The Tech Smart Boss Podcast - Leveraging Technology to Grow Your Business (On a DIY Budget)

We talk about using content marketing and inbound marketing as a core Tech Smart Boss strategy. Done properly, this leaves you with a lot of great content, known as evergreen content, that you can share over and over again. You can also repurpose it (and you should) for your sales team. In this episode, I discuss the concept of reusing your content and converting it into sales and marketing collateral to help increase your sales. https://www.techsmartboss.com/135

Sadly there are only 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and not even a Tech Smart Boss can do anything about that. But guess what, that is plenty of time. The key is to work smarter, not harder, so there's no excuse for not having time to get stuff done. One method that I use is called Time Blocking and it can help you clear out all the distractions and get to what needs to be done, but it takes some process, some discipline, and some tech. In this episode, I explain the concept of time blocking and how to implement it for yourself as well as your team. https://www.techsmartboss.com/134

Trying to participate in social media these days is like trying to drink water out a fire hydrant. Everyone's doing it and for the few people out there actually trying to listen, you have a million people screaming "Hey, look at me!" So if you're going to do it, you don't want to do it alone, you need to bring your entire crew with you, and in business, that means your employees (and your extended network of partners, friends, and maybe even family). Google uses social shares as part of its magic box methods to influence search engine rankings. You want your team to know what amazing content you are publishing, ideally, it helps them offer better services to your customers and informs them on your message. But having them pay attention to your blog doesn't just happen, you need a process and a system. In this episode, I go through my process and some tools that I use to get your entire team on board with sharing your business content on social media and becoming aware of your content. https://www.techsmartboss.com/133

I just went through the nightmare scenario we all dread, my laptop got completely wiped. Everything gone, brand new OS installed, all data gone. But being a Tech Smart Boss, I was able to get my entire workspace back up and running, without losing anything, in less than a day (and now my laptop is working better than ever). In this episode, I go through the various tools and processes that I used to restore and rebuild my laptop from scratch when I surprisingly lost all my data while getting a repair. https://www.techsmartboss.com/132

I talk about being customer-centric all the time and frequently complain when I deal with companies that don't have the same approach to customer service that I believe should be delivered. But I've never gone into a step by step on how to become a customer-centric organization. It's like common sense, it's not so common until someone explains it to you. In this episode, I go through my 5 key steps that your organization should do (and continue to do) if you want to become a customer-centric organization. You don't want to miss this one. https://www.techsmartboss.com/131

There are lots of ways to give poor customer support, and one way, to send a canned response to your lead or customer the wrong way. And yes, there is a right way. Leveraging canned responses is a key business process that you need to implement in your business, but done incorrectly and you could be ruining your brand. In this episode, I go over the canned responses that you should implement in your chat, help desk, and sales teams, and how to do it in a way that delights your customers, not upset them. https://www.techsmartboss.com/130

You've probably heard the saying "It's cheaper to keep em" in reference to marriage, guess what it applies to employees as well (but only the really good ones, you have to let the bad ones go fast or they can cost you quite a bit). Seriously though, one of the best signs of a mature and profitable company is the retention rate. And in many cases, it's not the salary (alone) that determines if your best team members stay or go. In this episode, I go over 7 tips to show appreciation to your team and try to keep them happy, content, and not looking to leave your business. https://www.techsmartboss.com/129

When you're hanging out at a social engagement, we all see the same types of people. There are those who talk about nothing but themselves. Those that make boring small talk about the weather and other topics we don't care about. And then there's that person that tells stories, talks about engaging stuff you've never heard of before, and everyone just wants to hang around him (or her). Yes, I'm talking about the most interesting man in the world. Your social media channels are a lot like this. What are you posting as part of your social media strategy? I think is a pretty smart strategy of posting a little about yourself and a little about engaging topics that you curate around the interwebs, the best parts of the interwebs. But you may be thinking, who has time for that? In this episode, I talk about why you should add curated content to your social media strategy and how to go about finding it and some tools you can use to make the process easy. Https://www.techsmartboss.com/128

We talk a lot about project management technology (and we mention a bunch in this episode), but we never talk about perhaps the most important part of successfully managing projects, the project manager! And over the many years of managing and hiring project managers, this is probably the area where I have made my best hires, so I feel confident in sharing my experience in what you should look for when hiring a project manager. In this episode, I go over the soft skills and the technical skills you should look for when hiring a project manager to join your team. https://www.techsmartboss.com

The human brain is hard-wired to relate to stories. And what makes a billion dollar movie like Avengers: Endgame succeed is sticking to a tried and proven storytelling method. The same process of telling a story that helps Hollywood be successful can also be applied to your business, even a small business. In your content and marketing, you can build a brand and engage and convert brand ambassadors, using the same storytelling techniques. In this episode, I talk about the concept of leveraging storytelling in your marketing and content creation and point you to a few good resources to learn more about the topic. https://www.techsmartboss.com/126

Why prune a bush? To encourage healthier growth and rejuvenate it. It's a common thing we do to take care of our yard but it's something we rarely think about when it comes to the content on our blog. In fact, content pruning is a necessary thing, and it involves not just getting rid of old content, but in many cases, making old content better so it can grow you some more leads. In this episode, I talk about why you should content prune and how to do it. The end goal, maximize the value of your existing content and grow new leads from a little content spring cleaning. https://www.techsmartboss.com/125

A Tech Smart Boss is always trying to drive more traffic, drive more leads, and drive more sales. But sometimes, the easy place to mine for new gold is to clean up all the gold you dropped and left behind. OK, we're not talking about gold, we're talking about digital gold, website visitors who give you their email information so you can nurture them into leads. And there's a lot of things you can do on your website to improve the conversion rate of your existing traffic without spending a penny on new content or traffic. In this episode, I go over 10 (really about 15) super simple methods to help users convert more often on your website content. And we discuss some of the technology you can use to make it happen. https://www.techsmartboss.com/124

We're all about productivity and getting stuff done as a Tech Smart Boss. Finding that perfect blend of great business process and do it yourself technology to grow your business is what we're all about. To that extent, I'm a big believer that as a small business, you must embrace your strengths, and part of that is being more agile and nimble than your larger competition. You can move faster and in better communication and coordination with your team. Leveraging components of Scrum and Agile Project Management methodology, which is heavily used in software development, can really ramp up the productivity for all the areas of your business. In this episode, I talk about how to leverage agile project management in all areas of your business, including sales, marketing, operations. It's not just for software development teams. Https://www.techsmartboss.com/123

We talk a lot about content marketing, inbound marketing, lead magnets, search engine optimization, and all the things that enable you to drive leads from your website straight into your sales queue. But we've never gone deep into one of the most important pieces of the puzzle, your landing page. Without a successful landing page, you can drive all the traffic to your site that you want, drive them away that is. You have to have a great landing page to seal the deal and get that visitor to give you their information and become a lead. In this episode, we talk about the 8 essential components of a great landing page and go over some of the technology available to help you make one. https://www.techsmartboss.com/122

If you listen to the podcast, you know there are 2 things I am really passionate about, great customer support and metrics. Not just any metrics, but metrics you can use to make a difference in your business. So you know I was excited to combine both topics in the same episode. In this episode, I go over 9 customer support metrics that you should monitor in your business and most of them your help desk software will not provide you out of the box. https://www.techsmartboss.com/121

You may not know it, but odds are that you are using the Kanban project management methodology every day. In all areas of your business; sales, marketing, operations, development, and even in your own personal task management. It's a pretty simple concept, but when you combine the ability to have attributes like stages, priorities, assignees, time estimations, and more with the ease of seeing a task through all the stages of your defined process, Kanban boards are powerful. In this episode, I go over what a Kanban board is, how to get the most from it, and go over a few technology solutions that can allow you to bring this project management capability to your entire team. https://www.techsmartboss.com/120

It's been a while since I did a tech stack podcast, so since I've been using some new tools in my sales toolkit, I wanted to do a refresh episode. As with anything, a tech stack depends greatly on the type of business you're in. And in this case, what you're selling. I go over a tech stack that perfect for teams that sell products or services in primarily an Internet, digital marketing way. In this episode, I discuss 7 categories of Tech Smart Boss tools that your sales team needs to be the best they can be. And we cover a lot of options, so be sure to check the show notes for all the product websites mentioned. https://www.techsmartboss.com/119

We talk a lot about providing excellent customer support on the Tech Smart Boss podcast. It's something that should just be the standard for business, but unfortunately, for most organizations, they fall short. In this episode, I go over 8 things that you should be doing from a technology and process perspective to deliver great customer support.

A Tech Smart Boss believes in testing all things. Not just to find out what works, but what doesn't. This applies to our websites as well, but doing A/B testing can require a Ph.D. in mathematics if you do it the way some want you to. As a small business, you probably don't have the traffic to do highly scientific A/B testing and in general, your overall approach is going to be different (primarily focused on finding what works best). In this episode, I go over how to approach A/B testing when it's not your full-time job and you're not running a mega website with lots of traffic. With the ultimate objective to covert more leads and get more sales. https://www.techsmartboss.com/117

Case studies are excellent mid and bottom of the funnel evergreen content. Your potential customers may be ready to buy your product or service, they just need a little extra justification to pull the trigger. Seeing a case study that resonates with them can close the deal. But depending on your industry, it may be difficult to get customers to agree to do case studies. Especially if you are small and your customers are large. But never fear, a Tech Smart Boss always has a way to get the job done. In this episode, we cover what makes a good case study and if needed, how to take a slightly different approach and turn it into a use case so you can still achieve the goal of closing the deal. https://www.techsmartboss.com/116

We always talk about Content Marketing on the podcast and how it's typically going to be the best ROI for any bootstrapped business in terms of getting qualified leads. However, Content Marketing takes time, and to do it correctly takes even more time. And time is not something that a Tech Smart Boss has a lot of. So unless you just love to write, you generally have to have someone else write your content. Unless you've reached the stage where you can hire a content team, that typically means outsourcing it. But outsourcing anything has a lot of pitfalls, and outsourcing something as important as your content, has even more than normal. But if done properly, you can successfully navigate all the pitfalls and build a very successful content marketing strategy. In this episode, I discuss what some of those pitfalls are and how to avoid them. Plus I discuss a few options that I am currently using in my business. https://www.techsmartboss.com/115 Special Offer: Get 50% off your first 3 months of any Beamer plan. Are user engagement and client retention important to you? If so you should check out Beamer - a notification center and changelog plugin that lets you send announcements to users and site visitors for important news, latest products, updates, special offers and more. Used by top companies like Drift, Chargify and Vidyard and +5000 other sites to help get over 10x more user engagement. Our friends at Beamer are offering Tech Smart Boss subscribers a great deal for 50% off for your first 3 months. Just go to https://www.getbeamer.com/?ref=techsmart , sign up and enter this code: smart50

Some of your best customer and lead information flows through your support organization, but that valuable intel never reaches your sales team, to help them do their job better. Things such as feedback on competitor products, what they like and don't like about your product or service, key personnel changes in the users of your product and service and more. As a growing business, it's essential to have proper alignment of your sales and support teams, to ensure this doesn't happen. In this episode, I go over both the process and technology steps you can take to ensure your sales and support teams are in sync as you grow. Https://www.techsmartboss.com/114

One of the signals that Google uses to rank web pages is how long a person stays on that page before popping back into Google to search for the same thing. It's a metric called "Dwell Time." It's an important thing to increase on your website content, not just for Google, but to keep people on your site in general with the goal of converting them into leads. In this episode, I go over 5 things you can do to improve your dwell time, improve search engine rankings, and ultimately converting visitors into leads. https://www.techsmartboss.com/113

As humans we all have cognitive biases. Many were developed to help us survive way back in the cave man days, but can be quite destructive for an entrepreneur. In this episode, I discuss 7 cognitive biases that I have researched and identified in myself over the past 19 years of being an entrepreneur. And I discuss the importance of counteracting your natural biases to make the right decisions for your business and in life. https://www.techsmartboss.com/112

Anyone with kids can appreciate the effectiveness of asking why over and over again until the response is "Because I said so" or "Because God made it that way." Well in business, it turns out asking why 5 times, leads to a great root cause analysis method. And it applies to more than just troubleshooting manufacturing issues at a Toyota robotics plant (where it originated), it can help you identify issues in your business, hone in on customer persona marketing messages, and even identify major constraints in your day to day life. In this episode, I break down the 5 whys process, what is it and how to use it. https://www.techsmartboss.com/111

I've been talking a lot of about content and inbound marketing and how important search engine optimization or SEO is. It's one thing to have great content, but you also have to make sure you're putting your best foot forward with the search engines, to get them to recommend your content to their user and their search queries. In Episode 108, I talked about some of the technical factors of SEO, but with any implementation plan, you do the work, and then you need to track and monitor and measure to see if it's working (and improve if not). In this episode, I break down 8 key metrics that you should monitor related to SEO, to ensure that your content marketing efforts are headed in the right direction. https://www.techsmartboss.com/110

We talk a lot about the sales funnel on the Tech Smart Boss podcast. As we said on Episode 35, your website should be a lead generating engine for your business. And part of that lead generation is to take your buyer through a journey. They start in the top of the funnel, or awareness stage. Just learning about your industry or putting names to their needs. Then they get into the middle of the funnel, or consideration stage. They know they have a itch, and are looking to scratch it. And then they are at the bottom of the funnel, they think you have the right solution and are just wrapping up their due diligence to cross that threshold and marry you (hopefully with a financial transaction to seal the deal).

I always talk about how important it is to write great content as part of a inbound marketing strategy. You want to write content that answers questions that people are asking so that search engines like Google can send them your way. But an equally important part of the equation, is to structure your content so that you send the right signals to Google that the content is worthy of sending traffic to. That is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. In this episode, I break down 14 key things you should be doing on all your content, to make sure all the right signals are being sent to Google and that your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is done correctly, the Tech Smart Boss way. https://www.techsmartboss.com/108

Over the past 2 years I've made a complete reversal on the adoption of Chatbots. Back in Episode 49 of the podcast, I was all for Live Chat. And recently, in Episode 97, I went full blown Skynet, and sang the praises of the Chat Bot. But I never really gave a full explanation of why I went the chat bot route and I also don't want to leave the impression that everybody should go full speed into chat bots. So in this episode, I've going to go over the decision points you need to make to determine if live chat or chat bots are the way that your business should proceed. https://www.techsmartboss.com/107

Over the past 2 years, I've talked on the podcast a lot about content marketing, segmentation, customer personas, email deliverability, and automation. But I've never pulled it all together into an actionable task list of how to set up an email marketing automation too to bring it all together, until this episode. I just recently switched my email marketing automation platforms, so I found it very timely to share the steps I took so that you can have an idea of how to set up your own email marketing automation process. In this episode, listen to the 5 steps that I took as I migrated my email marketing automation platform, why those steps are important, and which pieces of technology I used to do it. https://www.techsmartboss.com/106

I haven't always been a fan of social proof widgets on a website, in fact, I'm a recent convert to the concept. In this episode, I discuss why I didn't like them and what changed my mind. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that they are a nice addition to your website to generate desired activities and conversions by your website visitors. This comes after testing a few good ones and sharing it on my YouTube site recently. Check out our videos on Fomo and Provesource. But there's a right way to do it and a wrong way. The wrong way ends up looking like big brother and less credible (not what you want). In this episode, I discuss what social proof is and the various types. Why it works, and how to add it to your website the right way. Plus I share a few technology options to get you started. Https://www.techsmartboss.com/105

Everyone these days seem to want, even demand, a work from home position. And I've talked in the past about my company, as well as many others, are 100% remote work companies. There are pros and cons to remote work, and I cover some of those in this episode, but if you are working remotely the majority of your time, there are some things you can do to do it successfully. In this episode, I cover 7 tips or best practices to be and stay productive as a remote worker. These are all things that I have learned over the years by both managing remote workers and being one myself. https://www.techsmartboss.com/104

It's hard to believe it's the end of the year already. It seems like just yesterday we were talking about planning for 2018, and now 2019 is basically about to steam roll us. More than just planning for the new year, there are a lot of key things an entrepreneur should be doing to wrap up a year. Some are routine things that we just have to prepare for, like taxes, but others are non-obvious and you may be missing a lot of opportunity if you don't take this time of the year to do. In this episode, I cover 7 of these key year end activities that every Tech Smart Boss should be working on right now to have a successful wrap up to 2018 and an even more productive start to 2019. https://www.techsmartboss.com/103

It's so easy when you're hiring your first (or 100th) employee just to do a quick Internet search and grab a job offer letter template and quickly hit the send button. But if you do that, you're missing a real opportunity to set the right impression for your potential hire, and in a competitive environment, you may just be losing out on the hire. There's a better way to let your personality and business culture show while ensuring you cover all the legal and information that needs to be included. In this episode, I cover exactly what those items are and talk about some of the technology that can help you land your superstar hire with a rock solid job offer letter. https://www.techsmartboss.com/102

In this episode, we continue with part 2 of your questions as part of our 100th episode, ask me anything. We wrap up 5 more questions submitted by our listeners and talk about topics that I hope will provide value to all Tech Smart Bosses. Enjoy and thanks for supporting us on our first 100 episodes (and now 101)! https://www.techsmartboss.com/101

It's hard to believe it's been 100 episodes of the Tech Smart Boss podcast. I'm just impressed I have stuck with it and had enough stuff to talk about for 100 episodes. More impressive (to me) is the feedback that I've gotten from the small community that has been built. Listeners from all over the world who have reached out to me on email, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter. And all the feedback has been really appreciated. For this episode, I decided to dedicate the 100th episode to answering listener questions. I took the questions received and picked the Top 10 (many an amalgamation of multiple similar type questions). In this episode, I made it through 5, so this is Part 1 of the Tech Smart Boss 100th Episode, Ask Me Anything. https://www.techsmartboss.com/100

One common trait of Tech Smart Bosses is that tend to support remote teams. I mean who wants to pay a bunch of rent to an expensive office space these days, plus, we're always looking to hire the best team, not just the best local team. We also rely heavily on part-time, freelancers, fractional staff and without realizing it, our remote and part-time staff typically play a critical role in our business. What we don't do well is contingency planning, especially when it comes to our remote teams. In the case of emergency, such as a natural disaster, do you have a plan on how to communicate with your remote team and how they should try to notify you of their status? Probably not. In this episode, I discuss why having a business continuity plan is important for your remote team and some tech and non-tech ways to ensure you always have your remote teams best interests and safety in mind. https://www.techsmartboss.com/99

Blockchain has been in the news a lot the past year or so, especially with the rise (and fall and rise and fall) of Bitcoin. But blockchain is much more than just cryptocurrency. More and more you hear that blockchain is the future and going to be a very disruptive force in business. The question is, the future of what? What the heck is a blockchain? So I've been casually reading, listening and learning more about blockchain over the past few months and in this episode, I give my best non-technical (ok, slightly technical) rendition of what blockchain is, the use cases, how it is going to affect our businesses and what we should be doing about it now. https://www.techsmartboss.com/98

I've been talking about chatbots for over a year, but I've never really taken them serious. Well, I've changed my mind and I'm jumping in the deep end of the pool with chatbots (I hope they are waterproof and doing this doesn't electrocute me). I still feel that chatbots are to be feared in the mid-term future, when they start to really disrupt jobs and business models (and becoming sentient and killing humans), but for small businesses today, chatbots can really be a powerful tool in your arsenal. In this episode, I cover what a chatbot is, the many business use cases that you can leverage chatbots for, and how to get started setting one up. Plus I give you a lot of technology choices, including my current favorite. https://www.techsmartboss.com/97

Content Marketing is changing and if you're not on top of the changes you will become as obsolete as an Apple Adapter when they release the next iPhone

In Episode 60 of the podcast (https://www.techsmartboss.com/60), I talked about how to use key performance indicators and metrics as levers in your business. One of the things I cautioned about was spending a lot of time tracking vanity metrics. If you are serious about email marketing, and it is a proven sales channel for your business, there are some key metrics that you should monitor (but not until you have a mature email marketing process). In this episode, I go over 7 key metrics, how to calculate them, and why they are important. Hopefully, this episode will help you if you are doing a lot of email marketing or trying to grow into email marketing as a channel that moves the needle for your business. https://www.techsmartboss.com/95

There are a lot of podcasts out there, hopefully you find the Tech Smart Boss podcast as one of the better ones (I mean at least put me on the right side of the bell curve). One question that I get a lot is how to start a podcast. There's a belief that you have to be a real techie combined with some magic. But it's not really that tough and unless you let perfection be the enemy of progress. In this episode, I go over 7 steps (which could easily have been 21 but I compressed it to 7) so that you can start your own podcast. After listening to this episode, you will have no reason not to do it (other than general procrastination and perfectionist themes that run in us Tech Smart Boss phenotypes). https://www.techsmartboss.com/94

There's a lot of bad websites on the Internet. And I'm not just talking about design (although that's a big reason). I'm talking about websites that are not delivering for the businesses that they belong to. Not delivering leads, not delivering credibility, not delivering value to the customers and potential customers who visit them. In this episode, I go over 5 reasons why you probably need to refresh and redesign your website and hopefully this will give you the justification to make the Internet great again

Many entrepreneurs focus so much on top-line growth (increasing sales revenue) that they fail to miss a major factor in long-term success, keeping gripes on the bottom line (expenses). Unless you are Uber, you really need to manage your business expenses tightly. Cash(flow) rules everything around me (C.R.E.A.M.) is the bootstrapped entrepreneurs mantra (shout out to Wu-tang Clan, I'm not biting, I'm giving respect). In this episode, I go over the 5 key areas that I focus on when it comes to keeping my business expenses (and my mental health) in order and I list a lot of technology that can help you do it. https://www.techsmartboss.com/92

These days hacks are so frequent, anything that happens, even unintentional bad judgment tweets, is just explained by, "Oh I was hacked."  But when it comes to your business and your brand, it's not that simple.  A hack can end you or critically injure your business.  And in many cases, it's not just an outside hacker that is looking to do you damage, in fact, I would say it's more likely an internal threat such as a disgruntled employee. In this episode, I talk about how to set up a process to identify your exposure points and leverage technology to help mitigate your expose, to hacks from within and without (ok, that's not the right word but it does have a natural flow to it, from inside hackers and outside hackers as well).  Enjoy! https://www.techsmartboss.com/91

Just like anything in life, there are some good lead magnets and there are some bad lead magnets.  A good lead magnet is one that produces... leads.  Good lead magnets require some upfront planning and in this episode, I got over 6 key things you must do in order to create good, converting lead magnets. https://www.techsmartboss.com/90

Some of the keys to being a great entrepreneur (other than being a Tech savvy, Tech Smart Boss) is having a great decision-making process, building a culture where everyone's opinion matters, and always questioning assumptions.  A great way to accomplish all of these is being very adept at using the SWOT process.    SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and in this podcast, I go over 7 steps to doing it right and helping your business grow through great decision making. https://www.techsmartboss.com/89

Getting feedback from your customers and leads are critical to improving your business.  But everybody is busy these days, so no one has time for your long boring survey asking a million questions.  You have to be strategic, and use the latest survey technology and techniques, and then have a plan for how you want to use the information you lean. In this episode, I go over 7 steps for making a survey that can deliver and also discuss some technology options to help you implement them. https://www.techsmartboss.com/88

Sometimes we focus so much on customer acquisition, we miss the low hanging fruit of ensuring the customers we win have an amazing experience and transition to ambassadors for our product or service.  Even worse,  if you offer a trial of your software and hope to convert them to paying customers,  messing up on your onboarding can create a big leak in your sales funnel. In this episode, I go over 6 ways to improve your onboarding process and this applies to both software and services delivery.  Hopefully, after listening, you'll have a few ideas to take away to improve what you are currently doing. https://www.techsmartboss.com/87

Artificial Intelligence is something we see a lot in sci-fi movies about the benefits and most of the time, the dangers, of the future when AI becomes a reality, takes over, and kills all humans.  Well, the truth is,  artificial intelligence is not just something in the future, but it's the present and it's already a real impact to our businesses and the future of entrepreneurs (hopefully not the robot killing part). In this episode, I cover the history and the basics of what artificial intelligence actually means and discuss some of the impacts to various industries now and in the future, and what we might be able to do to prepare. https://www.techsmartboss.com/86

Sometimes things can be a little overwhelming as an entrepreneur.  Things that you have to get done come at you fast and furiously.  And sometimes you just get in a rut and don't want to do anything,  especially when there are a lot of more fun things you could be doing, such as summer vacations. In either case, you need to prioritize what is important and get done what matters, ideally quickly and accurately.  In this episode,  I go over my 4 steps to help plan what needs to get done each day and week,  which allows me to keep my sanity and be more productive so that I can have some downtime when needed. https://www.techsmartboss.com/85