Journey to 7 Figures

Brian Tate, founder and CEO of Oats Overnight, talks about the challenges of running a breakfast business and how his 12 years experience as a professional poker player helped him to grow Oats Overnight to $5M in revenue. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.   Topics Discussed in this Episode: [02:00] How Brian went from poker into the breakfast business and seeing the market opportunity for overnight oats [03:45] The learning it took to manufacture their product and the struggles they had in the process [05:00] What going to market was like [07:28] Their strategies to get more customers [08:12] Deciding to work with Facebook in marketing their product [12:32] Adding Amazon as another channel [13:50] Figuring out the right audience to go after [18:04] Launching in Amazon and driving sales [21:38] The reasons behind their success and what inspires their flavors [23:40] Hiring poker players and the first roles that Brian brought into the team [26:08] The issue with space as the company grows [28:04] What contributed to their growth in 2019 [29:19] The time when Brian thought the business would fail [29:46] The one thing Brian did that had the biggest impact on the company’s growth [30:14] Where Brian personally had to evolve to grow the business [30:57] Learning leadership and management skills   Key Takeaways: The biggest difference between Oats Overnight and the homemade overnight oats recipes that you can find online and make for yourself is the protein content and the different ingredients. The problem that Brian was solving for was mostly the convenience side without sacrificing nutrition or taste. The category of overnight oats has a small number of offerings relative to how much traffic there is, so it’s an interesting place to be. According to Brian, the mindset of poker players really fits with an entrepreneurial-type vision. They are very rational. They know that money isn’t made 9 to 5 but that it’s really an around-the-clock thing and that competition is always there so you’ve got to do better. There are a lot of variables that contribute to success in business, and it’s important to be able to approach those individually and understand what contributes to those wins or losses.   Action Steps: Have everyone in the company start in customer service. You can learn a lot about the company by answering emails. Be mindful of what you’re signing when it comes to commercial leases. Make sure you don’t bite off more than you can chew and that you’re not paying extra money for off-site storage and extra shipping costs when you can’t take deliveries in certain timelines because you’re out of space. Listen to your customers. Learn leadership and management skills from mentors and other people who have done it. When starting a business or running a company, it’s definitely important to get advice and talk things through. When you hire somebody, make sure you do it because you trust them, you trust their thought process, and you trust their ability to make decisions, and give them the freedom to feel comfortable and operate in the way they see fit. Be confident in yourself and know that if you’re making the right decision, it’s going to work out.   Brian said: “There’s a lot of variables that contribute to success in business. Some things happen that are in your control like product development, customer service... and some things happen that are out of your control like recession or change in customer preferences…” “For good and bad, people pin wins to things that were sheer luck and they dwell on losses that were totally out of their control. It’s just really important to understand that as you operate.”   More from Brian Tate and Oats Overnight: Oats Overnight Oats.com Brian’s LinkedIn Brian’s Facebook   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Pete Caputa, CEO of Databox, talks about their strategy of creating an ecosystem for agencies to learn about Databox, and how building out a partner program helped Databox grow to $1.5M in annual revenue. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.   Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:48] Pete’s experience at HubSpot [05:07] How Pete got involved with Databox [07:45] How Databox started [10:32] Building out the partner program at Databox [12:41] Pricing for Databox [13:16] What they do to attract more agencies to Databox [15:25] How they define top partners [16:02] How they went about finding agencies [17:37] Their strategy of creating an ecosystem for agencies to learn about Databox through article contributions [21:21] Creating surveys and getting input from different agencies [22:00] Why they outsource the writing of articles [24:36] The Databox free program and why they decided to keep it [28:28] How they got more users to use their software [30:00] How they come up with ideas to help improve adoption [32:27] When Pete felt that Databox was going to fail [34:42] The one thing they did that had the biggest impact on their growth [35:38] The area that Pete was personally involved in growing at Databox   Key Takeaways: Agencies are being bombarded by software companies right now, and so the product really needs to work for them. The first thing that software companies get wrong is they start a partner program and they don’t even think about how the agencies are going to do their work. Most agencies hesitate to spend even a few bucks a month and so it’s good to set up the price so that it’s a very minimal amount of money per client, and it’s very easily justified by any time savings they would get from automating. The nice thing about agencies is they kind of pay attention to each other and they learn from each other, so once you get a few partners on board, it becomes a lot easier to be more credible with the rest. Action Steps: Invite agencies to contribute to articles that you’re writing as a way for you to get in front of them without being promotional about what you do. Consider offering a freemium product by looking at its benefits to sales and marketing.   Pete said: “I realized there was a real pain point for agencies, specifically, in that they were manually producing their reports at the end of the month for every client by logging in to multiple tools… and realized that we could automate a lot of that process for them.” “I look at marketing combined with a freemium product and to me, it just feels like a cash register because, especially with organic content marketing, once you figure something out, it produces returns for you for a long time with very little care and feeding.”   More from Pete Caputa: Pete’s LinkedIn Pete’s Twitter (@pc4media)   Tools and resources mentioned in this episode: Databox   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Christina Stembel entered the $3B online flower industry with no experience and very little money. With a dream to innovate on how business was done, she came up with a unique model that eventually led to Farmgirl Flowers’ $23.4M in revenue last year. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.   Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:48] What gave Christina the idea of going into the flower business [03:37] Some of the things that Christina saw with the major players in the online flower market that made her think she could come in and stand out [05:56] How Christina came up with Farmgirl Flowers’ unique business model [06:49] How they tackled the problem of “waste” in the flower industry [09:27] What they did to make their bouquet pieces different from the competition [10:47] How Christina started Farmgirl Flowers with her personal savings and how she got it launched off the ground [12:49] What their first year in business looked like [14:24] How they started marketing in their first year [16:25] How they built their customer base by utilizing customer feedback [19:42] The different ways they get customer feedback [20:57] How they started doing advertising in years three and four and their strategy of pushing it through Yelp [23:30] Christina’s first hire and what she brought them in to do [26:47] Farmgirl Flowers’ supply chain, how they decided to get their sourcing, and how it evolved over time [30:39] The challenge of supporting American growers and why they eventually decided to get international sourcing [35:06] How much people cared about the idea of supporting American growers [36:38] The one thing that Christina did that had the biggest impact on Farmgirl Flowers’ growth [38:24] How Christina made sure she hired the right person. [39:05] The area that Christina personally had to grow in as a business owner to get to where she is today   Key Takeaways: In previous generations, people would hide behind the fact that it’s the thought that counts, but it’s not the thought that counts with younger people. If they’re going to spend $80 to $100 of their hard-earned money on a bouquet of flowers, it better be worth that much. Flowers have a very rough perishability time period, even more so than food. If you’re in the flower business, you can’t make a mistake. You have about three days to use those flowers before you have to dump them. 79% of the people that buy flowers are women buying for women. It’s the actual marketing spend that’s going to drive your growth. If you are spending on people managing that spend, that’s money you could be actually spending on the spend. You need as much money to get in front of people as you can. Parenting books are wonderful for managing people.   Action Steps: Get customer feedback and use it to make the necessary changes to create the best product offering that would allow you to meet your business goals. Find the platform that everybody else is using for advertising and put your money there. Become a good leader and manage your people well. Put a lot of emphasis on team culture early into your business.   Christina said: “The industry is very old school. It’s ancient. Most of the American farmers are second or third generation and they’ve been doing things in certain ways. And getting them to break that, the system that they’ve been set up for and doing things for multiple generations is not easy.” “Every dollar that I can spend, putting it back into marketing, is what’s going to help keep fueling our growth.”   More from Christina Stembel: Farmgirl Flowers’ Website Farmgirl Flowers’ Facebook Farmgirl Flowers’ Instagram (@farmgirlflowers) Christina’s LinkedIn   Tools and resources mentioned in this episode: The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle Books written by Brene Brown How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success by Julie Lythcott-Haims   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Heidi Jannenga, President and Co-Founder of WebPT, talks about how their cloud-based idea grew into the leading physical therapy software on the market. WebPT did over $80M in revenue last year with a 99% customer retention rate. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.   Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:38] How Heidi first came up with the idea for WebPT [06:03] How they saved a tremendous amount of money in building their platform by finding a technical co-founder [07:03] Launching their product, deciding on pricing, and getting customers [09:59] How much money they were saving versus how much money they were spending for transcription [10:41] WebPT’s secret sauce and how they started getting leads [13:13] Building WebPT’s marketing strategy [14:49] How much traffic they’re getting from their content and SEO [16:06] Creating brand awareness among university students [17:08] Doing trade shows and building their reputation [18:10] Going after the SMB space and engaging with their customers to improve their platform [20:53] WebPT’s retention rate in the past and now [21:52] The challenge of getting customers on board [23:54] WebPT’s workflow [25:42] WebPT’s Idea Portal and other ways of getting customer feedback [28:51] Bringing on a CEO and scaling the company [32:19] What made them decide to raise funds and how they did it successfully [38:17] Taking risks to grow the business [40:32] Growing through acquisitions [41:21] Why Heidi thought the business would fail and what she did about it [42:41] What had the biggest impact on WebPT’s growth [43:17] The area that Heidi had to personally grow in to grow the business   Key Takeaways: Having a technical co-founder and a subject matter expert is a very good fusion to launching a successful product. What’s tremendously important during the early stage of a business is staying niche. The number one reason acquisitions fail is because there’s not a culture fit between the two companies. It’s okay to be vulnerable even as a leader. You don’t have to have all the answers, and it’s okay to say you don’t know. That vulnerability component in a leader can lead to loyalty.   Action Steps: Know the impact that your business is having on customers. Bring people that are smarter than you into your business but still own that you’re the leader they’re looking up to.   Heidi said: “You can’t discount the actual product. The product has to work… If it’s a shitty product, you’re going to have a problem with people leaving.” “As a leader, it’s okay to be vulnerable. I think too often we have our work selves and we have our out-of-work selves, and the authenticity is what people really migrate to.”   More from Heidi Jannenga: WebPT’s Website Heidi’s LinkedIn Heidi’s Twitter (@HeidiJannenga) Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Brian Scudamore, Founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? tells the importance of figuring out your values and setting a painted picture for your business. Now, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? has grown to over $309M in revenue with over 250 franchise owners around the world. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode. Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:45] How Brian started his business [03:23] How he got his first customers and leveraged the power of free press [04:50] What it was like to fire all his people and rebuild the business from scratch [06:17] Brian’s lesson learned on partnership and mentorship [07:43] The process of defining the business culture and values, and figuring out the right people to hire [09:39] What they do to make sure that they’re incentivizing those core values [12:02] The value of mentorship and what it was like to join the Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization (now Entrepreneurs’ Organization) [16:06] Why Brian decided to go down the franchise route versus expanding the business himself [17:28] How Brian attracted people who had that ownership mentality [18:51] Hiring a COO and building the executive team [24:28] The Painted Picture and the impact that had on the business [24:28] Some of the marketing channels they used to grow the business [29:01] Setting up a PR department and building the business by getting their story out there [30:23] Getting a major acquisition offer and turning it down [32:55] Having to change some of their talents when the business hit different sizes [37:17] What Brian did when he thought 1-800-GOT-JUNK? would fail [38:21] What Brian did that had the biggest impact on their growth  Key Takeaways: How do you know who the right people are to hire? You need to figure out your values and find the right people based on those values. For a company to grow in scale, you need to have values that everyone in the company aligns by. And it’s more important that you’ve got values and that they’re yours and you own them versus what those values are. Storytelling is important to make sure your teams are alive with the values that are important to you. Everyone has the responsibility to make the world a better place, whether it’s with us or taking and learning from us and doing it on the outside. Entrepreneurs break rules. Sometimes it’s better to beg for forgiveness versus ask for permission. You don’t want anyone to get hurt, you don’t want to do anything dangerous, but you get out there sometimes and you push boundaries. We’re in the storytelling age more than ever. It’s about finding new and different ways to tell stories and tell the world about the interesting and unique things that you as a leader or an entrepreneur are doing.   Action Steps: Figure out the values that you stand on. What words describe who you already are? Not who you want to be or try to be but who you are today. Give your people feedback immediately. If some of them are not living the company values, tell them why, tell them which value they’re not living, and give them some feedback. If they’re living the values and demonstrating them, you also want to give them feedback and give them the kudos as to how they’re doing such a great job, and celebrate those values. As a leader, you must live and demonstrate the values of your company. Be careful when you set a “painted picture”. Just think big. Don’t let anything else get in your way. Then recruit the right people to help you make that picture a reality. Build your business out ready to scale by having the right systems in place to recruit the right people, train the right people, and so on.   Brian said: “It’s important to take a team and, even if they’re not experienced, to trust the team, to work with them to create values. You decide, what words are important? Does it resonate? And then stick to those.” “Failure is temporary. But also, let’s not forget, success is temporary… Success and failure go hand in hand. Never get too cocky that you believe that you’re always going to succeed. Be willing to endure the storms that you face in life.”   More from Brian Scudamore: Brian’s LinkedIn Brian’s Twitter (@BrianScudamore) Brian’s Instagram (@brianscudamore) O2E Brands’ Website   Tools and resources mentioned in this episode: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't by Jim Collins The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Johnson Spencer WTF?! (Willing to Fail): How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success by Brian Scudamore Double Double: How to Double Your Revenue and Profit in 3 Years or Less by Cameron Herold The E Myth: Why Most Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Patrick Campbell, Co-founder and CEO of ProfitWell, talks about how they grew to over $10M in revenue by taking on the role of pricing experts for their clients and revolutionizing how businesses price their products and services through their technology. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode. Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:40] How they got the idea for Price Intelligently and what it does [02:46] The pricing problem and how they went about trying to solve it [07:14] How they took their idea to their first customers [09:12] How they got potential customers interested in their content [11:26] What it looks like for someone who wants to improve their pricing [13:25] Tactical things that you can do to improve your pricing [14:39] How they work with their customers [15:45] How they handled things in the early days of Price Intelligently [17:58] The strategies they used to grow their business [19:44] Outsourcing their sales and finding the right person that could do it [21:03] Having systems in place with following up with the inbound and creating outbound leads [21:58] How they did their inbound content strategy [25:08] How they got to over $10M [28:18] Developing the tool ProfitWell and what it does [32:10] How long it took them to build ProfitWell and how much it cost [36:45] How they found the best people to work on ProfitWell [38:49] How they’re able to gain their customers’ trust [40:56] What they did that had the biggest impact on their growth   Key Takeaways: The biggest problem is getting people to realize that your price is the exchange rate on the value that you’re providing. And that value is crucial to measure for the customer that you’re trying to sell to. If you get your value metric correct, what ends up happening is you basically align yourself to your customer and how they want to see and pay for your product. As you grow, you have to be comfortable with failing. Getting to $10M takes work but it’s not difficult if you are willing to give up some constraints.   Action Steps: Get some data to help you with your pricing decisions. Don’t be afraid to talk to people about your price and about your value. Ask people traditional, non-leading questions like: At what price is this way too expensive that you’d never consider purchasing it? At what price is this a really good deal that you would purchase it right away? Get your value metric correct.   Patrick said: “It doesn’t really matter what business you’re in... the thing that’s amazing about the world of technology and the world of online is that a lot of us will produce something of value... and then all of a sudden, when it comes time to price that product, we just lose our minds.” “A lot of people, they’re very scared to go talk to people about their price, they’re scared to go talk to people about their value. But you have to realize that everyone understands that things cost money… You have to talk to them about value.”   More from Patrick Campbell and ProfitWell: ProfitWell’s Website Patrick’s LinkedIn Patrick’s Twitter (@patticus) Patrick’s Email   Tools and resources mentioned in this episode: High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

David Darmanin, founder and CEO of Hotjar, talks about how they successfully got people to use their product in its beta phase and eventually monetized it. Find out how they have grown to $16.5M ARR and 21K paying customers in just 4 years. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.   Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:30] The origin stories of how they got started with Hotjar [03:50] What Hotjar does and how they marketed it [05:11] What they did to drive customers’ interest in their product [07:00] Hotjar’s many different features and how they were developed and launched [08:58] How they started monetizing their product by creating a public roadmap [11:51] The types of incentives they put in place to get referrals [15:17] How they got traffic and got people to find out about their product outside of the referral program [18:40] How they covered the costs during the beta period stage of their product [21:58] How they figured out how much they were willing to pay for a beta user [26:45] What their timeline looked like until they got to $1M million annual recurring revenue [27:33] The key two things that they did to get people to start using their product in the beta phase and get their feedback [31:02] What it was like for them to transition from free to paid [35:23] Having a remote workforce and how they are able to make that work [48:08] How they communicate with their workforce   Key Takeaways: If you want to displace existing players and existing solutions, there is a certain threshold of improvement you need to reach in order to get attention. If you communicate very openly with your users and your customers, it’s incredibly effective because you’re bringing them on board with you on the journey. If you’re thinking of doing a referral program, it’s really important that it’s simple. When it comes to incentivizing, there are two types of people --those who are competitive and those prefer just kind of a fixed reward. Email is incredibly effective to drive traffic, especially if you are launching something new.   Action Steps: Before building your product, ask yourself: Do people actually need this? Is there real value being delivered here? Build trust with your users/customers with transparency. Do a referral program.   David said: “We pretty much allow teams to understand how their site is being used. And that knowledge empowers them to make the right changes, to grow, to improve the experience.” “We need to keep one thing in mind, which is we have a limited amount of time… If you really believe in an idea and if you feel like there is an opportunity, because timing is important, it’s really important that you drop everything to do that.”   More from David Darmanin: David’s Twitter (@daviddarmanin) David’s LinkedIn Hotjar’s Website   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Squatty Potty’s CEO and co-creator, Bobby Edwards, talks about how Squatty Potty became the talk of the town when it got picked up by Howard Stern, and how their success on Shark Tank and their viral “unicorn video” ultimately led to $28M in revenue. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.     Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:38] How they came up with the idea for Squatty Potty [05:12] How they first started manufacturing their product [07:15] How they went on the influencer route [09:43] How they began to scale their business and crafted the message to get people to respond to their product [12:42] How getting on Dr. Oz and being talked about by Howard Stern impacted their sales [14:24] How they scaled up in terms of manufacturing [16:32] How they went about the process of selecting their manufacture [17:36] How they did their PR and marketing [22:48] How they got into Shark Tank and ultimately got an investment from Lori Greiner [24:54] How they approach taking on a partner and giving away equity [27:40] Some of their strategies of getting into retail stores [31:21] How they created a video that went viral and raised their sales [36:28] How they launched and promoted their video [38:50] The one thing they did that had the biggest impact on their growth Key Takeaways: Necessity is the mother of all invention. You need to get your message and nail your message before you could scale your product. It’s very valuable to get face to face with people and talk to them about your product because then you can see in their face what is connecting and what is not. People look for information when you’re trying to sell them something. They look for validation. Sometimes your own instinct works better than anyone else’s advice.   Action Steps: Reach out to writers and bloggers and get the right people to write about your product. Talk about your product to people face to face. Craft the message that you need to make people respond to your product. When it comes to taking on equity partners, choose wisely the people you’re going to partner with. Get slow and steady retailers to sell your product.   Bobby said: “There’s no silver bullet, there’s no magic, there’s no one out there that will solve your problems for you. There’s no consultant that’s going to help you create this. It comes from you.” “Nobody will take care of your baby like you will. There’s not one solution out there that will solve everything. You’ve got to just be resourceful.”   More from Bobby Edwards and Squatty Potty: Squatty Potty’s Website Bobby’s LinkedIn   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Smart Nora is the revolutionary contact-free snoring solution that earned a spot on Oprah’s Favorite Things in 2017. Its CEO and co-founder, Behrouz Hariri, talks about how they raised over $1M in Kickstarter and eventually grew to $8.5M in annual sales. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.     Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:32] How Smart Nora came to be [03:17] Smart Nora as a product solution and the product design process [08:04] Some of the feedback that they got that led to changes in their product design [10:58] How much they invested in testing and designing their product [12:55] What they did to prepare for the $1M in pre-orders that they got [14:21] The Kickstarter process and their next steps after creating their Kickstarter video [17:54] Behrouz’s tips on what to do on the PR side [19:24] How they sold their pre-orders on their Shopify store [23:33] How they got their product manufactured and how long it took [26:38] How they managed the quality of their product and what they did about IP protection [29:17] How they shipped their products and how they made their next million in sales after the pre-orders [31:49] Switching their focus to marketing and making more sales [34:09] How Smart Nora landed on Oprah’s Favorite Things [35:09] Getting into corporate wellness programs as a next step [37:09] The one thing they did that had the biggest impact on their growth [38:08] The areas where Behrouz personally had to evolve and grown in to grow their business   Key Takeaways: When you’re a user of your own product, it really accelerates the feedback process. The great thing about Kickstarter as a format is there are so many examples you can follow. There’s a nice formula that people have perfected over time and it’s such a good place to get inspired. In any Kickstart pre-order campaign, your delivery date becomes the last thing that people remember. The freshness of the pre-order fades after a few months and it can get very contentious between the funders and the campaigners. When your Kickstarter campaign is ending, there is a lot of momentum toward the end, coming from both social media word of mouth and press coverage. Good decisions move you forward, but a lot of conversations that don’t end with a clear strategy leave a lot of people stranded.   Action Steps: When you’re a startup, look at your options and the real feedback that you get from people and let that pull you into the next step. When you start a Kickstarter campaign, make sure you have a great video that will serve as your centerpiece. When you do a pre-order campaign, have realistic updates for people and set good expectations. What to do on the PR side: Draft your press release and select outlets that you know are interested in a product like yours. Send them the press release on the condition that they will not publish it until the day of your campaign. Pick a goal that you can actually deliver your product with.   Brandon said: “The biggest lesson that I think we learned around our paid digital marketing is that if you’re testing with really small budgets, it’s not representative of the CPA or CPC that you will get with bigger budgets.” “There’s always this conflict of how much meaningful time to invest into a decision or a conversation, where it’s not more than the priority it has for the business but it’s also not so little that we make a lot of nonsensical decisions or a lot of non-decisions.”   More from Behrouz Hariri and Smart Nora: Smart Nora’s Website Behrouz’s LinkedIn Behrouz’s Twitter (@_Behrouz)   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Brandon Bruce co-founded Cirrus Insight, an all-in-one productivity sales platform that connects Gmail and Outlook with Salesforce. Find out how they grew to having over 150,000 paying users across 5,000 companies and gained up to $12.8M in revenue. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode. Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:36] How they came up with the idea for Cirrus Insight [04:56] How Brandon knew that his friend was going to be a good business partner [07:28] How they managed the transition period before they launched their business and getting their first customers [10:53] How they got feedback from beta users [14:15] How they got people to start as free users to becoming their first customers [19:21] How they decided to launch their product and move forward with their business [22:40] What the early months looked like for Cirrus Insight in terms of revenue [24:47] How their first hires helped them grow the business [25:53] How they developed the traffic and their email list and put their sales model together [32:35] How their pricing has evolved from the time they first launched [35:52] How they compensate their sales people for their demos [39:09] How they prioritized feedback and what to build on the development side and the operations side [44:48] What Brandon did that had the biggest impact on his growth [46:23] What they look for in the people that they hire   Key Takeaways: There’s an emotionally stabilizing effect of having another person you can share the roller coaster of building a business with. The biggest thing that causes early stage companies to fail is that the founders break up. It is a threat to building a company. It’s helpful to have smart people on deck to help with the million things that have to get done. Community involvement whether online or in person is key to growing a business. The opportunities to hire software developers primarily comes through referrals.   Action Steps: If you’re in the software or app business, find the marketplace online where people are likely to search and/or gather for product offerings like yours. Be active in the Salesforce community and be active in all the boards, trying to answer as many questions are possible. Build a customer success team just as you would build a sales team.   Brandon said: “We’ve always known that there’s a risk in the market that a very large competitor could come in and stomp on everybody. So you’re kind of always aware of that and yet you get very used to living with that risk.” “Dig in earlier to something like this, building something that looks like a snowball and pushing it downhill… Get started early and often.”   More from Brandon Bruce and Cirrus Insight: Cirrus Insight’s Website Brandon’s Email Brandon’s LinkedIn   Resources mentioned in this episode: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Jonathan Buford co-founded Arizona Wilderness Brewery without a brewing background and turned it into the #1 rated new brewery in the world in 2013. Listen to this episode to learn how they did it and last year generated $5.5M in revenue. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode. Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:24] How Jonathan transitioned from a window cleaning business into the brewery business [06:02] How he learned how to brew beer and got things started [10:07] How they marketed the business and raised the money they needed in a short amount of time [11:50] How they signed a lease and started construction for the brewery [15:31] Why they had to delay their opening for quite some time [18:54] How they developed this incredible quality product [23:07] How they leveraged getting awarded Best New Brewery in the World to create a buzz [25:09] Jonathan’s marketing strategy advice [29:04] What worked and what didn’t work for them when it came to hiring people [39:00] What had the biggest impact on their growth Key Takeaways: You risk so much by not knowing what construction timelines are and the true cost of things. If you have a ‘hype person’, you should also match them with a ‘logic person’. If you put all your money in the quality of your product, one thing that’s going to have to become cheaper is either labor or marketing. As long as you’re doing business ethically and you’re including everybody in the community and you’re not discriminating against anything and you have a story that’s exciting, you can save a lot of money in marketing because you’ll have people telling your story for you at high rates. When you sign a contract with somebody, there is no law that can get you out of that contract until a judge gets you out of that contract, and you don’t want to go to a judge or an arbitrator. So what happens is that contract that you have with that person is just a negotiation point. There is a soul to a business and there does need to be an ownership team and an executive team that all really love each other. Action Steps: Keep your day job when you’re building a company unless you know what you’re doing. And you’ll know you know what you’re doing when you have money in your bank account. Be exciting enough to have other people tell your story for you. Jonathan said: “Always set yourself up that other people do the marketing for you, so be exciting, be bold, tread it heavily. Don’t tread lightly. Be loud about what you’re doing and tell the story…” “Sometimes the only way to win a battle is if you both win. And that’s a complicated topic but just know that when you’re going into business, you have to have a partner…”   More from Jonathan Buford and Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co.: Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co.’s Instagram (@azwilderness) Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co.’s Twitter (@AZWildernessCo) Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co.’s Facebook Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co.'s Website Jonathan’s Instagram (@thewildernesshumans)   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Melissa DiGianfilippo and Alexis Krisay founded marketing agency, Serendipit Consulting, which services clients like Orangetheory Fitness, Dry Bar, and Modern Acupuncture. Learn how they’ve grown it to $3M in sales last year with 28 employees. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode. Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:24] How Melissa and Alexis first started Serendipit [03:25] How they knew that they would be good business partners [05:42] How they divided their roles and what it has been like for them to work together [09:18] The challenge of staying in their lanes in regards to managing their team [10:46] How they picked the right clients [14:00] How they productized their service and came up with a pricing plan or retainer [16:52] How they improved their client retention and work with their ideal clients [20:05] How they make sure that they’re getting enough leads of their ideal clients by doing PR for themselves [25:39] Who are some of their franchise clients and how they got them [26:52] Some of the struggles that they ran into [32:53] How they built the company culture that’s working for them today [36:31] How they hire people based on their core values Key Takeaways: When you’re running a company with a business partner, it’s important to really respect each other’s knowledge in each of your fields. Marketing is ever-changing, and the same with PR. If a client is paying it out of their own pocket, it’s a problem. Positioning yourself as an expert and sharing case studies that showcase the results you’ve gotten for similar companies is a very effective way to attract your ideal clients. Hiring someone that isn’t culture fit is detrimental to your business. Action Steps: When working with a business partner: Be open communicators. Be honest with each other and give each other feedback without taking it personally. Respect each other’s opinions. Rely on each other’s expertise and respect each other’s lanes. Be more adaptable to each other’s strengths. Do a lot of PR for your company that is aimed to attract your ideal client. Survey your employees regularly and find out your employee net promoter score (eNPS). Consider doing daily huddles as a leadership team and as a company. Hire and fire based on your core values, and give internal recognition based on your core values as well.   Melissa said: “You can’t possibly do everything really well and you can’t possibly know every industry. And you definitely need to be picky about the kind of people you work with, not just the kind of clients you work with.” Alexis said: “This is probably something that we do to a flaw is we get so involved with our clients that we really feel like we’re operating their business. And if we’re not getting results for them, we personally feel that pain, so we work really hard to get results…”   More from Melissa DiGianfilippo: Serendipit Consulting Melissa’s Twitter (@MelissaPR)   More from Alexis Krisay: Serendipit Consulting Alexis’ Twitter (@alexiskrisay)   Tools and resources mentioned in this episode: Workamajig (Project Management Software for Marketing Teams)   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Clay Collins built LeadPages to over $30M in annual revenue with over 40k paying customers. In this interview he shares the 5 laws of building a 7 figure SaaS business from scratch based on the lessons he learned. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.   Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:56] How Clay would start Leadpages if he were to do it all over again [06:32] Why creating a content community first is important [09:52] When you should start creating a product and how to solicit feedback from your community [11:14] The Rule of Five Ones [16:36] The Five Laws of Setting Up a Seven-Figure SaaS Business from Scratch [23:51] Hiring the technical co-founder [26:15] Doing top-down hiring [32:02] Having upfront communication with your hires and how to manage them [36:07] What Clay did that had the biggest impact on his growth Key Takeaways: If you can’t get someone to opt-in to be a member of your community, the chances of them actually giving you money is far, far less. Building a community first allows you to get intimately acquainted with important players in the space. When you feel like you have a dedicated audience, a devoted audience, and that they are consistently growing and not plateauing, and people are sending thank you notes with emotion, then and only then should you start creating a product. Once you have an audience built to a certain size, it really behooves you to stay ultra-focused. Most people, when they’re trying to make growth work, they do everything under the sun and they end up kind of drowning and in this very complex scenario. Following the Rule of Five Ones helps you to avoid that. A CEO really only has three jobs: making sure there’s always money in the bank, communicating the vision, and hiring people. Anything other than that is not something a CEO should be doing at any point. There are three determinants of success: what you’re working on, who you’re working on it with, and how hard you work. At all times, the company needs to know what the employee needs to stay in their role, the employee needs to know what they need to do to keep their role, and the employee needs to know where they need to get to in order to get a promotion. Action Steps: Build a community around your product through content creation. It doesn’t have to be a blog. It could be a podcast. It could be a weekly webinar or Hangout with a group of people. If you have a SaaS product, launch each feature no matter how small. Find the minimal marketable event and market that. Find out what kind of persona your content attracts. Solicit feedback from your community about what they want before you create a product. Follow the Rule of Five Ones: Have ONE product. Market it to ONE persona. Focus on ONE traffic source. Send that traffic source to ONE conversion mechanism. Focus on this combination for ONE year until you have a consistent month over month growth. If yours is a SaaS business, architect your business to allow for unlimited account expansion. Have your technical co-founder be vetted and interviewed by other technical people that you trust. Do top-down hiring. Hire a director of marketing or someone who, potentially down the road, can build a team under them. Know what excellence and world class really looks like in a given role and figure out if you can hire world-class for those roles.   Clay said: “People are fooling themselves if they think they can get folks to pull out their credit card and pay for a product if they can’t even get folks to enter their email address.” “The biggest problem that most people encounter when they go to hire for the very first time is they just don’t know what excellence looks like in a given position.”   More from Clay Collins and Nomics: Nomics Website Clay’s Twitter (@ClayCollins)   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Scott Harkey has built OH Partners to $35M in annual revenues. Find out the hiring strategies they used to grow to 120 employees, the pruning process to focus on their best clients, and how they close deals like a $50M contract with the Arizona Lottery. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode. Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:30] How Scott and his business partner got started with OH Partners and their vision for the company [03:28] How they went about getting their first clients and learning from failure [06:24] How they started closing deals and picking big clients like Arizona State University [09:34] Working with sports franchises and understanding the business metrics better than their competitors [11:47] Strategies in building relationships with key decision makers of organizations [14:24] How they succeeded in getting their first big client, the Arizona Lottery, and what they were able to do for them [18:21] The research that they did that impacted their creative decisions, that ultimately led to the execution of their strategy into an effective campaign [25:20] What it was like going through different employee stages and the things they had to change to make things work [26:44] How they hired the best people to run their business [31:11] How they know if someone is a good fit for their company [32:15] Why they decided to focus on their big clients [35:12] How they went about trimming the number of their clients [39:24] The one thing they did that had the biggest impact on their growth [41:20] The area that Scott had to personally evolve and grow in to grow their business Key Takeaways: Higher win rates in new business pitching results from being smart about who you can help, who you want to work with, and what you’re passionate about. For a business like OH Partners, it’s about relationships. You have to have great connections in the marketplace and grow not only your agency’s brand but your personal brand. In a professional service business, what brands you’re aligned with speaks a lot about what kind of work you do. Clients can feel when you’re passionate about their business and they understand that you know the business metrics of their industry. You need 7 to 10 touch points within an organization with their key decision makers before you’re even on their radar. And it has to happen organically, it can’t look forced. The strategy of having a spokesperson to give a brand life is not a new strategy. It’s an old strategy that continues to work. In the ad agency business, you need to be very clear on what your weaknesses are and how you improve those weaknesses. Otherwise, you’re vulnerable to not only losing current accounts but vulnerable to winning new accounts. The 80/20 rule is that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your clients. There are benefits to focusing on fewer clients who are big and letting go of your smaller clients.   Action Steps: Be strategic about what you’re good at, what type of people you want to align yourself with, what industries you deeply understand, and the consumer. Build relationships with the key decision makers of the companies and organizations that you want to work with. You don’t need to create new strategies. Utilize old strategies that work. Know your strengths and weakness. Any area that you feel you have a major weakness, go and recruit a talent that would make up for that weakness. Create a great culture and a great place to work. This will help you hire the right people. Hire the person that you need two years from now, not the person you need today. Focus on your big clients and not letting them go away.   Scott said: “Strategy is not what you’re going to do, but strategy, more importantly, is deciding what you’re not going to do.” “The hardest lessons we’ve learned and the biggest failures that we’ve had have catapulted us to where we are today… Good entrepreneurs are stupid because they don’t know how hard things are going to be to succeed, and they just do it and they jump in.”   More from Scott Harkey and OH Partners: Scott’s LinkedIn OH Partners’ Website OH Partners’ Instagram (@ohadvertising) OH Partners’ Facebook OH Partners’ LinkedIn   Resources mentioned in this episode: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't by Jim Collins The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Learn how Brad Martineau grew his agency, SixthDivision, by focusing on a single marketing channel, how he productized his services and the innovative delivery method that allowed him to charge premium pricing, resulting in $3M in annual revenue. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.   Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:20] What led Brad to start SixthDivision [05:10] How they first started getting clients [09:35] What it was like for them to sponsor the Infusionsoft User Conference for the first time [16:25] How they serviced their clients and deliver results [21:42] How they did custom work for clients [24:04] How they grew their team and their journey to their first million [27:15] How they trained their employees and trusting them to deliver to clients [28:58] How they built recurring revenue [30:26] How they figured out what to do in order to keep clients for a long time [33:04] What are their marketing and sales strategies [37:00] How they grew their business while reducing their pace in half [38:38] Why it’s important to establish systems Key Takeaways: When you start a business, you have to scramble and you have to hustle. Underneath anything that’s custom is a whole bunch of things that have been done a million times before. It’s just how you piece them together. You have to define what your return is before you worry about your clients. And that’s going to be monetary, but you also have to consider the time and what your role is. Be okay with the fact that your revenue might not be growing but you reduce your pace in half. Grow your business but not at the expense of your life and not at the expense of your family. When your business is systematized, you are able to reduce the cost while delivering the exact same thing to your clients. And when you can reduce the cost through systems and tools and processes, everybody has a little bit more room to breathe and be creative. When you hit a plateau, the answer is not to shy away or to shrink from the work. The answer is to open your eyes, recognize what’s going on around you, and learn what you need to learn so that you can take the company to whatever the next plateau is. Action Steps: Get really clear on what kind of company and what kind of culture you want from the very beginning. Make sure your clients are all scheduled out. Have systems in place.   Brad said: “There’s just something really powerful about being able to demonstrate what you know how to do live in front of people. You can build relationships super fast with stages...” “How you see yourself and how confident you are in your ability to go figure things out in your business dictates whether or not you can actually go figure it out.”   More from Brad Martineau: SixthDivision Brad’s Instagram (@bradmartineau) Brad’s Facebook Brad’s Email   Resources mentioned in this episode: Strategic Coach Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) by Verne Harnish The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Learn how 25-year-old Josh Elizetxe developed a revolutionary teeth whitening product, branded it by partnering with celebrities like Floyd Mayweather and Rob Gronkowski and how he has grown it to seven figures, on track for $25M this year. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.   Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:43] How Josh got interested and involved in the teeth whitening space [04:09] How they got started with their product and finding the right consultants and advisory team [08:31] What the manufacturing process was like [11:24] How to avoid getting screwed over by bad manufacturing hires [15:31] How they started selling their product [19:06] How they’re promoting their product and their influencer marketing strategy [23:57] What it means to lose money well [29:04] How they choose the influencers to work with [33:10] How they are funding the business [36:41] What had the biggest impact on the growth of Snow Teeth Whitening Key Takeaways: If your product matches with a celebrity, and them endorsing it on social media is honest and authentic, then your product really takes off. You have to understand who your target customer is and go after the buying crowd as opposed to the crowd that’s only looking at products but are not interested in buying. The art of losing money is figuring out how to play the long game better than your competitors. The irony of capitalism is that you have to be willing to be broke in order to build something of value. Don’t focus so much on the competition because you can just become obsessed with looking at the competitors in your space. Action Steps: When you’re in the consumer products industry, break down what the manufacturing suppliers give you to make sure that you have the best quality product as a result. Educate yourself as much as you can about the pain points that you need to address with your product. Reach out to micro influencers, tell them about your product and offer to send it to them. And if they liked it, maybe they would share it on their social media. And if it works for the micro influencers, it should work for the big influencers. Josh said: “I’ve become a master at losing money. And I think that is what is going to propel us into the biggest brand in our space is because I’ve figured out how to lose money really well… That means thinking long-term.” “Treat your money with respect. And I think the best way to respect your money is to know when you’re losing it and to know when it’s okay to lose it because it’s going to elevate your brand.”   More from Josh Elizetxe and Snow Teeth Whitening: Snow Teeth Whitening Kit Snow Teeth Whitening Kit’s Instagram (@snowteethwhitening) Resources mentioned in this episode: Clarity.fm Journey to 7 Figures Episode with Anthony Sarandrea: How Pocket Your Dollars Grew to $500k a Month in One Year Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

DigitalMarketer has over 15,000 paying members and half a million subscribers that trust them to learn about digital marketing. Learn how they grew past the $1M and $5M ARR plateaus and how Ryan Deiss’ business model had to change.Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.   Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:35] How Ryan got into the traffic conversion space and what it was like back then when he were just starting [07:33] How Ryan was able to build an email list and the pivotal moment that eventually launched DigitalMarketer [12:16] When DigitalMarketer became an actual company and how they built the business [16:23] What they did to change DigitalMarketer from a personality-driven brand into a company-driven brand and some of the big shifts that they made in the company [25:15] What it was like when DigitalMarketer went almost bankrupt [27:57] What they did to improve their customer churn and create the stickiness that made customers keep coming back [35:10] The shifts they had to make to get to $10M in ARR [39:45] Tips on what not to do when it comes to product expansion [41:52] How hiring the right people made the biggest impact on DigitalMarketer’s growth Key Takeaways: Just going out there and selling something for $2,000, the market would only bear that price point for so long, especially when everybody else started doing it. Because at that point, if everybody is doing it and a lot of them suck, it doesn’t matter that yours are good. People aren’t going to know the difference from the outside looking in. When everybody in the marketplace looks exactly the same, the only advantage that you can have is to have a better brand. If you want your business to be a sellable brand, it can’t be about you. Selling a subscription is much harder than selling one-offs, but as long as you have something new to talk to people about, they would sign up. People will join for content, but they stay for the community. If you really want to make subscription work, what you have to incorporate into it is some type of pain of disconnect. Action Steps: Turn your business into a company-driven brand. Take the “genius” and turn it into a transferable document. Consider shifting from an ala-carte model into a subscription model. Do something new that would entice customers to sign up for a membership or a subscription. Invest in creating a community for your brand and then leverage that. Hire people who care, who are excited, and who want to learn, and invest in them. Focus on efficiency rather than productivity. Set aside money for taxes. Ryan said: “If you’re in the guru business, you want to tell your origin story, you want to talk about how all these amazing things happened to you. If you want to make a pivot away from the guru business and into this true sellable brand… you’ve got to set your ego aside.” “Productivity is a myth. It’s garbage. The more productive you get, the more capacity that you create within yourself, which means the more work you do. We don’t get more productive and then do less. We get more productive and then do more.” More from Ryan Deiss: DigitalMarketer Website Ryan’s Twitter (@ryandeiss) Ryan’s LinkedIn Resources mentioned in this episode: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Learn how in just three short years, Jessica Stellwagen grew CoolSculpting provider, Bodify, to $2.2M in sales with 40% net profit and just three employees. Even if you don’t have a clinic, there’s lots to learn from their marketing and growth strategies. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for complete show notes of every podcast episode Topics Discussed in this Episode: [03:58] What is CoolSculpting? [04:33] How did they raise the funds to start a CoolSculpting practice? [07:10] How did they know where to go with the business and find the perfect space? [09:21] What were some of the big advantages of specializing their services? [12:34] How did they start getting clients? [14:37] How did they get people to opt-in in their website? [17:40] How do they position themselves as the best? [20:17] How do they get the leads from their website to actually come for a consultation? [24:43] What kind of training do they put in place for their team to do a good job in getting clients? [27:04] What was their PR strategy? [29:57] How did they figure out their ideal client or ideal CoolSculpting candidate? [30:40] How did their business change from year one to year two to year three? [32:18] How helpful were the review sites to their business? [36:00] How did they figure out the small details that make things work? [37:53] What’s the one thing they did that had the biggest impact on their growth? Key Takeaways: If you don’t have passion and you don’t have heart, then you are not going to be able to put the time, energy, and effort into growing your business. Good, bad, right, or wrong, how we feel in our bodies actually really impacts how we operate in the world on a daily basis. You can’t do good business with bad people. Do what you do best and delegate the rest. Niches lead to riches. You cannot be both the best and the cheapest. You’re a hundred times more likely to engage with a lead if you get in touch with them within the first ie minutes versus 30 minutes of them actually having an interest in what you’re providing. Actually asking people what they want to drink outside of water, coffee or tea, for example, is probably one the biggest ways to minimize your no-show. People just feel obligated to show up because you’ve been nice. The fortune is in the follow-up. Action Steps: Hire someone to write a business plan. Be smart with your dollars. Make sure to have a great website. Hire a marketing team. Keep trusting the process. Be clear upfront about having a training manual or processes and procedures that you want the people in your team to follow. Take off the business owner hat and put on the prospect hat and consider: What would you want to hear? What could you see that would move you to action? Think about getting a business coach.   Jessica said: “Guess what? Life happens. Sometimes people need a little nidge or they need a little push. And if you just kind of write them off, they might go down the street and do business elsewhere. “Most salespeople are willing to follow-up with someone once, when the truth is most people need about five follow-up attempts after a consultation or appointment to decide to buy.”   More from Jessica Stellwagen: Bodify Website   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Learn how Raj Jana created JavaPresse, a side hustle selling coffee grinders on Amazon from a business that had 90% refunds in the first two months, to selling 150k products and $2.3M in sales.  Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:28] What made Raj decide to get into entrepreneurship [07:56] Some of the first steps Raj took to figure out what kind of product he wanted to create [16:00] Raj’s financial situation at the time when he started the company [19:08] How they got to $23,000 in sales that first year [22:15] The strategies they used to get reviews for the product [24:15] What happened when they started having problems with their product [30:57] How they scaled the business even higher and built a brand that people wanted to be around Key Takeaways: You shouldn’t just follow your passions when it comes to picking niches. There needs to be a marriage between what you want to do and who needs the help. Having a full-time job is really underrated when you’re starting a company. Not only does it give you the cash flow but it allows you to be bold and gives you the ability to take risks without being scared of survival. The mistake that people make when they’re scaling physical products is diversifying too early. When you’re scaling physical products especially from five figures to six figures and from six figures to seven, it’s a lot easier to streamline one product’s life cycle than it is for you to launch 50 new products. One of the reasons why Kickstarter works so well is that you’re building a product with somebody, and they feel connected to it and they want to be the first to give their feedback. In this way, you’re like creating the perfect customer who is amped and excited to be a part of your story from the get-go. “Focus on the customer and doing right by the customer and not what’s right by you” gave JavaPresse a competitive edge and allowed them to scale Amazon from six figures a month to seven figures. One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they’re starting out a company is running out of stock. The second you run out of stock is the second that you lose the opportunity to capitalize on immediate, impromptu, hot purchases that now happen in the digital age. Action Steps: Invest in taking courses to learn what you can and to grow your business. Use tools like Google Trends, Google AdWords or Google Keyword Planner to verify the niches that continuously grow. Do a market research to find out which product is a winner and invest in more inventory and more marketing for that one product, and take that product to the highest level possible in that one market space. Have a good follow-up sequence that nurtures sales and adds value to the product. Leverage your friends and family and networks especially when you’re just starting out. Bring them on board and ask for help. Build an audience, through a list or a community, around your niche or product launch. Invest in content and build a solid lead magnet. Raj said: “When you’re a new entrepreneur, not having funding is a blessing because it forces you to get very resourceful.” “When you have only one product and you do everything right, you create this super highway to scaling and growth because you’re essentially pouring more money on a machine that’s churning out faster than you can run.” More from Raj Jana: JavaPresse Raj’s Email: chiefbrewer@javapresse.com Raj’s Twitter: @rajer_thatt Resources mentioned: Maverick Entrepreneurs Evolved Enterprise by Yanik Silver Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller Purple Cow by Seth Godin Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

In just five years, Garrett Moon has built CoSchedule from 0 to 7 figures in revenue, 9,000 customers, 1.5M monthly page views, and over 350k email subscribers. Listen to this episode to learn exactly how he did it. Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:31] How Garrett started with his first agency and how far they got before moving forward with CoSchedule [04:37] The idea for CoSchedule and how they decided it was the product to move forward with [10:36] How they focused on getting customer feedback and understanding customers’ problems [14:17] What was their method of getting customer feedback? [15:28] What were their original SEO strategies? [17:12] What was their promotion strategy? [20:04] Launching the Actionable Marketing Podcast and how it has impacted their growth [23:22] What is their email list growth strategy and what were its drivers? [26:18] What were the 10X projects they released? [30:56] How they dealt with product changes and client base changes Key Takeaways: When you’re an agency and you have serviced customers, it’s really easy to leverage that relationship to get feedback on your software or to get them to buy it, and you kind of get this false sense of validation. When it comes to SaaS, you’re constantly adding more product. And as you make your product more complex and add more features, it becomes a better solution for larger customers. Development is never done. Your customers always need to see new features and they expect the software to get better and more powerful over time, not stay the same. The blog posts that drive traffic aren’t always the most valuable ones. And traffic isn’t always the best signifier of access to some customer segments. If you’re focused on two things, you’re not focused on anything. You can’t focus 100% on two things. Action Steps: Base your business decisions on growth velocity long-term versus just short-term happiness for certain customers. Be constantly focused on growth and moving upward. Learn to delegate and how to manage and trust people. Coach your talent to be good. Garrett said: “You have to learn to really understand the problem and then the emotional reasons that that user might buy a product versus ask them would they buy. It’s not even a real question because there’s so much emotion wrapped into buying, it’s just not a good place to start.” “The reality is that as your product changes and as your customer base changes, you have to make decisions or release features that you know are only going to help a certain set of users.” More from Garrett Moon: CoSchedule 10x Marketing Formula: Your Blueprint for Creating 'Competition-Free Content' That Stands Out and Gets Results by Garrett Moon Garrett’s Twitter: @garrett_moon Resources mentioned: Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights by Steve Portigal Actionable Marketing Podcast The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Single Grain was a struggling digital marketing agency before Eric Siu took over. In this episode, he shares how he took them from unprofitable to working with clients like Uber, Amazon, and Salesforce, last year generating $2M in revenue. Topics Discussed in this Episode: [02:38] What Eric learned from his experience working at Treehouse [04:03] What kind of shape Single Grain was in when Eric first got involved with it [07:25] How things got worse for Single Grain [09:11] What they did to keep Single Grain from going out of business and turn things around [11:36] How they got their clients to stick for 12 to 18 months [12:46] What helped Single Grain the most in terms of marketing [18:06] How they figured out what actually works for SEO [20:20] How they started doing a podcast and growing it substantially [23:35] The strategies that they used to grow the Marketing School Podcast [29:40] How to set and manage client expectations   Key Takeaways: Whatever you do in your life, as long as you’re constantly trying to make yourself and grow, you will earn people’s respect. You can see a lot of instability happen when sales aren’t going well. Everything that you want to get done in a company is all based on people. Whatever you’re trying to accomplish, you have to be good with people. If you’re starting an agency, paid advertising is fantastic. And it’s a nice gateway into other services down the road. When the client thinks of you more as the extended arm of their marketing team versus just a vendor, that’s when your relationship with them last a lot longer. Action Steps: Build a relationship capital with people. Vet every single one of your hires, no matter how senior they are. Write evergreen content and then use Brian Dean’s Skyscraper Technique. If you decide to do a podcast, publish an episode every single day. Constantly bring new ideas to the table for your clients. Eric said: “As long as you’re constantly trying to grow yourself, people are going to respect that.” “When sales are happening, things are fine; but when things aren’t going well, that’s when you start to see a lot of instability.” More from Eric Siu: Eric’s Instagram Single Grain Growth Everywhere Podcast Marketing School Podcast Resources mentioned: The Skyscraper Technique by Brian DeanMixergy Podcast Redpoint Ventures Rocket Fuel by Gino WickmanTim Ferriss Podcast Treehouse Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Crowdfunding agency Enventys Partners (formerly Command Partners) has helped launch over 450 new businesses via crowdfunding campaigns. They’ve helped raise over $150M and last year generated over $10M in revenue. Roy Morejon explains how they did it. Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:28] How Roy got started with Command Partners [09:58] How they started getting more projects and building their customer base [14:57] Building a team around each project [16:46] Setting client expectations [25:30] How Command Partners merged with Enventys [30:32] How they put systems and processes in place to gain more consistent results [32:16] How they brought in the key people to step up their business [35:37] Strategies with regards to content marketing [38:02] Strategies to get speaking opportunities Key Takeaways: There is an opportunity for any company out there to run a crowdfunding campaign, whether it be reward-based with a physical product or potentially equity-based. The unfortunate side of running a Kickstarter campaign is basically you see the worst of anybody. It’s hard to point out what’s wrong with their product or why things are not working, but it’s a conversation that you have to have. There’s a lot of pre-launch work that needs to be done in order to have success in a business. It’s expensive to bring a product to market. It takes about 2 to 20 years of product development before a product gets manufactured, QA tested or UL approved. But many people have this misconception that it can just be made very quickly and cheaply in China. Action Steps: Be transparent with everything that goes on internally and externally for your company. Focus on the categories that you’re an expert in. Keep educating yourself and understand how crowdfunding works and how these types of campaigns are unique and challenging on their own. Roy said: “You don’t bring an opinion to a data fight.” “There’s no better time to start something than today.” More from Roy Morejon: Enventys Partners Roy’s Website Art of the Kickstart Resources mentioned in this episode: AnswerThePublic Ubersuggest Quora Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Michael was a special education teacher before he went on to found 3 multi-million dollar companies including one that reached $40M in annual sales with 350k customers. Learn how he did it in this episode! Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:28] Michael’s transition from teaching special education to entrepreneurship [07:33] Copywriting and creating profitability through ads and affiliate marketing [12:44] Starting out with AdWords and working with partners to provide more value [16:24] Why you should build a team, train them and have a system in place [22:32] Michael’s journey with Hypnosis Network [26:50] How Michael started RealDose [30:42] Developing the products for RealDose and building the inventory [34:40] Media buying and getting the business going [40:12] Baby Bathwater and what it’s all about Key Takeaways: You can reverse engineer anything. You might do all right with finding some opportunity, but if you’re not really into it, you’re going to burn out fast. Don’t just look to make some cash but create a business with something you really care about. Create something great and something that you’re proud of. So when you’re doing media buying and getting people to try it, you don’t feel sleazy in any way because you know that it’s true, you’re not lying because you know it’s the best. Don’t neglect your email list and keep providing them with good content. Once you have a big following, people will want to partner with you. Action Steps: Find something you’re really into and build a business out of it. Keep your list warm with really good content. Build a team around your business, train them how to do things and create a system for people to follow. Michael said: “Make something you’re proud of that works.” “Grind, but document as you grind and start to bring people on early.” More from Michael Lovitch: Michael’s Facebook Baby Bathwater Institute Resources mentioned in this episode: Hypnosis Network Dr. Hyman RealDose Nutrition Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

LeadMD is a bootstrapped marketing agency who have helped over 3,000 high growth and enterprise clients like Forbes and eBay. Having started in 2009, they’ve implemented over half of the Marketo user base and last year they generated $5.6M in sales! Tune in as Justin Gray shares their success story and more! Topics Discussed in this Episode: [05:35] Figuring out your customer type and bridging the gap between knowing the type of customers you want to serve and actually getting them [08:00] Partnership strategies and how to get good results [10:40] How LeadMD figured out their pricing model, why they chose to put their pricing on the site, and how they engaged their customers [15:00] How to productize services [17:33] Nailing down your hiring practices and the core values to look for when hiring people [23:56] Training people to be able to deliver success for your business [26:56] LeadMD’s content marketing strategy Key Takeaways: When you’re a bootstrapped organic business, you can’t afford to spend time anywhere that’s not going to yield some type of result. There’s a high degree of customization that comes in when you’re working client to client, especially in the enterprise. There always comes a point in the hiring process where you can’t be involved in every interview or get the entire team’s input. That’s the point where you have to have your hiring practices really nailed down. With content marketing, it’s about targeting the right content at the right buyer at the right time. Action Steps: Work with a partner by embedding your business into their processes Productize your services by defining them, identifying the milestones that go with each product, determining the tasks that roll up to those milestones, and putting a default value of time. Deliver consistent outcomes and outputs by consistently training consultants and providing an accurate baseline scope. Hire people focusing on their fundamental traits and personalities. Justin said: “Skills can be taught, they can be augmented, but someone’s personality traits cannot.” “Customer sentiment and putting people in the organization towards managing the customer relationship is critical.” More from Justin Gray: LeadMD Justin’s Twitter Resources mentioned in this episode: Marketo SaaStr Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Neil Patel has built multiple seven figure businesses including an agency and marketing software Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. He gets over 1.1M monthly reader to his website. On this episode, he dishes how he did it. In this episode you will learn: Some of the strategies they used when they first got started [07:12] How they were able to get big, major clients [08:31] How he came up with the idea for Crazy Egg [08:56] Why they started KISSmetrics [17:40] When to focus on blogging [22:18] Key Takeaways: When you go after the press to try and get covered, don’t go after the top publications right away. The way to get people to stay on your product for a longer period of time is to ask them what they want you to build and then build it. You will get to your revenue numbers quicker than any other way when you do cross promotions. You don’t need a blog to create a business under $10 million. It’s not worth it unless you want to create a business that’s bigger than that. It’s okay to make mistakes. Just learn from them and avoid repeating them. That will eventually lead you to do the right thing. Action Steps: Join and speak at conferences. Design your product and find developers to help you out. Market your product and get it out to people who will use it. Grow your blog by writing amazing content, building links, building an email list, capturing push notifications and subscribers, and doing it consistently. Find all the other similar solutions in your space and do cross promotions. Neil says: “Speak at conferences. You speak enough, someone will end up paying you.” “Reality is you suck it up, you push forward, you either make it or you won’t.” More from Neil Patel: Neil’s Website Neil Patel Digital Crazy Egg Kissmetrics Marketing School Podcast Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Anthony Sarandrea started Pocket Your Dollars as a lead generation company for debt settlement. He spends $15,000/day on Facebook to connect as many as 5,000 people/day with settlement agencies and has scaled to over $500k/month in revenue. In this episode you will learn: How they got the idea for the business and how they were able to be so successful so quickly [01:33] How they went about finding the people that they were going to connect the leads with [03:51] How they started generating leads for their partners [06:25] Their Facebook strategy [08:01] Why they chose to acquire a site and how they went about doing it [25:13] Key Takeaways: Your partners need to be making money in order for you to be making money. Segmentation and talking to people differently plays a big part in scaling a debt settlement business profitably. You can go the route of really trying to draw in a lot of awareness and a lot of high balls and you can start to filter them down. One of the biggest game changers is understanding of the full sales cycle. Taking a business partner can have the biggest impact on your growth. Action Steps: Thoroughly educated individuals on topics related to your business. Make sure the usability of your site is great. Anthony says: “We really try to make a substantial difference in an industry where we can help a ton of people.” “If you want to grow, if you want to stay in business, if you want to continue to become a big player in this space, you have to do things that your competition is not doing.” More from Anthony Sarandrea: Pocket Your Dollars Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Samantha Meis started MistoBox, a coffee subscription business, while still in college. They launched in 2012 with a Kickstarter project, appeared on Shark Tank, made a deal with Mark Cuban and have gone on to generate over $2.7M in sales last year. In this episode you will learn: How they came up with the idea for MistoBox and how they got things off the ground  [01:40] How they launched a Kickstarter project for their business [03:10] How they got their first 100 customers [04:10] How they advertised and promoted their Kickstarter program [05:09] What their experience was like with Shark Tank and how it’s worked with signing up Mark Cuban [05:52] How they were able to leverage the traffic brought by Shark Tank [09:49] What were their next steps after Shark Tank [10:27] How they got customer feedback and implemented changes to their product [13:31] What were the things they did really well and the things they had to overcome to raise their revenue [16:22] How they continued to drive new sign-ups [19:01] What they did to reach out to press outlets and get featured [21:31] How they were able to build their email list [22:33] How they provide value and put offers in front of people [24:18] How they figured out what the best pricing was for their product [26:18] Key Takeaways: When it comes to product-based businesses, a Kickstarter pre-order model could work well for you. The longer a customer stays around and is a part of your customer base, the faster your base is going to grow. When it comes to making your product so good that people want to talk about it, it all comes down to expectations. Action Steps: Look at the behavior of customers instead of what they say they want. Always tap into the customer experience by talking to and surveying your customers. Make your product so good that people want to talk about it and tell their friends. Set realistic expectations for your customers and then overperform. Find your story, the one that tells how your company is unique, and then reach out to high-impact and aligned press outlets. Hire the right people - people that are self-motivated, that can stay on track without needing a significant amount of oversight, and that can function socially without being around people 24/7. Samantha says: “Do whatever you can to make a compelling case for your business.” “As a subscription business, retention is a function of growth.” More from Samantha Meis: Samantha’s Website Samantha’s Twitter Samantha’s Instagram MistoBox Resources mentioned: DojoMojo Harvard Business Review Slack Asana Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Oli Gardner shares how Unbounce used content marketing and partnerships to grow their website traffic to 800,000 monthly visitors and how focusing on the right customer helped them grow to 14k users and $17M in revenue. In this episode you will learn: What gave them the idea to come up with Unbounce [01:34] What they did to be able to start the company [03:20] How Oli handled the marketing side of things [04:09] How they started generating awareness of their content to build an email list [07:17] What was Oli’s content strategy [09:31] How they launched the company [12:14] How they got to their first 100 customers [14:44] Unbounce’s partnership with MailChimp and how they benefited from it [15:05] How to choose the companies to partner with [16:38] How long it took Unbounce to hit seven figures and the things they had to overcome to get there  [17:52] How they got people to join their webinars [20:09] What struggles they had to overcome before hitting seven figures in 2012 [23:25] How they built their product for their ideal client [25:28] How they figured out who their ideal client is [28:03] How they make sure they’re targeting the right people now [31:09] How Unbounce keeps taking things to the next level [33:36] The one thing that had the biggest impact on the growth of Unbounce [38:51] Key Takeaways: Integrations like the one Unbounce had with MailChimp are the kind of things that put you on the path to being a “super sticky useful tool”. When working with other companies, culture fit is important. It is important to find the right partnerships. Don’t fall prey to the big companies who pay big bucks asking you to design things for them. Rather, know who your ideal client is. It’s not the job of your content to convert customers. Its job is to build domain authority for your website. Relentless focus on growth can sometimes be a problem. When you start growing, be careful on the hiring side. Action Steps: Start blogging at the beginning stages of your company and build an audience for when you launch your product. Come up with a solid lead magnet. Find a company that you can partner with, that already has traffic or has similar customers to you, and figure out ways that you can collaborate. Keep evolving the type of content and the type of things you are doing. Consider doing webinars with partner companies and incorporate a relevant demo of your product. Find ways of getting your ideal customer but also design an experience that communicates who you’re not for. If you’re attracting the wrong people, all your metrics die. Get advisers for your company by establishing relationships with people you respect who are in a similar field. Don’t be afraid to ask. Partner with the right people so that you’re building in the right direction to help your customers scale. Mix your marketing, 50% lead generation, and 50% awareness. Oli says: “The small dollar changes at the beginning become big ones at the end.” “Do whatever you can to not doubt yourself.” More from Oli Gardner: Oli’s Twitter Oli’s Email Unbounce Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Rand Fishkin shares how he started blog SEOMoz to generate consulting clients for his design agency. He’s gone on to grow that blog to over 3.2M monthly visitors, which has helped grow SEO software, Moz to $47.4M in revenue with over 36,000 customers. TOPICS: How Rand started the SEOMoz blog [01:39] Rand’s biggest struggle and the strategies he employed to initially grow traffic [05:28] How they made $440,000 in the first six months [11:58] What it is like to have a business in a new a space [13:25] Rand’s main growth strategy [14:12] What Rand would do differently now that he’s not at Moz anymore and has the chance to start over [17:05] How Rand balanced his consulting business and the software at the same time [21:50] How they figured out their three core groups of clients [24:46] How understanding their audience impacted their business [26:36] The strategies that helped grow Moz the way it has [29:14] How they were able to build a great community around Moz [33:49] What Rand did when he thought Moz would fail [35:33] Rand’s advice to overcome depression [36:26] Why Rand left Moz and started SparkToro [37:35] “Being early to market in a new space and already capturing the attention and having the trust of that audience, I think that’s what led to that early success.” — Rand Fishkin “A huge part of Moz’s mission and my personal mission became helping people to do better marketing.” — Rand Fishkin   More from Rand Fishkin Rand’s Facebook | Twitter Lost and Founder SparkToro Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Aaron Hinde shares the strategies he used to grow FitAid into a $21M a year business. He shares how they were able to sell in 50% of Crossfit gyms across the US and in retailers like Whole Foods, Sprouts, GMC and more! TOPICS: How did Aaron come up with his business idea? [01:35] How did he go from having this idea to actually creating a nutritional drink company? [02:47] How did they come up with the formulation of a drink that’s healthy but tastes good? [03:42] What did they do when it came to working deals and packaging their products? [05:31] Among their multiple initiatives, how did they choose what to focus on? [06:00] How did they get their sales on their first year? [07:22] How did they start acquiring these different Crossfit gyms? [07:59] What was the offer that they created for these Crossfit gyms? [08:52] How did they follow-up on those offers and figure out the follow-up sequence? [09:33] What did they find discouraging when they first got started? [10:42] How did they develop their customer list and figure out the right persons to contact? [11:28] How far did their strategy scale their business? [12:12] How did they handle the product distribution? [12:38] How did they increase re-orders and making sure people are recognizing their product ? [13:44] How do they get consumer feedback to improve their product? [14:37] How did they figure out what works for their company? [18:27] What were the growing pains like of going from six figures to seven figures so quickly? [19:55] What kind of team did they put in place to support their growth? [24:25] How does Aaron manage his employees and how does he get better at it? [26:58] What was their strategy in raising the money to scale the business? [27:50] What made their partnerships work well? [30:41]   “The real skill set is looking at what’s working in unrelated industries and how can you apply that to your industry with your own flavor on it, speaking to your audience in a very authentic voice.” — Aaron Hinde “Make sure that you have traction prior to burning the ships on the shore.” — Aaron Hinde   More from Aaron Hinde LIFEAID Aaron’s Instagram | Facebook | Twitter Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Today on the show, Luke Ford shares not only the strategies he used to grow My Computer Works to $4.6M but also how focusing on NPS doubled the LTV of his customers, the marketing strategies he used to scale, and much more! He has a very interesting story about raising money, so listen in and enjoy! TOPICS: What inspired Luke to get into entrepreneurship and start a business? [01:34] What was one of the unique things about how Luke started My Computer Works? [02:41] What was it like trying to raise money pre-revenue and working on it for six months? [03:11] What were the steps that Luke took to put this business together and line up the investors? [02:54] What was their target customer and how did they get their first 100 clients? [04:58] What was their business plan? [07:58] What kind of bottlenecks did they run into? Did they have to change their business model? [08:52] Why did they choose to custom-build their automation technology themselves? [11:42] How far did the automation take My Computer Works in terms of customers and revenue? [14:35] How did doing infomercials help Luke scale the business? [16:12] What were some of the big issues they needed to address in the process of scaling the business? [20:42] What are some of the unique things about My Computer Works? [21:43] What are their criteria for hiring technicians? [22:54] What were some of the things that they did between getting from $1M to $4.6M? [25:29] How did they handle customer churn? [31:46]   “Early adopters have to be informed on why this is a cool idea, or innovators have to spend a lot of time educating the marketplace.” — Luke Ford “Never stop trying to figure out what the next channel is because you’re going to hit a good channel.”— Luke Ford   More from Luke Ford My Computer Works Resource mentioned The Ultimate Question Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

In today’s episode, Alex Brown shares the strategies he used to grow Dollar Beard Club to $11M in one year, sell over 1.7M boxes, generate 200M viral video views, and how he convinced Dan Bilzerian to promote their products. Tune in and learn from his journey! TOPICS: What’s the story of how The Beard Club came to be? [01:37] How many years did it take before it felt like they had some traction and success? [06:40] What was their strategy for building their email list of 15,000 people? [08:02] Why did they choose to work with influencers and how did they build relationships with them? [10:41] If someone is looking to get into influencer marketing, how should they negotiate rates? [12:55] How did Alex get connected with advisors who are really influential and how does he create relationships with them? [14:48] How did they first build their brand through video marketing? [16:48] How did they get things lined up in order to launch the brand? [19:10] How did they find the manufacturer to make their product? [25:40] What was it like for Alex and his partners to grow the business so quickly? What were some of their lessons learned? [27:51] What were the strategies they employed when it came to customer retention? [31:41] What’s the one thing that they did that Alex thinks had the biggest impact on the growth of The Beard Club? [36:43]   “Aligning with people that were in the influencer world was our biggest secret to success there.” — Alex Brown “Just really having the ability to know where you’re going and to attract people to that vision is super huge.”— Alex Brown More from Alex Brown Alex’s branding website LinkedIn The Beard Club Resources mentioned Gleam PressRush The Power of Now Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

In today’s episode, I interview Jeremy Young, who has sold multiple online businesses for 8 figures. His current business, Tanga, generates over $24M in revenue a year. Tune in as he shares his journey, and learn how he built these businesses without driving his own traffic or raising money. TOPICS: What kind of business is Tanga? [1:37] How did Jeremy come up with the idea for his first business, Virtual Servers, and how did he get started? [02:00] How did Jeremy grow Virtual Servers? [03:34] How does Jeremy go about finding good partners? [08:19] How did Jeremy sell his first company? [09:51] How did Jeremy come up with Uberplay? [10:40] How was Jeremy able to make the connections he needed to start Uberplay? [11:21] What did Jeremy do to build relationships within the board game industry? [12:35] How did Jeremy get started with Tanga? [15:50] How was Jeremy able to get traffic to sites in order to push the daily deals in Tanga? [16:11] How does Jeremy reach out to new people and how does he reach out for best-price deals? [21:11] What were the major milestones or breakthroughs that enabled Tanga to scale up to $2M? [24:19] How does having a customer dossier work for Tanga? [26:35] What are the two ways for a business to reach consumers? [29:25] What are the strategies for becoming profitable on a customer’s first purchase? [30:18] How long did it take for paid traffic to work for Tanga and what did they do to make it work? [31:24] What did Jeremy do to turn things around at those time when he felt like he was going to fail? [32:07] What is the difference between bootstrapping and raising money, and when is the right time for each of those? [34:15] Why is the right culture fit an issue? [36:44] “If they don’t fit your culture, get rid of them. Find someone that does.” — Jeremy Young “Know what your limits are and get out when you should be getting out. — Jeremy Young More from Jeremy Young Jeremy’s email Tanga TangaMonkey Resource mentioned BoardGameGeek Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

In this episode, I interview Ryan Carson, who discovered the power of building a community when he started hosting meetups in a bar. The meet-ups evolved into conferences, which he used to launch Treehouse, an online education platform, and acquire his first 3,000 customers. Today, Treehouse has over 286,000 students in 190 countries and $15M annual revenue. Pick up some of the lessons that Ryan learned throughout his journey and enjoy the show! TOPICS: What did Ryan do that put him in a position to be successful with Treehouse? [01:34] Why did Ryan want to start his own company? [05:41] How did Ryan get into the conference business that led to Treehouse? [11:24] How did Ryan build a community of web designers and web developers? [14:48] What is the value of building a community? [15:59] How did Ryan scale his conference business and build Treehouse? [18:23] How did Ryan build his email list? [20:58] What were some of the steps Ryan took to grow from $1M to $15M in revenue? [23:51] How did Ryan figure out the right people to focus on? [24:49] Why should you train managers? [26:59] What started taking up Treehouse’s revenue higher? [27:51] How does Ryan figure out what’s good and what’s bad and what’s the right user experience in terms of improving his product? [29:37] What is Ryan’s advice for people who are interested in potentially raising money? [31:03] What is the one thing Ryan did that had the biggest impact on his growth? [33:15]   “I believe people don’t have some miraculous idea for the company and the best idea of their life in an instant. It’s something that builds over years.” — Ryan Carson “You have to have a good product and you have to time it right.” — Ryan Carson More from Ryan Carson Ryan Carson's Twitter Ryan Carson's Instagram Treehouse Website Treehouse Twitter Not Silicon Valley Resources mentioned Jason Fried’s Basecamp lynda.com Treehouse blog (formerly Think Vitamin)Manager Tools Podcast SaaSTr SaasTr Pro Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Have you ever been in debt and wondered how you can get out of that muck and build a business? If so, then you’ve come to the right podcast! Listen as Veronique James shares her incredible story of how she went from being up to her neck in debt to now running a $4M award-winning agency. Enjoy! TOPICS: What inspired Veronique to get into business? [01:21] How did two-and-a-half years of experience working in an agency helped Veronique start her own business? [06:16] When did Veronique start thinking about starting her own business? [08:40] How did Veronique’s personal life impact her decision to start her own business? [09:50] What did Veronique do to leverage networking groups and get her first few clients? [14:04] What was it like for Veronique to work with contractors? [21:25] What are some of the lessons that Veronique learned the hard way? [25:05] How did Veronique’s business take off to a $1M revenue? [29:53] How does Veronique build recurring revenue into her business? [37:14] How does Veronique make her agency model work? [39:10] What were some of the major things that Veronique did that got her to $4M today? [42:55] What’s the one thing Veronique did that had the biggest impact on her growth? [46:09]   “I feel like my 20s were my years to make mistakes and learn. My 30s are to apply what I learned in my 20s. Hopefully, in my 40s, I can coast.” — Veronique James “Pay attention to everything. That’s the most important thing.” — Veronique James More from Veronique James The James Agency | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram Resource mentioned Entrepreneurs’ Organization Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

We’ve got an extraordinary episode for you today as I interview my good friend Kevin Gianni who shares with us his story of how he started out as a personal trainer to becoming a health blogger, and finally launching Annmarie Skin Care, a multi-million dollar skin care line that is currently on an eight-figure run rate. It’s an episode that’s packed with some really actionable strategies, so let’s dive in! TOPICS: How did Kevin come up with the idea for Renegade Health? [02:03] What was different about what they were teaching to people as personal trainers? [03:00] What was Kevin’s goal in building an online community and an email list? [06:37] How did Kevin come up with the world summits? [07:30] How did Kevin start writing books? [11:34] How did Renegade Health start opening an online store? [11:53] How did Renegade Health generate traffic? [13:54] What did Kevin realize about operating in the information business? [16:53] What is the challenge of the information business? [17:34] What did Kevin realize about the product business? [18:02] What inspired Kevin to create Annmarie Skin Care? [24:44] What were the challenges in launching Annmarie Skin Care? [26:38] How did Kevin figure out what products to create? [28:20] How did affiliate offers propel the Annmarie Skin Care business? [30:17] How did Kevin set up a solid affiliate offer? [31:51] How did SEO help Kevin increase traffic in his product’s website and how did he capture more leads? [36:00] “What I learned fairly quickly but not quickly enough is that with the information business you’re selling pixels for the most part and pixels are really cheap.” — Kevin Gianni “Go where the people are and bring some over to you” — Kevin Gianni More from Kevin Gianni Annmarie Skin Care | Facebook Renegade Health Resources mentioned An Introduction to UltraWellness by Mark Hyman Ultraprevention by Mark Hyman and Mark Liponis Ryan Lee Dan Poynter Books Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

I’m very excited to introduce you guys to AJ Mihrzad! He has an amazing business, Online Super Coach, and today he is going to share his journey of how he turned his life around and built a $1.2 million business with 90% profit. TOPICS: What is Online Super Coach? [01:46] How did AJ Mihrzad become an entrepreneur and start running his own business? [02:23] How long did it take for AJ to become a full-time personal trainer? [05:18] How did AJ discover direct response marketing and transform his personal training business? [09:28] How did hiring a coach help AJ build his business? [11:34] What were the three things AJ learned from his coach in order to attract clients? [15:24] What kind of compelling offers did AJ put in front of people? [19:05] What helped AJ the most in order to be able to sell over the phone? [20:35] How did AJ hire and train his team of trainers? [25:48] How did AJ come up with the online personal training business? [27:59] How did AJ scale up his online personal training business? [33:42] How did AJ set up the Online Super Coach and make it into a profitable business? [36:33] What were some of the things that AJ did that made him successful in supporting the customer service side? [41:21] What was the one thing that had the biggest impact on AJ’s growth? [44:51]   “Coaching really works well for me, so that was my unfair advantage over other people.” — AJ Mihrzad “It’s one of the hardest things to do, to find a hungry market that is underserved and you create something that’s leveraged. ” — AJ Mihrzad   More from AJ Mihrzad Online Super Coach 5-Day Online Super Coach Challenge Facebook Resources mentioned Dan Kennedy Frank Kern Eben Pagan Chris McCombs The E Myth by Michael E. Gerber The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger Jordan Belfort Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

What do you do when your tried-and-true business model collapses? Randy Hartnell spent 17 years fishing in Alaska. When industry demands shifted and he couldn’t meet payroll, he had to make a change. He decided to start Vital Choice, shipping wild salmon by mail to consumers. Today, Vital Choice generates $20M a year. Listen and find out how you can get through challenging times and subsequently grow your business.   TOPICS:   What gave Randy the capabilities that he needed to be successful with Vital Choice? [02:20] What made Randy decide to start VitalChoice.com? [04:56] How did Randy get through the challenging and pivotal time for his business? [08:59] What were the steps that Randy took to get Vital Choice off the ground? [10:44] How did Randy tap into influencers to promote his business? [13:30] How much of a help were the influencers to Randy in getting his business to the seven-figure level? [13:59] How does the company get value from going to conferences and tradeshows? [16:22] How did the company grow its revenue from seven figures to eight figures? [20:34] What has Vital Choice done to differentiate their products, drive sales, and build brand loyalty? [21:13] What areas of customer experience does Vital Choice focus on? [22:54] What is the one thing that Randy did that had the biggest impact on Vital Choice’s growth? [26:42] What is Randy’s number one recommendation for selecting a partner? [27:42] What is Randy’s advice for breaking a ceiling? [30:38]   "To be successful, an idea has to sound crazy, because otherwise, somebody else would have done it.” - Randy Hartnell  "When you're doing what you're supposed to do, serendipity tends to happen.” - Randy Hartnell   More from Randy Hartnell Newsletter Email Instagram   Resource Mentioned Essentialism by Greg McKeown Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, share and subscribe to this podcast and don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

What does it take to make you happy? Jayson Gaignard, built a $7M a year ticketing business, only to discover it didn’t make him happy. On the verge of bankruptcy, he took a loan from a friend to throw an event and has since turned that event into a business that generates $2.1M a year. Want to find out more? In today’s episode, Jayson shares his story about overcoming adversity and finding your happiness.  TOPICS: What is MastermindTalks? [02:16] How did Jayson Gaignard first get into business and entrepreneurship? [03:23] How did Jayson get his first couple of 100 clients for his ticketing business? [06:16] Why did Jayson get into the retail space? [08:22] What is traction and how important is it? [11:45] What were the reasons why Jayson wasn’t happy despite the success of his ticketing business? [12:51] What is one of the lessons Jayson learned when he was scaling down his ticketing business? [17:57] How did Jayson start building everything again from scratch? [20:21] What is the value of relationships and being around other entrepreneurs? [21:55] How did Jayson throw his very first event with Tim Ferriss? [26:05] How did Jayson get people to attend his events? [30:53] What were some of the biggest lessons Jayson learned in building Mastermind Talks? [36:16] What are Jayson’s mindset and strategy around the events and how do they impact their success? [38:50]  “I realized that money and happiness scale very differently.” — Jayson Gaignard  “I would not be where I am, without a shadow of a doubt, without relationships.” — Jayson Gaignard  More from Jayson Gaignard Facebook LinkedInTwitter MastermindTalksMastermind DinnersThe Community Made Podcast Resources mentioned Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters Scaling Up by Verne Harnish Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish Traction by Gino Wickman The 4-Hour Chef All-You-Can-Eat Campaign of Goodness by Tim Ferriss Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, share and subscribe to this podcast and don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Russ Perry built a marketing agency. His agency had many problems which ultimately led to its failure. Russ shares those lessons he learned and how he built Design Pickle, providing unlimited graphic design, resulting in $4.7M in sales.  TOPICS: What is Design Pickle all about? [02:27] How did Russ Perry get into entrepreneurship? [2:56] How did his experience working at Apple help Russ Perry start his own business? [05:33] What were the first three steps Russ Perry took when he started his agency? [05:56] Why is it important to niche down when you’re running an agency? [09:59] How did Russ Perry get back on his feet after losing his agency? [15:03] How did Russ Perry come up with Design Pickle? [16:11] What makes Design Pickle’s business model successful? [22:51] How did Design Pickle gain customers? [24:10] How does Design Pickle handle customer retention? [29:43] How does outsourcing work for Design Pickle? [31:40] “Agencies are beyond difficult, so anyone who actually can succeed with one, I really admire them.” — Russ Perry “If you are not doing paid advertising, you do not have enough confidence in your product or service.” — Russ Perry More from Russ Perry www.instagram.com/russperry The Sober Entrepreneur Design Pickle Resources mentioned The 7 Day Startup by Dan Norris WP Curve Built to Sell Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes Thank you for listening! If you liked this episode, subscribe to this podcast and to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Mike Dillard has generated over $50M in his businesses. In this episode, he shares the lessons he’s learned that helped him build his current business, which generated $5.5M in sales last year while running on autopilot. TOPICS: What is Mike Dillard Mentoring all about? [02:18] What are some of the courses being offered in Mike Dillard Mentoring? [02:36] What is List-Grow? [03:24] What does it take to become wealthy or successful or generate the results that you’re looking for? [04:38] What were some of the skill sets and lessons that Mike Dillard learned from network marketing? [05:11] How should you present yourself and your business? [08:17] How did Mike Dillard solve the issue of lack of leverage through direct response marketing? [09:15] What is a simple road map of copywriting? [11:53] How did Mike Dillard get involved in the field of finance and investment? [14:11] How should you treat your audience? [16:57] Should you do affiliate promotions? [18:11] What is the advantage of email versus social media? [19:23] What are the benefits of doing webinars? [20:25] How did Mike Dillard come up with EverGrow? [28:40] Why did Mike Dillard decide to have two different products? [33:51] What is the Self Made Man podcast all about? [38:22] Why is it important to master a subject matter and become really good at it? [43:31]    “Email is still by far and away 10x the most effective when it comes to monetization or when it comes to selling.” — Mike Dillard “If you can master one skill set, you’re set. You can build a seven-figure business around that one single skill.” — Mike Dillard More from Mike Dillard Self Made Man List-Grow EverGrow Mike Dillard, Author at The Elevation Group Resources mentioned Dan Kennedy’s Direct Response Marketing Stansberry Research The Agora The Elevation Group Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes  Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed the show, subscribe to the podcast and leave me with a rating and a review on iTunes!