Small Biz Buzz, by Keap

On Friday, November 4, 2016, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney held a forum with Infusionsoft CEO Clate Mask at Infusionsoft’s headquarters.* Organized by McCain’s office during his re-election campaign, the forum’s focus was on small business growth and policies that enable that growth.

Aly Saxe had already founded and grown a successful PR firm when, with two babies, she decided to start her PR software company Iris PR. Why would she leave the perfect business to start a new one? Aly talks with Clate Mask and Scott Martineau about tenacity, why it doesn’t work to chase two dreams, and creating a product that changes customers’ lives.

Ready to re-engage your leads? Let’s talk strategy. There are three steps: Collect leads, re-engage and drive them to an offer, and make it easier to purchase. David Bonney, Carey Ballard, and demand gen specialist Jared Kimball talk about ways to do those three things through low-entry point offers.

Way back in the early days of Infusionsoft, Clate and Scott had a truck that didn’t work so reliably. Nicknamed “Squeaker,” the truck is at the center of a certain nearly-infamous and humbling incident, in which the execs Clate and Scott just had a sales meeting with saw them unsuccessfully trying to start Squeaker—a few times.

Need more sales? Think that to get more sales you need to get more new leads? You could actually raise sales by re-engaging the leads you already have. All those leads who weren’t ready to buy, or went off the grid? What it takes is reigniting a relationship with those leads, providing them value, and solving their pain points. Jared Kimball, a demand gen specialist, joins David Bonney and Carey Ballard to talk about the concept of how to re-engage leads.

We’re introducing a new kind of episode to the mix! We’ve got director of content Carey Ballard teaming up with small business success expert David Bonney to talk through the strategies, how-tos, and tactics you need to grow your small business. Carey and David talk with Scott Martineau about the concepts behind Infusionsoft’s Small Business Success Method, which helps business owners go from where they are to where they want to be through incremental, repeatable improvements.

Alison Werder chats with Clate about how she went from selling scarves to creating an online apparel company; balancing business with parenting; and all of the teaching involved in drawing in customers. The biggest takeaway for both these business owners? THat if you feel your business is commoditized, you’re probably low on passion, not teaching right, and not selecting the people who value what you offer.

Dobbin Buck and Melissa Allen didn’t start GetUWired, but they’re the brains and co-owners behind it now. They both came in when there were a handful of people on the staff, and in the ensuing eight years have built it to a robust team of 37. Melissa, who started as an intern, is now CEO, and Dobbin is the VP of business development. They both talk with Infusionsoft CEO Clate Mask about working with and hiring Millennials, mentoring interns, and the cash crunch of high sales and small creating teams.

Mark Breyer once declared that he would never work with his wife, Alexis, but they’ve been running their personal injury law firm together for 20 years. In retrospect, they found that they set themselves up to have problems scaling their business and fall behind the times. Clate and Scott follow Mark and Alexis’ business journey and talk about going from generalist to specialist, letting half their staff go on one day, and keeping moving goal posts for your business.

At 25, Netherlands-based Budi Voogt is one of the entrepreneurial wunderkinder starting university businesses that take off into adulthood. At 20 years old, he started Heroic, a record label, incubator, and accelerator for artists. With 12 people between the label and his personal business, Budi Voogt, Budi talks with Clate about becoming a young leader, capitalizing on early-stage platforms, and how dropping the option of a plan B led to over performance and success.

Brian Young has owned Home Painters Toronto for 28 years, but it took him almost 20 years to come to terms with getting off of cold calling and into online marketing. In fact, it took a literal punch to the face to get him to question the way he was running his business. Brian chats with Scott and director of content Carey Ballard about hitting bottom, making it through the Great Recession, and winning the Small Business ICON award in 2015.

You heard Clate’s side of the Infusionsoft story. Now hear it from co-founder and CCO Scott Martineau. Scott talks with director of content Carey Ballard about getting started in his dad’s business, suffering from “entrepreneurial seizures,” and holding on to business when you probably shouldn’t, only to reap the rewards later.

After 20 years in business, The Abs Company has seen a lot: The years leading up to the overnight success of infomercial legend The Ab Roller; negotiating patents and legal disputes; testing their products in gyms; and sending fitness care packages to troops overseas. Sean Gagnon, president of The Abs Company, chats with Clate and Scott about what success looks like, getting Fortune 500 levels of revenue per employee, and learning how to become a leader.

Ryan Deiss, founder and CEO of DigitalMarketer.com, got his start in what some might say was a strange business for a teenage boy. But it taught him tons of marketing lessons, and he steps into the studio with Clate and Scott to share some of those business marketing tips. He talks about the importance of keeping your business market-centric and remembering that your business is NOT about your product; it’s about the problems that exist for your target customer.

Cara Hale talks with Clate and Scott about the tremendous burden of being an entrepreneur and the sole breadwinner in her family; saying “no” to clients who monopolize your resources; and how much more fun it is to run a business when you’re not your product.