenue streams Pipe Drive is a SaaS (software as a service) business, that generates a monthly and annual subscription from customers who are from all corners of the world. They have doubles their revenue each year for the last 5-6 years, so Timo describes as a high growth yet high investment SaaS business. They have invested about $30m into the business which includes successful strong capital raisings. Dilution of your ownership v Investors In Timo's mind their business is run by a team of professionals right across their leadership and executive level, including the investors who he feels are well invested to give the founders every necessary introduction and connection in the market place as well challenge the leadership and ask more of them so as to get the best that the company can deliver. The big idea and the story of how pipe drive started * The big idea with Timo's first co-founder, who also had a sales background like Timo * Coming up with the specification document of the product * Looking for developers who would build the code * Meeting up with 3 other start up founders who had coding back ground The tipping point for Timo * He was running his sales business and going well * An old friend quizzed Timo about his consultancy role at the time and in Timo's mind this made his wake up to his dream of being a doer, a builder and this sent him back to his drawing board so he went back to looking at building a business. Building Pipe Drive With the new 3 co-founders the idea was ready to be dusted off and given another chance. * Timo and his first co-founder described the whole software idea again to the new team. * A brand new specification document was created and it was much better than their original spec, as it was much more visual with screen shots and clear work flows. * The original founders had the idea, they knew how to market and scale a business while the 3 new founders brought in the engineering experience and proven experience in coding a product that can be scaled, so together they created a strong foundation on which to build the business from. * For a period of 3 months the team would get together on weekend retreats at a local farm house, from Friday nights and code through out the weekend and would only head back to their homes on Sundays. Three of the co-founders had day jobs during the week so this project was only worked on during the weekends at this time. The other two founders plus one other engineer (who would later become a founding employee) worked full time on the project during this 3 month period. * Although away from family, this helped the team focus well on the project and also helped them buil...

Bobby Umar has been named by Inc Magazine as a top 100 leadership speaker alongside people like John Maxwell and Richard Branson, he has taken to the famous and prestigious Tedx stage four times and has over half a million followers on social media. Bobby is also an international author and a Huffington post contributor. A father of two and loves improv comedy. Bobby started his business full time in January 2017, he rolled out of his corporate role and went straight into launching his business. His number one revenue stream today is professional speaking - inspirational motivational speaker, travelling mostly around Canada and from time to time internationally. Bobby speaks on leadership as a general theme with specialised expertise in three key areas: * Networking - leadership building and connection * Personal branding * Social media and digital marketing Bobby other revenue streams are coaching (executive coaching, career coaching and business coaching) and events. Why and how speaking During his corporate days Bobby conducted workshops and training and received very strong positive feedback about his speaking and motivational skills. By the time Bobby was ready to leave corporate he leaned on this feedback and took all the positives and embarked on building out his personal brand.  After a deep dive into his personal values, traits, personality assessments and some soul searching - Bobby says he found out that his brand was all about connection, people, persuasion, influence, performing, presenting and diversity, speaking seemed like a logical thing to do. First customer Bobby kept track of all his connections throughout his career even before the advent of LinkedIn, he maintained an excel spreadsheet with 3,000 contacts, so the first thing he did was to send out 500 brochures to people on this list and then also sent an email to all 3,000 contacts sharing that he had launched a business, his services and clearly specifying the opportunities he was looking for. After sending that out a few people wrote back to Bobby (not as many as initially hoped for but it was a start...), some called and with a bit of follow up Bobby landed his first gig. Business growth after the first few paying customers * Bobby made it a priority to do an amazing job so that it was easy to get referrals from each engagement * He leveraged his network some more, set up calls and met up with his contacts - he estimates having met over 1,000 people for catch up chats, coffees and meals in his first 3-5 years of launching his business. He let them know what he was up to and this fueled more engagements and referral opportunities. * Maintained a strong social media presence through Facebook and LinkedIn * Saying yes to most gigs that were offered to him, a lot of which Bobby says he wouldn't do today Paid v Free events * Starting out, Bobby was doing a lot of events for free as he built out his brand but was always looking for paid opportunities. * His paid opportunities were attracting a $500 fee, and after a while this changed to $1,000 with a lower end engagement being $500, and then $2,500 an engagement and continued to grow that way. *  Bobby shares how you have to know when to say NO to certain opportunities if they are not within your core niche as saying NO indirectly helps you say YES to what you are really called to do. Tedx Talk & Social Media * While previously unaware of what it was, on 5 October 2011, Bobby did the first of his four Tedx talks and decided to launch his social media strategy as it clear in his mind that social media was here to stay. * On this day Bobby launched his social media arsenal on all channels ...

Dr Daniel Crosby is a Psychologist, he has a PhD in psychology and behavioural finance specialising in helping people and organisations understand the cross over between the mind and the financial markets. He is a co-author of a New York Times best seller "Personal Benchmark" and also authored the "Laws of Wealth". Daniel is the founder and CEO of Nocturne Capital - an investment management firm whose approach is rooted in the science of behavioral finance. Daniel has a growing family, based in Atlanta Georgia from where he runs his business which he has been running full time for the last 10 years. Check out the full show with detailed show notes and episode links: businessgenerals.com/danielc Lets talk core revenue streams Daniel shares how he started off doing speaking engagement to market his other services in his company but it has since taken off and become a major part of his revenue stream. An early take away from Daniel is not to underestimate the power of speaking as an extra revenue stream in your business! Daniel also manages money on behalf of clients, teaches online courses in behavioural finance and provides consulting services and content development. While speaking is Daniel’s number one income stream it’s not completely scalable due to the time commitment and extensive travel requirements so Daniel has a focus to grow the other income streams. Daniel has been on the speaking circuit for the last 10 years, and cautions that it is taxing for someone with a young family. Childhood inspiration Growing up Daniel was inspired by his dad who is an investment manager, after getting into college Daniel loved the study of psychology, helping and teaching people – but part way through his PhD he felt emotionally burned out as a clinical psychologist. A conversation with his dad about his next options turned him down the road of understanding the intersection between psychology and stock market investing. Why a PhD and not just a Degree Daniel says in his experience a psychology degree in the US, does not get you very far in your career as a psychologist. The PhD paid off for Daniel as clients more readily hired his consulting services as a PhD graduate even though he was only 28. While the PhD opened doors for Daniel he says he doesn’t actually use it in its direct form because he is trained to conduct therapy sessions as a clinical psychologist but he now picks stocks for a living. The skills learned however, of being non defensive, hard work, accepting feedback, critiquing and taking action - are life skills he has taken from his PhD that have helped him in his business. First paying client and a speaking career Daniel managed to secure his first client before he resigned from his job, he recommends that you find a way to get at least one good client account before stepping out on your own. He quickly moved into the world of speaking and in the beginning all his presentations were at no charge, he would look for places to speak at in his city as a way of marketing his consultancy services. After quiet a number of free events Daniel recalls an attendee asking if they could book him for a paid speaking engagement and he began a new journey where he would eventually be charging between $1,000 and $2,000 to speak. A mistake he shares is saying yes to all speaking requests and having to create ...

Rob Jacobs is the guy who gets people up-and-out of their chairs and moving again! A personal fitness expert and the co-founder of UnSit, an innovative company working to get people UP out of their chairs and moving again with the world's first Treadmill Desk optimized for use in an office environment. His background is firmly in the fitness industry having been in treadmill retail and commercial equipment including a repairs and servicing business model. Being a fitness enthusiast sitting at a chair all day made Rob research into how to help people with desk jobs get fitter by moving more. First business startup - the walking centre. This was a fitness centre targeted at middle aged stay at home mums who would go into the store, rent a movie, and walk on a treadmill while watching their movie! This proved to be a great model for Rob. The results were very good and people started buying these high ticket treadmills in the Beverly Hills area, and opened more stores which also included the sale of commercial fitness equipment. Rob eventually sold out of the retail model after a number of years as the market changed with increased competition and margin pressure. Before selling out of retail Rob had developed a service model that repaired and serviced fitness equipment for health clubs and fitness centres, so with a new business partner Rob developed and grew this business to include retailing of spare parts. Rob has maintained and continued to grow this business over the last 25 years plus and it still continues to be his core revenue generator. The business model is ecommerce based enhanced with telephone technology support, targeted at out of warranty fitness equipment servicing clients in different countries. The problem that turned into a new business idea Rob found himself constantly sitting at a desk, servicing clients and growing his spare parts business, and found himself having less and less exercise, feeling lethargic, lower back problems all from sitting behind a desk far too long. A book by Dr. James Levine, who is credited as the popular inspiration for the treadmill desk, inspired Rob to work on solving his problem. Book reference: Get up - why your chair is killing you, Dr James Levine Rob had seen the idea before but he discredited it on the basis that he didn't think a treadmill desk provided real exercise or real practicality in an office setting. [During this interview Rob was walking along at 1 mile per hour on his treadmill desk and by about 15 minutes into the interview he had clocked over 2,000 steps! Pretty impressive]. Dissecting the research and looking at the market opportunity * Obesity is one third of US population, and this same third is also at the pre-diabetic stage estimated to require medicated treatment in a few years time * Sitting disease is a term used in the book by Dr Levine which includes diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illnesses which can be prevented or recovered from through exercise * Mental creativity is a softer science but this is the marketing point Rob has picked, exercise leads to a more productive and creative workforce and this can be achieved through the treadmill desk technology Designing the product * After reading Dr James Levine's book Rob decided to work on designing a product that was fit for purpose * Most designs at this time simply took a tread mill and stuck it under a desk, but Rob figured there was better way * Rob shares that while his academic qualifications are minimal and his learning quite empirical and self taught, this did not disadvantage his entrepreneurial journey

Justin Hales is the CEO and Founder of Camplify, the Airbnb of caravan hire & RV sharing community. Camplify is Australia's largest caravan hire and RV peer-to-peer sharing community, connecting owners with holidaymakers across the country sharing all types of caravans, campervans, motorhomes and camper trailers to enjoy a getaway in. Camplify gives RV owners the opportunity to earn extra income - anywhere between $280 and $2100 per week - while they aren’t using it themselves. As for their hiring members, they get to experience the joy of camping without having to purchase their own RV. During the interview, Justin shared how in 2 years the Camplify platform has grown from just a small fleet of rentals to over 2,500 placing the company at the top of the fleet market in its niche of renting out caravans and RVs, an amazing effort in such a short space of time. The genesis of the idea Sounds a bit cliche but it all started with a seemingly small conversation with Justin and his wife talking about how cool it would be to go on a caravan holiday. Their conversation was triggered while the couple was walking their dog over and noticed a parked caravan in their neighborhood. Having spent his childhood in caravans this was an exciting prospect and so Justin looked for a place where they could hire a caravan for a holiday but found it quite difficult to find a single provider that he could go to and hire from. As a result Justin found a gap in the market and created a space that was like an Airbnb that got all the hundreds of caravans that sit around in people's driveways doing nothing most of the year and create a sharing economy market place for owners and holidaymakers to share. Working on the idea * Justin found a startup incubator program that was looking for innovators and applied to be considered for the program, which included some basic idea testing, putting up a 'crudely built' website and a power-point deck. * After a stringent review of 500 applicants, Justin progressed into the final 40 that made it to the "Pitch Day". * Following a successful outing at Pitch Day Justin was offered a spot in the 12 week startup accelerator program. * This was an intensive accelerator program on how to set up and scale a startup which became the backbone of launching the Camplify business following that 12 weeks Justin's key take ways from the 12 Weeks accelerator program * Understood the customer more * Tested more variables * Learned about different marketing strategies * Learned how to build good products that had a great market fit, using lean methodology * Started building a brand and acquiring customers * Leaned on the network in the program to raise capital for Camplify which was well received and helped fund the initial Camplify launch Customer targeting * The initial market most people would lean towards in the caravan and RV space was the grey nomad market (grey nomad (plural grey nomads) (Australia) A retired person who travels independently and for an extended period within their own country, particularly in a caravan or motor home - wiktionary * But through testing Justin found that while the grey nomads was not going to be their target market to consume their services, they were going to their target partners as RV owners sharing their RVs on the Camplify marketplace * From detailed testing and building customer personas, the ideal customer that emerged was families who were not prepared to outlay $60,000 for an RV but still wanted to holiday in one from time to time, and this was found to a buoyant and growing market The No Money Survey - Just Sweets (...Lollies/Candy)

Gil Ado and Carlos Reines are the co-founders of Rubicon MD, an innovative medical eConsult service that connects primary care doctors to same-day insights from top medical specialists. Their mission is to provide better health care through their online platform that enables primary care doctors to easily and quickly access medical specialists and have online consultations (eConsults) and ultimately provide better direct care to patients. With a fragmented US healthcare system, Gil and Carlos identified a need in the market for access to specialist medical care that didnt require patients to physically be in the same room with their specialist doctor. After a lot of networking and hustle, Rubicon MD was officially birthed in 2013. >> Show notes Link: https://www.businessgenerals.com/gilandcarlos >> Today Rubicon is a strong, growing Venture backed Healthcare startup, which has successfully raised over $19M in funding since 2014. The company is scaling at pace throughout the US now with over 5,000 primary care providers using the platform. The two Harvard Business School graduate co-founders partnered up to launch Rubicon on a mission to facilitate the provision of a higher level of care to patients who may not have access to specialist care due to them not having private healthcare or geographical limitations. The platform allows general practitioner doctors to have direct access to expert specialist help on a case by case basis through e-consult process. Doctor to doctor interaction via the e-consult platform is one of their biggest wins - patients that would have previously been referred to the emergency department for specialist consultation now receive access through the eConsult process through their primary doctors, and as Gil says this is real tangible benefit that clinicians and patients are excited about. The business launch and the first paying customer * In 2013 the business was launched with the first key goal being to prove that there was value in the platform and that patients would be able to access greater healthcare through the platform * They put a basic minimum viable product from a technology platform standpoint, they found a doctor who was willing to trial the platform and it run for a few months with a few hundred eConsults and the feedback was very positive * The founders joined an accelerator program focusing on how to build a business around the idea and how to find the people who could potentially buy into your idea * Talked and networked to as many people in the healthcare eco system  - learning, doing the research and also selling the idea at the same time * Discovered that groups that are at risk, ie taking care of primary health care patients will be most interested in this * Pivoted on the fact that there was limited supporting data for the idea so focused on finding the companies that were ready to take some risk in this space as well * Their first paying customer contract was from Boston, Gil and Carlos share with excitement how this client has grown and stayed with Rubicon MD for over 4 years, a testament in their minds to the value RubiconMD brings to the clinician. Cash flow during the start up phase * Carlos was still completing his Harvard MBA at the beginning but working full time in the business, Gil was also full time in the business but they were scraping by and keeping everything very lean financially * It was a difficult beginning for the business, so they had to run their operations in a very lean way but they were determined to see the vision come to life * The duo managed to live through the first startup phase through their savings,

Mike Michalowicz is an American author, entrepreneur, and lecturer. He is a business author including the popular Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. He is a former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the "Business Rescue" segment host for MSNBC's Your Business. He also hosted the reality television program called Bailout! Mike has founded and sold multi-million dollar businesses and today shares over 25 years of business experience through his books and on stage in front of global audiences . During this episode we discuss some amazing business concepts with Mike including the following: How to Differentiate yourself in Business * Mike has an accounting service business called Profit First. While this is an old established service industry, Mike has found a way to differentiate his business. Mike's team go out to their over 250 clients as Profit Advisor with a special expertise and focus on not just being compliant with taxes and regulatory obligations but making sure the business is profitable and optimised. * They focus is pivoted towards interpreting the business numbers and helping business find sustainable profitability * This is all part of the Profit First philosophy which is detailed in Mike's popular book Profit First - A Simple System to Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine  Profit First System * It flips the profit formula used in traditional accounting * Commonly referred to as the bottom line, the standard profit formula is "Sales minus Expenses = Profit". But this creates a mindset problem where a business owner does not focus on profit but leaves it at the last thing, a by product of everything else and invariably what gets put on the back burner can get forgotten and not prioritised. * Profit First in Mike's world has this formula: "Sales minus Profit = Expenses". So every time you make a sale you allocate a predetermined percentage that you have calculated as your optimal operating profit level, and take the rest as the amount available for all your expenses (not the other way round). Acquiring the First Customer in Profit First Professionals * The model is based on finding the right accounting professionals who get trained and accredited under the Profit First Methodology and then operate as advisors under the Profit First banner with a profit share arrangement * Mike didn't go out with a know it all attitude but went out to the potential Profit First Professional with the mission first, "we can eradicate entrepreneurial poverty together" * They understood that this was something new and it needed to grow so whoever joined would join as the first customers, and it would not be easy but that they will be great upside in the future * They also openly reduced the standard membership fee for the founding members and would bring in the first group of founding members onto the advisory board of the business to help provide real time feedback to help build the business Marketing Strategy * Mike went to his existing list of customers and followers who were aware of his brand and his message, and publicly announced that he was looking for bookkeepers and accountants who were interested in partnering on this new project, shared the vision and then established a small community that was focused on this new project. * Without a personal community, Mike advises that founders should go and look for the community that the target audience is already established (what conferences do they attend, what podcasts are they listening to or what blogs do they follow) and find a way to start contributing and speaking to them the...

Sean Cooper made news headlines across global news channels when he paid off his mortgage in a record 3 years at the tender age of 30! Sean did all of this while working a normal job in financial services in Canada and freelancing as a personal finance coach and writing as a personal finance blogger. Sean is the author of his very well acclaimed book Burn Your Mortgage. Sean's story was very polarizing when it came out on Canadian news outlets and actually got him a lot of hate mail and articles online and offline because of how quickly he paid off his mortgage which goes against standard accepted beliefs around home ownership and the 30 year loan repayment time frame that most banks give home owners. The negative feedback centered around Sean being portrayed as a privileged child with wealthy parents or as Sean living in this basement without a life outside of work and stashing away every cent he earns. Born and raised in Toronto Ontario, Canada Sean grew up in a middle class family with parents who instilled in him the importance of home ownership so from age 10 Sean had the vision of owning his own home. He started working various jobs at a young age and started saving for his down payment even before he graduated university. Sean bought his first home when he was 27 and he paid off by age 30, a remarkable achievement - all on his own savings and his own aggressive focus on beating the mortgage debt! Lifestyle choices - no car! Sean made the decision of not owning a car during his period of paying off the mortgage as it amounts to the second largest payment in most people's budgets and he found a practical way to make sure he lived near public transport and lived a car free life. This was a very bold and mature decision for Sean to make a young age, when I was 20 all I was thinking of was owning my first car, and the first loan I ever took out was to buy my first car, a white Toyota Mark II. It requires discipline and laser focus to follow through with a car free lifestyle. Admittedly it may not be entirely possible for everyone due to your professional work, if you are a trades person you may work from different sites each week and need a personal car, so you may need a find a way to get a reliable cost effective car that doesn't cost you too much to buy or maintain. There may also be opportunities for you to car pool or ride share with colleagues from work where you reduce your car running expenses with the goal of saving up for your first home. Saving strategy at a young age Sean found a way to work through his university days which paid off tuition and helped him graduate debt free. He also started saving for his down payment during his college days and after graduating continued on this path and saved 80% of his income after graduating which helped in save up a handsome down payment of $170,000 by age 27. Advice for saving up for your down payment * Firstly work out whether they want to own a home in the first place. * Work out how much you need to save in order to fund your down payment or home loan deposit. * Calculate how many years you would like to give yourself before having a fully funded down payment and this will determine how much you need to save each month. * Open a stand alone savings account and 'pay yourself first' before you do anything else with your salary put aside your nominated savings amount. * Automate your savings process so that it automatically comes out of your salary account into the savings account, and make sure you have very limited access to your savings account so that you can 'save and forget' without the temptation to spend it other 'emergencies'. Resisting the temptation to spend

Sarah Santacroce is an independent LinkedIn Specialist, Online Presence Mentor and founder of Simplicity Small Biz. She helps people convert their presence online into paying customers. She is the creative brain behind the LinkedIn Challenge, an event that has helped 1700+ people so far to improve their knowledge about using LinkedIn for business. She has helped hundreds of clients from all over the world breathe life into their LinkedIn profiles, put together a strategy for their online presence or generated leads for them by using LinkedIn and social selling strategies.  She also coaches fellow introverted business owners on how to run an online business, and is the founder of the Introvert Business Podcast.  Period in full time business and core revenue streams  She has been in full time business for more than 7 years. In her LinkedIn business, she works with corporations where she does trainings for HR departments, sales departments, and the people in marketing. She also works with entrepreneurs through one-on-one coaching and teaches people in transition how to get recruited on LinkedIn. She has a series of products like video trainings that generate revenue for her without having to trade her one-on-one time.  She also does affiliate marketing and is planning to host her first retreat for introverted online entrepreneurs. The retreat will be an offline event where they will get together and talk about their businesses, and come up with strategies on how to take it to the next level.  The retreat  She says it will be a quiet, reflective, and respectful retreat with lots of fun. The link for the event is www.sarahsantacroce.com/retreat/   Starting out in business  When she moved to California with her husband and their new second-born, she could consequently not go back to her previous job, and decided to take some time off to spend with her kids. After about a year, she decided to come up with her own business plan and choose to focus on helping business owners with their administrative needs, which was what she was good at. That eventually changed, because with the social media boom at that time, she realised how she was able to use social media to create buzz for her own business.  She therefore choose to move away from administrative/virtual assistant work to teaching entrepreneurs/small business owners how to market their businesses through social media. When she moved back to Switzerland with her family in 2010, she decided to start offering the social media training/marketing services.  Focusing on LinkedIn  She decided to specialise on LinkedIn much later after she discovered that things in Switzerland were very traditional and slow. Most people didn’t use social media for business. The one platform that the Switzerland B2B industry was interested in most, that she was well-versed in, was LinkedIn. After a year of offering her general social media services, she decided to zero-in on LinkedIn.  Corporate career Vs. Business  Sarah says she would never go back to formal employment. She calls herself unemployable because she creates success on her own terms now. She defines how success should be in her life, which she could not do in a corporate environment.  Tip 1: I don’t think business is for everybody. I don’t think everybody should leave their corporate job and become an entrepreneur. Getting side hustles is however a great option for anyone in a corporate job  Tip 2: I don’t advice you to just leave your job and focus on your business idea  Replacing full time job income in a business  Tip 1: If you have a business model that can guarantee to replace your full time income then obviously, go for it!

Daniel Walter Scott is a certified Adobe instructor (ICE) in Ireland, an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) and he completed the Adobe Certified Associate training (ACA). He has been teaching for more than 14 years and is the founder of Bring Your Own Laptop (BYOL), an Adobe Certified Training Centre in Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and online. He has over 16,000 students on the Udemy platform with over 1,000 reviews and over 16 courses. Period in full-time business He had always been doing little businesses on the side in his evenings and weekends, but he went into it full-time business in 2009. Core revenue streams He has two main streams that are both based on training. One is a sit-down classroom where people book a course, come in and learn from an instructor. He has such training centres in Australia and Ireland. His other stream is online video training on Udemy and other platforms. Starting out in business Daniel used to work for other people but he was always curious about doing it for himself and when he decided to move from the UK to New Zealand, he also decided to start an online business. He started by building a sit-down classroom courses website and promoting it through SEO. He had to borrow some money from his grandmother to cater for his personal expenses so he could focus on building the website and getting customers. Getting the first set of clients He got his first customers through search engine optimization (SEO). He learnt everything he could about SEO because he wasn’t a good salesman so he needed the website to do the selling for him. Through that, his website ranked well and because there were people looking for courses, he was able to get customers. Working with zero budget Daniel says the one crucial thing he did that can work for anyone now, is content marketing. He says content marketing offers the best value for money. He makes his content in form of videos and in the beginning he used to write a lot of blog posts about his work. It was easy and free for him to do it because he wrote them himself. Number of videos At the beginning, he used to write a lot of blog posts and then he did one or two videos a month as a test. When the videos started doing well, he narrowed his content marketing down to videos. He says if he could get a do-over, he would have focused on videos from the very beginning, because progress on getting the website ranked would have taken place ten times faster. He says the content marketing through blog posts was very slow. Growth strategy at the beginning The sit-down classroom courses were more locally targeted so he worked with local businesses like blogs that existed around what he did. He also used to reach out to companies that complimented his work, to see whether he could do free stuff with them. That was the easiest way for him to market the business since it was targeting the local market. Tip: If you have something local, you have to focus your marketing (including SEO) on the local market The fundamentals that worked He says some of the things that really worked for him that can work for a local business include Google local listings (now known as Google Places, Goog Business, or Google Local) which get a business on a map that easily puts a business on top of searches for local products. The other thing, he says, is finding other websites that are linked to the business one is doing (these are mostly professional listings) Other things that may take some time and effort include relationship building with other businesses, going to conferences and meet-ups organized by businesses that are related to what one does. That way,

Nathanial Bibby is the founder of Bibby Consulting Group, a Melbourne Consulting Group. He is a leading Digital Marketing Strategist, LinkedIn Coach and Social Media Speaker. He is also the founder of Linkedinsider, the world’s leading online LinkedIn training course, and a Founding Trainer at the Australian Digital Marketing Institute (ADMi).  With over 12 years of Digital Marketing experience, Nathanial has been at the forefront of the information age. During his career, he has helped 4,000+ businesses throughout Australia and South East Asia gain a competitive edge through effective business growth strategies.   Core revenue streams  His core revenue stream is LinkedIn Lead Generation which is a very unique service that cannot be found easily advertised in marketing. They usually have to first educate people about it before they introduce it. Once they train people on LinkedIn, they also offer them the lead generation service.     Period in full time business and starting out  He has been in full-time business for about 4 years. He started out the day he quit his job and things had gotten really difficult financially, because he was being evicted, and hadn’t paid his bills, the power in his apartment had even been switched off. He found a way to get power to his apartment and sat down to write his business plan. The next day, he started making phone calls and one of the people he called was a real estate agency that he convinced to let him pitch on how he help their real estate agents to invest in their brand.   The real estate agents gathered in their conference area and Nathanial pitched a real estate personal branding make-up product that included a one page real estate website. Nathanial was charging $2,500 for the product and 8 of them signed up, with 6 of them paying on the spot. That totalled $15,000 and it enabled him to get freelancers to build 6 websites, 6 Facebook pages, and 6 LinkedIn profiles. He paid $300 for each of the 6 which totalled $1,800. The money enabled him to get out of his financial problems.  He still didn’t know what he would specialise in, but he later got an opportunity to sponsor an event for his friend and business coach. At the event, his friend thanked him for being a sponsor and introduced him as a LinkedIn Specialist who could people with their LinkedIn profiles. There were 100 people at the event, and at the end, 30 to 40 people went up to him wanting to have a one-on-one meeting. That was when he decided to specialize in LinkedIn Marketing.  Deciding to become an entrepreneur  He remembers that when he started out, he did it because he had no choice since he could not find assistance from anyone to deal with his financial woes. He was so desperate but got immediately motivated when he decided to start working on his business plan. He knew that he had to go straight to the customers, to the market, without even having any marketing material and systems in place.  Niching  The fact that he specializes in LinkedIn when there are very few people specializing in it, enables him to get clients constantly. Whenever people are organizing conferences on social media and digital marketing, they always want an expert on LinkedIn and when they search on Google, Nathanial’s service always comes up at the top of the search results. He gets called to speak at different events and interviews. His company has become an industry leader on LinkedIn and he also gets invited to speak on social media at different events.  Generating leads on LinkedIn  He says it’s easier to help a B2B (business-to-business) company but when dealing with a B2C (business-to-consumer) company, he has to ask them a few questions about their target marketing and how they get clients. Normally,

Here are the FIVE things I learnt that may be helpful for you or a friend you know maybe experiencing one of these “out of body” experiences: * Being on Social Welfare Is Not Fun * I Should Have started Preparing Sooner * Have an Open Mind - Find a Coach and Model them * Consider Taking a Pay Cut – Get Back in the Game * Find a Plan-B Option that Works for YOU  Personal Lesson I remember it like yesterday, started just like any other Friday: drive down the freeway, get to work have my marmalade-on-toast, and work on completing the financial statements for publishing to the market the following week. At 4pm everything changed, I got the call to the CFO’s office, Legal Counsel also present, felt the situation was a little bit unusual, and sure enough I had been made redundant. I can still feel the shock of the reality of the feeling, very humbling, had until 5.30pm to make my way out. I wasn’t bitter or disappointed in the people that had hired me to be their Finance Manager. I knew the company was struggling and that the shareholders were putting pressure on the executive team, but there was so much going on, I didn’t expect it that day. I got back to my office and made the call to my wife telling her I was out of a job. Like a lot of people we didn’t have any Plan-b whatsoever - we were "all or nothing" - single income family with a mortgage, scary. It was a real blessing for us in a sense though, that we had literally just sold our home and so all the gains made on the home became our day to day income, this was only meant to be for a very short while. But soon enough, it became clear that the world was going through the global financial crisis, this was September 2009. Recruiters were not returning phone calls, people were not leaving their jobs. There was zero happening for 6 months straight, not one interview! The FIVE things I learnt * Being on Social Welfare Is Not Fun I had no idea where the nearest welfare office was and didn’t even understand how the whole system worked. I quickly found out that it does provide a safety net for families but doesn’t do more than maybe pay the rent. It didn’t cover the car payment so driving our once ‘fancy’ German car that at the time had another party listed on title i.e. bank, was no longer fun. I now had to drive carefully each night and be on the lookout for any suspicious looking cars near our house, make sure it’s not the sheriff! My advice: You don’t want to be on welfare. * I Should Have Started Preparing Sooner The social welfare system will not help you professionally get back into a good role - things may have changed now, yes the teams assigned to you will help you write up a resume and prepare you for an interview but in my experience they kind of didn’t even do that – just had to tick the boxes and show up each fortnight. Tip 1: Don’t leave it too late to have a Plan-B action plan. It took me 6 months to just get a contract role. Tip 2: Think about whether your savings can last you long and If not, then start putting a robust savings plan together or better still a Plan-B income source for you and your family. * Have an Open Mind: Find a Coach and Model them In November 2008, my wife and I attended a real estate coaching seminar, the concept was residential property sub-leasing - we had never heard of this approach to generating cash flow, it sounded interesting but life got in the way and never did anything with it. Immediately following my redundancy, we decided to hire the sub-leasing coach and invested over $10,000 from the sale of our home to kick this project off and this was our first venture as business owners. We operated this for about two and a half years running about 30 rental rooms in 3 larg...

Tricia Brouk is a performance expert, TEDx organizer, writer, director, choreographer, podcast host, and producer of theatre, TV and film. She hosts The Big Talk, a podcast series on iTunes and currently directs and dramaturges Big Talks and Keynotes. She is the current organizer of TEDxLincolnSquare - Risk Takers and Change Makers.  She has produced, directed or choreographed several award-winning theatre and TV/Film productions. Through her company, The Big Talk, she helps people identify, craft and deliver a life-changing Big Talk or Keynote.  Period in full time business and business background  She has owned a company for over 26 years. She moved to New York City from Missouri to pursue a dance career and had no interest in being a starving artist. She started Brouk Moves, an elite in-home personal training company where she hired people to work for her so that she could still make money even when she was on the road. The company has been going strong, has 15 trainers, 25 clients and recently started a personal chef service. The business has enabled her to pursue a creative life outside of business and also given her the opportunity to create a new business, The Big Talk.  Brouk Moves has been her primary income for the last 26 years and has enabled her to pay all her bills, avoid the life of a starving artist and produce theatre. Her team works on the business full time so she can have time to pursue other things.  Starving artists  She says she sees this a lot in the industry and she has observed that artists feel unworthy of making money, because when they make money they then feel that they are selling out, and that they are not truly artists.  She says artists deserve to be paid for what they are worth, to have money and create art simultaneously.  Tip: You are not giving up your artist soul by taking a big fat pay check  First gig  In her first big European tour, she got a weekly pay check to do what she loves including touring, dancing, and being a full time artist. That was while Brouk Moves was still bringing in money because her team was doing all the work. That when she knew she could make a living as an artist in the long term while also making a living as a business woman.  Tip: Once you pursue and achieve what your goal is, do not let go of that business! Do not think that you have to choose. You can maintain them both equally  Getting into entrepreneurship  She decided early on that she would live the way she wanted without being poor or waiting for gigs to find her. She is proactive, mindful and kind in the way she runs her business. Her trainers take time off whenever they want and the rest sub for them.  Tip 1: Stop waiting for that big artist contract, start creating your art, start creating your business, because if you wait for someone else to do it for you, you will spend your entire life waiting.  Tip 2: Get busy, create art no matter where it is, no matter what it is. Keep your artist muscle flexing and find a way to make money on your own terms  The first months in the fitness business  She started by working very hard and personally training all the clients she had. She used to wake up at 4.30am and would do the client training while also dancing and performing. Once she realised that she could hire a team to take on some of the work, she created a system where she could always be involved but didn’t need to be there. That enabled her to reduce her commutes, and her time was spent doing other things. When she hired other people, she had to trust them, let go, and make sure that she put systems in place to ensure the business would run efficiently.  Tip 1: If you are starting up, you have to dig in,

As corporate downsizing continues to make news and the internet makes telecommuting ever more productive more and more entrepreneurs are discovering the benefits of running businesses out of their homes. If you are looking to get out of the rat race, to spend more time with family and friends, and to live a more balanced life, a home-based business may be the right decision for you. Home-based businesses are quickly becoming the fastest growing form of business start-ups. Growing your business out of your home allows for flexibility that is difficult when renting or buying office and warehouse space. Although working at home requires self-discipline, the benefits can be substantial-especially in the start-up years. Starting a Home-Based Business Nearly one million Australians are running a business from home according to the Australian government. Forbes reported that home-based businesses were quickly becoming the fastest growing form of business start-ups. With a slowing global economy this statistic can only be expected to grow. Benefits of starting a Home-Based business out of your home There are many benefits and each would appeal to you differently but here are my top five that I find to be key: 1. Ownership - Yours to build and grow 2. Flexibility - No commute and freedom to structure your working hours 3. Taxation - Put simply...the system favours business ownership 4. Low Overheads - Investment can be low, no large office lease expenses 5. Leverage - Ability to leverage your efforts and scale up Personal lesson My late dad was an Accountant - I took after him, he worked long and hard for over 20 years in senior management for a Swedish ball bearing manufacturer. I got back home from boarding school one summer, and dad sat me and my older brother down to let us know that he had been "let go". Life quickly changed in a space of 6 months - moved out of the company house, no company car, no driver and no more executive perks. It became clear that though dad had a great job employment by nature generally does not provide any "business equity" - he got paid his redundancy package (maybe a year's salary) and that was it, back to the drawing board...which was starting a home based consultancy business in accounting. This was my first encounter with the difference between business ownership and employment. You get to make your own conclusions here as to how you would respond to such a situation...I have shared in Episode 077: Five Things Redundancy Social Welfare Taught Me, how social welfare became an unwanted reality for me and my wife a few years ago when we went through the same scenario The 5 key benefits of starting a home-based business 1. Ownership - Yours to build and grow Building a business means that you will be building equity for you and your family, if you work it right; and even if it takes you say 20 years to really get it established, that is just under half of your working life, you can build a substantial enterprise that is willable, saleable and transferable. The best time to start is while you are at the peak of your career which for most people is right now, start from your home and grow it from there - don't just focus on building equity in your home, build some business equity as well. 2. Flexibility - No commute and structure your working hours. A colleague said to me she spent about 2 hours last week getting home because there were two accidents on the major roads during peak hour...that's happened to me several times before! The ABC reported that Australians on average spend close to an hour each day on the daily commute to and from work.