Podcast appearances and mentions of clay hebert

Ever realized how storytelling goes beyond marketing, actually influencing product value, brand perception, and the triumph of company exits? The benefits of storytelling contribute to the long-term growth and success of a business by shaping its identity, influencing how it is perceived, and building a loyal customer base. People are drawn to stories that resonate with their experiences, values, and aspirations. And by crafting a unique and authentic narrative, businesses can differentiate themselves and leave a lasting impression on consumers.  Clay Hebert, a visionary in this real, delves into the art of weaving narratives that define the trajectory of businesses. As a renowned entrepreneur, storyteller, and marketing strategist, he has a proven track record of helping companies craft compelling narratives that not only drive growth but also resonate with their target audience.  His insights into the art of storytelling have been shared on stages worldwide, inspiring countless individuals to leverage storytelling for business success.  Today, he is joining us on The Greatness Machine to look back on how it started, who inspired him, and how he became the man that he is right now.  In this episode, Darius and Clay explore Clay's journey from selling candy bars to embracing entrepreneurship and creative marketing. They emphasize the power of personal connections over sales pitches, the influence of Seth Godin, strategic customer selection, and the creation of the "Perfect Intro" framework. The conversation underscores how storytelling shapes product value, brand perception, and company success, encapsulating Clay's expertise in marketing, entrepreneurship, and storytelling dynamics. Topics include: How Clay learned an early lesson in marketing by selling candy bars What inspired Clay to shift towards entrepreneurship and creative marketing The importance of creative thinking and adapting to different environments in overcoming creative blocks The value of personal connection over sales pitches How Seth Godin played a vital role in Clay's entrepreneurial journey Clay explains why strategic customer selection matters in a business Clay recalls his encounter with Matt Mullenweg and how that meeting led to the idea of the “Perfect Intro” framework How the power of storytelling impacts a company's life cycle And other topics… Resources mentioned: Purple Cow: https://www.amazon.com/Purple-Cow-Transform-Business-Remarkable/dp/014101640X  This is Marketing: https://www.amazon.com/This-Marketing-Cant-Until-Learn/dp/0241370140/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0 Creative Act: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/0593652886/ref=sr_1_1  Connect with Clay: Website: https://clayhebert.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clayhebert/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/clayhebert  Connect with Darius: Website: https://therealdarius.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariusmirshahzadeh/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whoompdarius/ YouTube: https://therealdarius.com/youtube Book: The Core Value Equation https://www.amazon.com/Core-Value-Equation-Framework-Limitless/dp/1544506708 Sponsored by: Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/DARIUS. Shopify: Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/darius. Stash: Join millions of Americans reaching their financial goals—starting at just $3/month! Get $25 towards your first stock purchase at get.stash.com/GREATNESS. Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at RocketMoney.com/Darius.  Write a review for The Greatness Machine using this link: https://ratethispodcast.com/spreadinggreatness.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While digital strategies often steal the spotlight, the enduring power of offline word-of-mouth marketing shouldn't be underestimated. In this episode of the Marketing Speak podcast, marketing strategist and storyteller Clay Hebert dives into the art of crafting "portable stories" that spark conversations and drive brand awareness. Recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the "50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs," Clay brings a wealth of expertise to the discussion. He shares his innovative "verb your noun" framework for creating impactful taglines and value propositions, along with insights into how AI tools are reshaping the landscape of copywriting. This episode explores a wide array of marketing and branding topics, including the strategic importance of selecting your audience, the power of clear and polarizing messaging, and effective domain and branding strategies. Clay also provides actionable advice for authors and content creators looking to amplify their ideas. Packed with practical tips and thought-provoking insights, this episode is a must-listen for anyone eager to elevate their marketing approach. Tune in to learn how to blend creativity and strategy to leave a lasting impression!  The show notes, including the transcript and checklist for this episode, are at marketingspeak.com/480.

In this episode, keynote speaker and marketing strategist Clay Hebert shares his approach to crafting the perfect introduction.Clay breaks down why traditional elevator pitches fall short and introduces his 'verb-their-noun' formula to help you create clear, engaging, and memorable intros that foster real connections.Listen in to discover practical storytelling techniques, avoid common pitfalls, and transform how you present yourself and your business.Timestamps:00:00 Introduction00:58 Top Mistakes to Avoid in Your Introductions02:44 3 Common Myths About Introductions Debunked02:56 Myth 1: Why Introductions Shouldn't Be About You03:24 Myth 2: Why "Completeness" Hurts Your Intro04:16 Myth 3: The Problem with Prioritizing Accuracy in Intros05:19 How to Create Human Connection in Your Introductions08:06 The Ultimate Formula for Crafting a Perfect Introduction11:50 The Verb-Their-Noun Formula for Strong Introductions16:09 How to Avoid Buzzwords and Tell Simple, Impactful Stories20:52 How to Use Intrigue to Capture Attention in Your Intro28:37 Why Clarity Is the Key to Effective Communication31:14 Using Analogies to Make Your Introductions Clearer32:05 How to Make Your Intro Referable and Shareable34:19 How to Craft Transformation-Based Introductions That Engage35:46 How to Make Your Introduction Short, Memorable, and Impactful42:03 The Power of Storytelling in Making Memorable Intros44:03 How Customer Success Stories Can Improve Your Introduction50:04 Scalability of Effective Intros54:42 Closing ThoughtsIf you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe, share it with your friends, and leave us a review. We read every single one.Learn more about The Nathan Barry Show: https://nathanbarry.com/show/ Follow Nathan:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathanbarry/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanbarry/ X: https://twitter.com/nathanbarry/ Website: https://nathanbarry.com/ Follow Clay:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clayhebert/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clayhebert/ X: https://twitter.com/clayhebert/ Website: https://clayhebert.com/ Featured in this episode:Clay Hebert: https://www.clayhebert.com/ Nathan Barry: https://www.nathanbarry.com/ Monster Energy: https://www.monsterenergy.com/ Liquid Death: https://www.liquiddeath.com/ Seth Godin: https://www.sethgodin.com/ Gary Vaynerchuk: https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/ Jeff Spencer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjeffspencer/ Sean Stevenson: https://www.sleepsmarter.com/ Tim Grahl: https://timgrahl.com/ Kit: https://www.kit.com/ Craft & Commerce: https://conference.kit.com/ Donald Miller: https://www.donaldmiller.com/ Nisha Bora: https://rainbowplantlife.com/about/ Moo: https://www.moo.com/ Indiegogo: https://www.indiegogo.com/ Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/ Quartz: https://www.qz.com/ Highlights:03:37 Why Intros Shouldn't Be Complete09:44 How to Increase Your Luck Surface Area in Business29:34 How Clarity Drives Higher Conversion Rates42:27 The Power of Strong Copywriting47:22 Kit's Example: Using Customer Transformation Stories

Welcome back to "The Art of Making Things Happen," Today, we have an extraordinary episode lined up with a fascinating guest, Dr. Doug Brackmann, a renowned expert in psychology and the founder of iamdriven.com. Dr. Doug is here to delve into the intricacies of the driven personality, sharing insights from his innovative combination of long-range shooting and meditation to help high achievers understand and leverage their unique brain wiring. In this episode, we explore the physics of bullet trajectories and the mental challenges involved in achieving pinpoint accuracy over a mile. Doug shares transformative experiences from his meditation shoots and the profound impact they've had on participants, including prominent entrepreneurs like Jason Gagnard and Clay Hebert. We dive deep into Doug's career evolution, his innovative online assessment for driven individuals, and the essential role of understanding one's emotional impulses in entrepreneurship. We'll also discuss the societal roles of driven people and their historical significance, the all-too-common imposter syndrome among high achievers, and how to harness the power of being present to avoid self-sabotage. Plus, we'll chat about upcoming events and projects that you won't want to miss. So, buckle up and get ready for an enlightening conversation packed with actionable insights and personal growth strategies. Let's jump right in!

Marketing guru Clay Hebert doesn't pull his punches in sharing his wisdom on what is real, and what is bullsh*t.  For a decade, Clay led teams at Accenture, solving complex problems for global Fortune 500 companies. He escaped corporate America to attend the most selective MBA program in the country...he was one of only 9 people to learn directly from marketing expert Seth Godin for six months. Clay's work has been profiled in the books Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss, Entrepreneurial You by Dorie Clark, and Deep Work by Cal Newport. He's helped over 2000 projects raise over $100 million total on crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Forbes called him “one of the next generation of business and media influencers” and he was recently named one of Entrepreneur Magazine's 50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs...along with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. In this episode Clay is here to help us figure out what we really sell, how to tell better stories, grow our brands, and do the work we're meant to do. FIT FOR SERVICE Go to fitforservice.com to find out more about the online and in person experiences. MUD/WTR Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mudwtr.com/amp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, to get a free frother and $20 off. RAICES INKA Helping to raise one more person‘s consciousness, which ultimately raises global consciousness. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.raicesinkas.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Connect with Aubrey | Website | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2GesYqi ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2BlfCEO ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2F4nBZk ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://bit.ly/2BlGBAdAd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out "Own your Day, Own Your Life" by Aubrey Marcus | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2vRz4so⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the Aubrey Marcus newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.aubreymarcus.com/pages/email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the Aubrey Marcus podcast: iTunes | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://apple.co/2lMZRCn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Spotify |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://spoti.fi/2EaELZO ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stitcher | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/2G8ccJt ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ IHeartRadio | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ihr.fm/3CiV4x3 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Google Podcasts | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3nzCJEh ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Android | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/2OQeBQg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Have you ever had someone ask you what you do, only to stumble over your words? Communicate what you do in a way that creates interest and leaves you stumble-free. Pretend like you're a screenwriter and finding the story Defining your champagne moment and perfect calendar Three questions to ask yourself to identify what you should focus on for a happier business and life -- FREE GIFT - Get a free copy of the Wealthy Fit Pro's Guide to Getting Clients and Referrals (digital and audio. Sells for $22.99 on Amazon.) HOW - Rate / review this podcast, take a screenshot, and send it to obviouschoicepod@gmail.com -- Hosts: @itscoachgoodman @fitnessjonestraining @amberreynolds.me -- Join 72,000+ trailblazers, leaders, and coaches who fuel up with our low-stress, high-impact 5 REPS FRIDAY newsletter at www.5repsfriday.com. The Obvious Choice podcast is presented by QuickCoach - free, professional software for fitness and nutrition coaches that elevates the value of what you do. Join 35,000+ coaches and get your account today at www.quickcoach.fit.

Ever realized how storytelling goes beyond marketing, actually influencing product value, brand perception, and the triumph of company exits? The benefits of storytelling contribute to the long-term growth and success of a business by shaping its identity, influencing how it is perceived, and building a loyal customer base. People are drawn to stories that resonate with their experiences, values, and aspirations. And by crafting a unique and authentic narrative, businesses can differentiate themselves and leave a lasting impression on consumers.  Clay Hebert, a visionary in this real, delves into the art of weaving narratives that define the trajectory of businesses. As a renowned entrepreneur, storyteller, and marketing strategist, he has a proven track record of helping companies craft compelling narratives that not only drive growth but also resonate with their target audience.  His insights into the art of storytelling have been shared on stages worldwide, inspiring countless individuals to leverage storytelling for business success.  Today, he is joining us n The Greatness Machine to look back on how it started, who inspired him, and how he became the man that he is right now.  In this episode, Darius and Clay explore Clay's journey from selling candy bars to embracing entrepreneurship and creative marketing. They emphasize the power of personal connections over sales pitches, the influence of Seth Godin, strategic customer selection, and the creation of the "Perfect Intro" framework. The conversation underscores how storytelling shapes product value, brand perception, and company success, encapsulating Clay's expertise in marketing, entrepreneurship, and storytelling dynamics. Topics include: How Clay learned an early lesson in marketing by selling candy bars What inspired Clay to shift towards entrepreneurship and creative marketing The importance of creative thinking and adapting to different environments in overcoming creative blocks The value of personal connection over sales pitches How Seth Godin played a vital role in Clay's entrepreneurial journey Clay explains why strategic customer selection matters in a business Clay recalls his encounter with Matt Mullenweg and how that meeting led to the idea of the “Perfect Intro” framework How the power of storytelling impacts a company's life cycle And other topics… Resources mentioned: Purple Cow: https://www.amazon.com/Purple-Cow-Transform-Business-Remarkable/dp/014101640X  This is Marketing: https://www.amazon.com/This-Marketing-Cant-Until-Learn/dp/0241370140/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0 Creative Act: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/0593652886/ref=sr_1_1  Connect with Clay: Website: https://clayhebert.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clayhebert/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/clayhebert  Connect with Darius: Website: https://therealdarius.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariusmirshahzadeh/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whoompdarius/ YouTube: https://therealdarius.com/youtube Book: The Core Value Equation https://www.amazon.com/Core-Value-Equation-Framework-Limitless/dp/1544506708 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Such a fun episode! You may remember Joey Coleman from Episode 54. He's entertaining, engaging, and he's written one of the best books I've ever read (listen to the episode to find out which one). In this episode we talk about: -What Joey learned from his wife who's an editor and ghostwriter (and the tough feedback she gave on his new book)-“The Portable Story” concept from Clay Hebert that will help you write a book that people share with others-How to tell great stories and teach better through case studies in your book-The point of a great story / case study in your book (this was eye opening)We also talk about: -The 3 types of books (according to Joey)-The things Joey does to keep selling copies of his book long after his launch date (the secret to a perennial bestseller) -The most interesting piece of advice Joey got from Ryan Holiday during lunch on his launch day-A joint book launch party?! Should you do it with another author and what Joey learnedThis was another fun conversation with Joey. Don't miss this. Check out his new book Never Lose An Employee Again. Watch the free training: https://selfpublishing.com/freetrainingSchedule a no-cost call with our team: https://selfpublishing.com/schedule Here are some links that might come in handy: Apply for a free book consultation Register for our free on-demand training Join us at our live virtual event - Author Advantage Live 2023 Must-watch episodes: SPS 044: Using A Free + Shipping Book Funnel with Anik Singal SPS 115: Using Atomic Habits To Write & Publish A Book with James Clear SPS 127: Traditional vs. Self Publishing: Which You Should Choose with Ruth Soukup SPS 095: The Five Love Languages: Selling 15 Million Copies with Gary Chapman SPS 056: How I Sold ...

Sherrell Dorsey is the founder and CEO of The Plug, a publication and community for news, insights and analysis on trends in Black innovation. The Plug features stories that show the substantive ways Black people engage with the innovation economy, including analyses of modern technologies.On today's show, Sherrell shares about building an audience and growing The Plug. We talk about sponsorships, The Plug's revenue model, and her background in journalism and how she brings that into her current work. We also talk about choosing a niche, staying consistent, and much more.Sherrell has worked in marketing and consulting for companies such as Uber, Tresata, MarketSource, and Build The Good. Sherrell has also worked as a correspondent for Fast Company, Essence, Next City, and Black Enterprise. She earned her master's degree in data journalism from Columbia University.In this episode, you'll learn: How to grow your subscribers when first starting out Different strategies for monetizing your newsletter The right way to include advertising in your newsletter Tradeoffs between having a team and working as a solopreneur Links & Resources Clay Hebert Monica Melton Farnam Street Shane Parrish Ryan Holiday Daily Stoic James clear Uber Google Fiber Microsoft Fast Company The Root Black Enterprise GoDaddy theSkimm Signal Bloomberg Terminal Business Insider The Moguldom Nation Sherrell Dorsey's Links Follow Sherrell on Twitter The Plug The Plug newsletter HBCU newsletter TPinsights.com Episode Transcript00:00:00 Sherrell:I think that we've gotten into this very fast pace, and this idea of constant information and voices in your head. I don't know that more information is making us a better society. I think that this idea of community and grappling with ideas, calling things out or bringing things to attention, but having something meaningful to say really outweighs just being visible all of the time. 00:00:31 Nathan:My guest today is Sherrell Dorsey. Sherrell is the founder of The Plug, which is a newsletter, and really a publication at this point, about the black tech ecosystems and all the interesting things that black and brown founders are doing in technology and business. She started in 2016, and she's built it up to have a full-time team of five people now.I'm so impressed with what she's built. We get into talking about sponsorships, the revenue model, how she built the audience, her background in journalism, and how she brings that into what she's doing now. I actually grew up in tech and some of the ecosystems that she was a part of that inspired her.We talk about choosing a niche and staying focussed there. We talk about consistency. There's really a lot of things in this episode. I love what she's doing and how she's built this niche business into something that now employs full-time journalists. At a time when a lot of other publications are dwindling, she's growing.So, let's dive into the episode.Sherrell, welcome to the show.00:01:35 Sherrell:Thank you so much for having me.00:01:37 Nathan:I actually want to start talking about experimentation. We're going to jump around a little bit. You like to run a lot of experiments, and you've taken an approach on experimentation where you're doing it at a stage in the business where you have a lot going on. A lot is working. This is a point where I see a lot of content creators freak out and stop experimenting because they're like, “This is what my audience likes. I have to show up in exactly this way.”So, they don't experiment. Even at this level of success, you're like, “No, experimentation is a core part of what we're doing.”Could you talk about that, and some of the experiments that you run, and then your mindset around it?00:02:12 Sherrell:We're constantly challenging ourselves as a team, and trying not to get bored. Part of our experimentation may have more to do with the attention deficit issues that we have as a team, as a collective. Maybe not as much as our audience, but we also assume that they also have attention issues.Let's be honest, there's so much competing for our audience's attention, right? I mean, outside of the inbox, theres social media, there's the day-to-day of all the crazy, all the push notifications. So, for us, experimentation really is at the core of challenging ourselves to face something new and interesting, and really tapping into what.The sort of timeliness of news, and really finding a way to put it into our voice and share some of our opinions as well. Even with running The Plug's weekly briefing experimentation is really even just how I got started. The Plug for me was an experiment. I was getting up at 5:00 AM, pulling together a newsletter, wanting to cover diverse voices in tech.Doing it just as this labor of love, and also nerdiness and curiosity, and it started to grow. Then I said, well, maybe I can do this every single day. Then I did it every day. Then at some point we realized, hmm, are people having inbox fatigue? What if we slow things down and really make people cherish every single sentence that we're writing in our newsletters, and giving them a long and deep side of slow conversations on Monday mornings as they're starting their day.We've seen those questions that we're asking kind of manifest in this idea of experimenting with just our curiosity. We've seen that well, I mean, honestly, Nathan, we're getting 45% to 48% open rates on every single newsletter, and it has been pretty consistent.When we were in the daily phase, we were starting to see those open rates go down. People just didn't even have enough time to read. So, again, we start with the question, “Well, what if, or how do we personally sort of engage with our news and with our information, and how do we create a moment of almost intimacy with our audience and our subscribers?” Where instead of just having the breadth, we can actually have the depth.00:04:40 Nathan:Yeah. I want to talk about the consistency and the schedule later in the episode, but let's go there right now because I think a lot of people, when they're writing their newsletter, they struggle with how often to send. And, you know, if you look at someone like Seth Godin who publishes every day and has done it for, I don't know, decades at this point, it's like, oh, I should be like Seth Goden and publish every single day or send out, you know, a newsletter five days a week.But one that's incredibly hard to maintain. And then two, I think you'll see exactly what you're talking about. The engagement and interest drops off, too much of a good thing is still too much. What do you think about that?00:05:18 Sherrell:I think that we've gotten into this very fast paced. I mean, I, you know, Twitter became a thing when I was like exiting undergrad and this idea of just constant information and voices in your head. Was kind of standard and status quo. And I feel as though now we really wanted to hyper focus on how do we get people to sit with ideas and thoughts before we kind of bombard them with just more information.And I don't know that more information is making us a better society. I think that this idea of community and grappling with ideas, you know, calling things out or bringing things to attention, but having something meaningful to say really outweighs, just being visible all of the time. I think especially with the newsletter, with the newsletter, you're telling stories, you are bringing ideas to the forefront, you're surfacing news and information for people to kind of ruminate on.And then we can kind of hit people later on in the week, which we do with here's opportunities to engage further. Or did you check out this data set that we've pulled together that will allow you to look at. How HBCs are graduating, like the top black engineers in the country. And so for us, it's about what is the value that we're providing to our audience?Why, why would they want to continue to open the email instead of just, let's be there for the sake of being there, you know? And it's like, it's like small talk at networking events where like people are pushing their business card on you. And you're like, I don't ever want to 00:06:50 Nathan:Okay 00:06:50 Sherrell:You ever again in life.And we definitely did not want to be that like pushy networker. We just wanted people to be able to sit with us, have a cup of coffee, have a tea, and just, you know, Really, really, connect with us and our work. And so, thus far, you know, like I said, we really saw our open rates increased drastically going from the daily into that weekly and it being meaningful.And our managing editor, Monica Melton, who was our first employee at The Plug has really, really ramped up subject lines and experimenting, in AB testing that has been so beneficial in terms of how the newsletter is being received.00:07:36 Nathan:Well, that's something that you just can't do when you're on a daily deadline. I'm trying to rush out on that scale, or you have to have a much larger staff to be able to bring that level of thoughtfulness and testing to each piece of content.00:07:50 Sherrell:So true. So very true. I mean, you know, we've always sort of operated and I think most startups, you kind of have to do more with less. And I think from the standpoint of delivering higher value really wanted our team to be able to think through, well, what should that Monday newsletter say? What are the opportunities that we can really present to our audience that are thoughtful?Even during our editor, our weekly editorial call, like we, we, we really deep dive into what are some of the top issues? What do we think about it? We really get to massage it out and be thoughtful. And I don't know, even if we had a larger team, maybe we would do more, maybe, maybe less. General newsletter, maybe more profiles would be really nice.And we've recently launched a new newsletter as well. it's kind of the niche of the niche. our incredible HBCU innovation reporter recently launched an executive newsletter for those who are recruiters, HR professionals who are really trying to understand how do historically black colleges and universities play a role in the future of work and just breaking down stats, breaking down the kinds of patents that are being developed, breaking down the kind of research coming out of these institutions ways in which to engage with faculty, new entrepreneurship centers, all of these like really incredible stats that you don't really hear on a daily basis.So that now that is a subset where now we have increased the cadence of our newsletters, but we've created that for a very specific niche within the niche of audience that we serve.00:09:26 Nathan:You said something about it's almost the environment that your newsletter is received into of your app. Like telling someone slow down, this is be thoughtful. This is a thoughtful part of your morning. Like have your cup of coffee, have your tea. And I'm realizing that as a newsletter creator myself, I often don't think about like, I'm not asking.The reader to get in a state of mind to engage with my content or get in a physical space. And so this is it's interesting, I haven't thought about before and it would change the approach to the content and it would for sure change the approach to the writing because instead of going okay, punchy headlines quick, this is for the busy professional, reading it on the subway, you know, like that's one style and it sounds like you're hitting in a completely different style, I guess.Tell me more about that. And then the other aspect of it is what are the ways that you reinforce that message to your readers? Cause it's one thing, if you think in your editorial room and conversations, but that you have to actually translate that to the reader so that they feel it as well.00:10:31 Sherrell:Yeah, we just didn't want to be forced to speed up. honestlyit was who I always liked this idea of, of slower journalism. I grew up such a reader like my mom and I get up on Saturday mornings and go to Barnes and noble when like bonds. And like when we actually went into bookstores, right.She would like leave me in the kids' section. And I would just like, get a mountain of books and just sit and read. And I always think about that opportunity of like just saying. And reading and in sitting and like digesting ideas and information. And when I think about some of my favorite newsletters, I think about, the, the Farnam street blog and, and Shane Parrish, Paul Jarvis used to write an incredible newsletter.There's just so many incredible writers and thinkers that create these kinds of long form pieces. I think, right in holiday and the daily, it does a really interesting sort of long form, you know, he does, he definitely does like the, the Daily of course, cause it's the daily. but these kinds of newsletters that really made you think about the world around us and sort of the new ideas that are emerging and.I felt as though, as we were starting to deep dive into this Nisha space, of course we cover black and brown innovators, future of work, future of business, inclusive business ideas that are highly data-driven. You have to really sit and think about what this data means when it means within your work. And it's not just like a flash in the pan, series or subsets of ideas.It really is how do I take this and apply it to my work and everyday capacity. So we didn't want to just give like bullet points of actions. It was more of, you have to apply this in your world in your way. And so I wanted to kind of recreate that to an extent. and as I mentioned before, you know, experimenting with.Subject lines and titles and flow. And I mean, even just organization of information, you know, there's always sort of the backend analytics that you can take a look at. What are people actually clicking on? What kind of things do they care about? serving our audience, a great deal to understand what they want to hear more about.I know that there are a lot of investors who subscribed to us who are always looking at our startups to watch section, and just the fact that people are able to kind of read this very long email and find a section that resonates with them and decide to take an action from that. That for us really demonstrates kind of a metric that we did not even anticipate going into this.And that really has to do with listening to our audience, quite frankly.00:13:11 Nathan:Yeah, that's good. I have more people will take that approach. cause I think. Now you say that and noticing that trend in a lot of these newsletters, like Shane Parrish, or like James clear, some of these others that have been going for a long time and built these substantial audiences is there's a level of intentionality that really makes it unique in that way.Let's go back. And, now that we've gotten into some of the tactics and the high-level things, let's talk about, you know, actually starting The Plug. So you started in 2016, is that00:13:39 Sherrell:I did. I started at 2016 as a labor of love. I had been writing freelance. I was working in tech, so I am an alum of Uber, as well as Google fiber, Microsoft and high school. I like worked, as an intern and like tech was always just such a big part of my life. And I grew up in Seattle. So it's like, go figure of course, like the girl that like grew up in Seattle is like a tech person.So, so it was always a huge part of my life. And what was really cool about my experience in Seattle is that I was trained in coding and network administration and all these really cool programming language and languages from a woman who was a retired software engineer from Microsoft, who like converted a storefront.And she was like, I want to teach inner city kids like about technology because. I'm female, I'm brown, I'm gay. Like there's not many folks like me in this space. And like, I want to create back in this space. And so my experience was just so unique. And when I got into the workforce and the conversations that were happening in media did not include voices from folks like myself or from Trish who started the center that I went to.And the folks who kind of raised me while I was at Microsoft, who were from all kinds of backgrounds and all kinds of experiences and like would burn me like, remember back in the day when you were burning, This amazing mentor who like she was like, burn me, like all of the Mo like the brand new heavies, most Def like all of these, like really amazing like albums.And, you know, at the same time, like teach me about like walking through this space of tech in a very male dominated field. And so when it come to the workforce and the media was kind of always a grandizing like all of these men and their ideas about the future, I was like, well, I've met some really like dope, you know, women engineers, or really dope, like black software developers and test engineers.And, I shared, you know, office spaces with, you know, incredible like female engineers from India. And I just did not see that like thought leadership component coming from these different facets of society. And I was like, well, you know, I want to start covering communities outside of these kinds of normal technical.Right. And I also was just walking through the world in living in places like New York city, living in Charlotte, North Carolina, even Bridgeport, Connecticut random. And just really finding these genius ideas and people in business leaders who were kind of unsung to a degree, but were working on really hard challenges and finding some success.So I had been kind of freelancing and, and writing for fast company, the route black enterprise and sharing these things. And I started to kind of become known as like, oh, like she's like the black girl Tector list. Who's like trying to cover everyone. and so at some point, you know, I got to a point where like, I really want my own column.I really want my own column. And you know, I think editors thought like, okay, your writing is okay, but it's not like, great.And like, this space is kind of cool, but like, that's just not what we do. And so, you know, I was like, okay, I'm going to spend my $10. I go daddy and buy my domain name. And I'm, you know, people were already calling me like The Plug, like, you know, where everything is, whoever went is, you know, what's happening, what's going around.And so I just started like this newsletter, I just went for broke and it was like, I'm going to create this daily newsletter. I'm going to get up at 5:00 AM every day and let's see what happens. It wasn't a business yet. Nathan. It was just an idea. Like, let's see if I can kind of create an environment where we are covering, you know, innovation from the perspective of communities of color, startup leaders, VCs, and grappling with like really interesting ideas and trends.And then also sourcing storylines from around the web. So that went on for about a year and a half. but about six months in is when I got like, we got our first corporate deal and I was like, oh, you want to give me money for this? Hm. I wonder what I can do with this. and, and that really enabled me to really get started and bring on some freelancers to help support the production of the every day.And at some point we decided, you know, following grad school, like let's, let's go for the school throttle and see if we can really build a substantive business here.00:18:15 Nathan:So, what did it look like that first year to grow subscribers? Right? Because going from maybe let's just talk the first three months going from buying a domain on GoDaddy to the first hundred, the first 500 subscribers. Like what was that process?00:18:31 Sherrell:Yeah. Well, first I like spammed, my friends and family was like, you better subscribe. so that was,00:18:36 Nathan:Which I highly endorsed as a strategy, like legitimately, because going from zero to a hundred is so hard. If you're like, no, I will only do it. people who come in through major publication or like, I dunno, what 00:18:48 Sherrell:Yeah00:18:50 Nathan:Your friends.00:18:50 Sherrell:You've got to like breakThe rules and you just have to like go literally go for broke, you know? And so that first hundred, you know, it was really looking at the audience. I had sort of built through my reputation of covering this beat. Over the last few years, like a few years prior. And so, you know, those were people who were immediately bought in, friends and family.I asked people to push up a newsletter very frequently. I was like, shamelessly plugging The Plug and like, Hey, you know, if you like this, like share it with your friends, share it with your colleagues. it definitely was not easy. It was a, it was a kind of one by one getting people bought in. And of course I had the power of social media, you know, on my side.Whereas had I started this like years prior, like in, in, in college before Twitter became a thing or Instagram or Facebook, perhaps I wouldn't have had as much visibility. some things that also helped to supercharge quite honestly, was like sharing across LinkedIn, just from a professional capacity standpoint.I was still freelance writing as well. So it allowed me to share, you know, Sherrell is like the creator of The Plug and you can sign up here at the bottom.00:20:02 Nathan:It changes your byline.00:20:04 Sherrell:I was able to, yeah. I was able to really leverage my, my byline. but it was a lot of pushing. It was a lot of, it was a lot of like asking people to share and to subscribe all the time.00:20:15 Nathan:Yeah. I was talking to someone, a friend who has a book coming out right now. And I asked him like, how's it going? He was like, oh, it's a lot of work. I'm doing a lot of begging right now. You know? And I was like, yep. That's Write of like, Hey, will you share this? Will you, do you know anyone who could subscribe?Will you subscribe? and a lot of the people who end up like getting traction and making something are the people that are willing to do that. And then the people who are like, you know, I tried this new venture, I put it out in the world and it just didn't resonate. And so I shut it down and moved on after three months or whatever.It's like, you dig into their stories and they're the ones who weren't willing to, you know, as long text all their friends. And so it just takes that level.00:20:55 Sherrell:Absolutely. I mean, three months is hardly enough time. I mean, you almost need like a solid two to three years to really, really like solidify yourself. The right conversation, get in the right rooms, build it, that level of credibility. I know some people who are able to do it very quickly. I think you're, you know, you're leveraging relationships, you're leveraging interviews and it's nonstop.You're nonstop promoting yourself. And you know, I'll be honest, Nathan, there's a bit of discomfort, in promoting yourself constantly. I think also like as a woman, I had to get very, very comfortable. I think that's something I had to learn in tech of, you know, watching like my male counterparts, like constantly talk about how great they were.And like, I was always so uncomfortable the exact same demeanor. but I had to find my own way to talk about the work that I was doing and what I found interesting. And the more that I did that, I found that again, you know, folks were just subscribing because I asked they actually cared about what I was doing.And even to this day, We are full fledged, you know, running media company. And we have people who were literally those early subscribers who have been with us since the jump. So when we have typos or when we've had titles in the past, or we've had a glitch or an email accidentally without, I mean, these folks didn't berate us or like drag us online, they were just like, Hey, just want you to know this link doesn't work.And I hope you're well, like I've been following you for years. Like I get those emails like every single week. And it is so incredible to really know that like, people have been rocking with you from your early days when you were less sophisticated, less refined, you know, and, but still they, they understand the intent.And they've seen that throughout the process of you growing your, your business, that you have been intentional. And I think that that's the value that they find.00:23:00 Nathan:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. what about, well, was there a point in there either three months in or two years in or something where you were wondering, is this working like, should I keep going on it or was it just steady progress without any self doubt?00:23:17 Sherrell:Wish that I was the most confident person ever. I mean, fine. Find me someone who was just like, yes. I mean, you know, maybe Elon Musk, talking that he knows that everything he does is going to turn to gold. I definitely am not one of those, those individuals. I definitely, would have moments of discouragement, you know, you know, we talked about open rates, right.And I think, you know, sort of like as you're ramping. Your open rates look really good because your list is, is smaller. And then as your list grows, your open rates change and fluctuate. And, and if you're not familiar with, with that, it's really rough. You know, especially when you're still just learning the tools, you're still learning the techniques of AB testing or you're learning the tools of how to really create a captivating subject line or a captivating headline overall.And so, you know, when, as we continue to grow or you see the unsubscribes, right, like unsubscribes are still deflating. Even now years later, Maven is like, oh my gosh, like, why would you leave me? You know, it's like a breakup, you know, you're like, why would you ever leave me? And honestly, most people just get overwhelmed.And we, what we saw was transitioning to that. Weekly versus the daily. We've seen significant drops in unsubscribes. You know, folks, folks have time to actually read us. They don't feel overwhelmed with seeing our name in their inbox every single day. but there are, there are challenges for sure. You know, I think that, you know, I think that when you start to kind of compare yourself against sort of others emails or their newsletters or seeing their growth and the tactics that they're using, and also knowing sometimes you don't have the resources, you know, we didn't put money into Facebook ads or any other kind of platform.Everything for us had to be organic and it had to be intentional. And without having a huge marketing budget to try to get across certain milestones. And sometimes that can be discouraging if you're like, oh wait, like they're lists maybe twice the size of mine and they've not been doing this as long.And they've been able to put in the resources to kind of move the needle, or, you know, even in wanting to kind of stay intentional and practice this idea of slow journalism and slow information. When you see others who are like quick flash in the pan and, and they've grown exponentially, but it's also like, okay, we have some of the most engaged readers ever.You know, again, people who will show up will continue to show up to our events when we do something in person, or kind of contribute and show up to our virtual launches and things like that. And so I had to always kind of refocus on who my audience is and who has really stayed and stuck with us and the value that we deliver because the outside comparison will definitely.Kill any kind of confidence that you may have and, I think overall we had to get out of the game of becoming like the wonder kid company that sells to some major entity 12 months in, I think there was just this huge rush, especially with media newsletters of like, oh, you build this up, you work, work really hard.And then, you know, the New York times comes and purchases you, right? And like it's kind of far and few between. And if we're playing that race, you know, if we're playing that kind of game, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's not necessarily the right north star and being rushed into this idea of what success looks like.We have to really redefine for ourselves and what, like our core values have been. And we have to revisit that time and time again, and really just focus on delivering the best value that we can deliver.00:27:04 Nathan:Yeah, it sounds like you have a long time horizon, which I think is really, really important because so many people are. They're focused on like, okay, this has to work in the next month, the next three months, the next two years. And you just, you burn yourself out. Like I I've been working, in six weeks.It will be the new year. And I will have been working on convert kit for nine years and like, realizing that I was like, oh, this takes a long time. And you get those best compound results over. It's just a lot of time.00:27:33 Sherrell:It takes a while. Good things. Take time. And it's really hard. you know, I'm a millennial and everything where we want it to have everything like yesterdayandwant it tolikeRight. I mean, yes, of course, absolutely. Like, that's why I don't cook. Right. Like Uber eats me please. So, it humbles you to really understand.I always, I always say, you know, like we're understanding our own minds right now. we had to kind of go through our mature, our maturation phase of who are we? What is our content and our work stand for who is our audience? You know, having to kind of make those shifts and adjustments as we grew, the newsletter that we started is not the newsletter that we have today.We. We are going to have this highly kind of consumer driven newsletter. And as we started to look back at emails and names and titles, we kind of quickly realized, yes, our folks are kind of on the, on the periphery of like being consumer based. But these are people who hold really interesting titles at top tech companies, or they are, you know, coming from vaping companies.And so it really allowed us to see and understand, well, our content is helping to inform and give intelligence to these people who are going into work everyday, making decisions. It's not just information for information sake. We have to fundamentally cater to a very different audience than, than how we started.And I'm honestly very proud of that evolution. And I'm also proud of the time that it's taken, even for me to evolve as a. I mean, I went from me and my laptop and wifi to now having four full-time employees and 10 contractors that help us to build this thing, like every single day. And so that's fundamentally over this time, horizon has been a transition and an evolution across the board, and I'm sure who you were and where you started nine years ago is fundamentally different than what you have built as a company today.But you need each of those steps, right? It's that kind of crawl to walk, to run, to fly sort of phase. And I think we're just working on practicing more intentionality. And now I have more brains. I have more, more hands, more ideas in this that makes it better every single day. And I, and I just try my best to like, honor that.00:30:03 Nathan:I love that. Yeah. It's exactly what I think of it as what's a journey that I can go on that will make me a different person. By the time I get there, like what's the, not the easy path, but what's the thing that I can undertake where it's like, I, the only way to accomplish that is by becoming like leveling up and becoming a different person.And, and it sounds like you're on a similar journey.00:30:27 Sherrell:Absolutely. I mean, I don't know how you do this and you, and you don't change or transition. And I mean sure. Would it have been nice to get that early win, whatever that looks like, and then kind of had the clout to say, oh yeah, I sold my first company and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah, sure, man.But that would have come with its own, you know, challenges. I mean, I, you know, went to grad school during the process and, you know, had to hire a managing editor to help the flow. So it was like getting up super, super early to go to class and like run the newsletter and deal with clients like in between class transitions and homework.And, you know, deliverables was not an easy feat, but I needed that time to help me become the leader that I am today and the journalist than I am today. And also to build the kind of network and relationships that would help us continue to grow into thrive. And I think more so now, and I, and I'm not sure if this is true for you as well, Nathan, you know, it's less about just general execution and more about.What room. So I need to be in where I can learn and kind of see my business differently and see the opportunities in a way that are effective. I mean, we've always run a remote company and I've always wanted to run a remote company. And now that we're remote and I have. Folks across time zones, you know, it is how do we continue to produce at an excellent level, but then also like be, you know, be sensitive to different time zones.And when we move an all hands meeting, how that kind of affects the workflow for the week, or, you know, some of my team members are juggling full families. And, told you earlier, you know, that we are our two-year-old director of mayhem with like, he has like three teeth. He's like, you know, one of our favorite employees, sometimes like, you know, he calls it like 7:00 AM and just wants to chat and you have to be available for those conversations.And so, you know, again, you know, I think, I think this whole entire process is a growth journey and sometimes your north star does change. You know, I think that when I first started out, it was like, yeah, like we want to be just as great as this. You know, we want to be just as great as kind of these superstars that, you know, had access to a great deal of funding.Well, here was the thing they think when I was in grad school, I went to school for computational journalism. I went to journalism school at a time that there was a 40% reduction in staff of actual journalists. Like the industry itself was like, we're dying, come on a Janice. Right. And watching these major publications that were like dominant leaders, completely lose their valuations and have to sell for pennies on the dollar compared to what they raised in venture capital.And so the other component to Nathan was that I realized I can't compete on resources cause I hadn't raised any money. Then we were doing strictly revenue. Advertising and sponsorship checks, and then eventually reintroduced subscriptions and subscriptions giving access to more premium content and developing an entire sort of newsletter experience and product experience that would cater to the subset of folks who wanted more and shared with us that they wanted more.And so I think the slowing down also enabled us to listen a lot more to our audience about who they were, what they were looking for, what they wanted. And it put us into a great place, even though it kind of felt like, okay, folks where they knew about us, but, you know, once the pandemic kind of shot off and our work was just out there and everyone's online, they're like, oh wait, like The Plug like has been doing this work for a very long time.Like their stuff is really dope, like that really catapulted us. And so I'm lab that we had built up such a body of work and reputation. So that once we started to kind of get this influx of subscribers and this influx of folks paying for the premium membership, we were ready. We already had things that they could tap into that were of excellence.And so, it is, it's definitely a journey all the way.00:34:46 Nathan:So on that journey, well, so you have tens of thousands of subscribers now for The Plug. What were some of the inflection points in growing that audience? Was it perfectly linear or were there some things, you know, certain stories that took off where you added hundreds of thousands of subscribers in one go.00:35:03 Sherrell:Yeah. I mean, doing our work in public has been such a great benefit to us. I think before we were kind of in this closed community space, we just want to talk to our audience in there. well, we had to create greater opportunities and we learned this through a survey to our, to our subscribers. And they said, listen, like we love this work.And folks would email me or email our managing editor and have conversation, but they're like, we want more conversation like amongst each other. we want to know who else is subscribed here. And so we had to do a lot more of our work in public, really engaging people across social media, because that really is just where people are, you know, whether it's frequently or infrequent.That was kind of where audience, also wanted to engage either with myself or with our team members. And so pushing out our articles, creating, very engaging data visualizations to really show the prowess of our work and our reporting. a lot of our work has gone viral. A lot of our data, our data sets and visualizations have gone viral.It gives, it's given us an opportunity to, again, like teach and allow people to grapple with information and sort of how that information plays a role in sort of some of the challenges people of color in tech have faced and also the opportunities and trends, that are on the horizon as there's more distribution of access to capital and access to.And so doing that work in public and having clear stances and, continuing to host conversations, bold conversations, courageous conversations in public have really drawn more attention back to our original work back to our original newsletter. And so, and so again, experimentation, right?I mean, I would love to say we have this grand strategy. Most of it was listen, we're doing really dope things. We need everyone to see what we're doing. And so we've just, we've just refined it. you know, a lot more, we've ensured that our team has access to the tools to build out charts and graphs and things like that.00:37:09 Nathan:Yeah, that's good. So a lot of content creators, you know, come into it from some other path, like I'm a designer turned blogger, right. but you really came to it from, I mean, you're a journalist, you went to school for journalism and you have this tech and data background. And so I'm curious as you work, you know, these really data-driven stories and you bring like true journalism.Each of the stories, what's something, well, I want to go two different directions, which always makes for a terrible question. one is, I, I'm curious for more of your process, like, you know, are you finding the data and then uncovering the story within it? or does it, you know, you hear a great story and that leads you into the data or does it, is it both directions?00:37:53 Sherrell:It's definitely both directions. I mean, sometimes just being out and about whatever that looks like these days, you come across really interesting stories. we're always engaging on social media and listening in to conversations and sometimes like that sparks, like. But mostly we are driven by a question and just the curiosity of, Hey, I wonder what's going on with this, or I saw this opportunity, but what does this actually mean?And then it kind of finding the dataset and end, or having to build out our own datasets and then being able to tell a story from that. And the cool thing is that, you know, numbers can tell one side of a story, or, or they can tell multiple stories. And so the great thing is that it's a constant feedback loop that's going on in the way in which we identify, find or even presented.A lot of our readers are really, really great at even just sharing like, Hey, you know, I live in Oakland and like, this is what's happening here with this particular company or organization, or, you know, I stumbled across this thread and just wanted to get your thoughts. And then we're like, oh, Hey, you know, maybe we should, maybe we should kind of think through this and, and what data exists, where can we kind of go and find more insights?And then also, you know, on the weekends, I like long walks on the beach and reading a lot of research papers.And so,so like sometimesit helps to spark ideas and I'm sure that, you know, as someone like yourself, who's also a creator and, you know, someone who loves to read really great work, having a multifaceted array of content around you all the time, whether you're listening to it, reading it, watching it, it also helps to spark new ideas on how to, as we say, as journalists, like how to enter a story from like the back door, right.Not everything on its surface is what it is, but when you have an eclectic mix of content and, like I subscribe, you know, to, to things that are kind of way outside of my purview from tacking day, And that helps me to kind of think about other spaces and industries. I had a great conversation with a founder a few weeks ago, who was talking about these like warehouses.She has a data software company that like maps, supply chain and food and food ingredients as well. And she was just talking about how, like, there's so many entrepreneurs, like in the state of Georgia who owned these like warehouses and manufacturing facilities and how like, you know, no one's talking about these hundred million dollar plus companies that employ a hundred plus people.And they're doing really well because everyone kind of wants to be on social media, like selling their product. And they're the ones that like, ensure that products actually get made. And I just thought like, that is so fascinating. Like I wonder, you know, regionally, like where are the manufacturing plants in a, in a country that has shipped so much of its, you know, manufacturing overseas.And so just the curiosity of it. All right. It's just the curiosity of, interesting conversations that we try to bring to the forefront.00:40:58 Nathan:That makes sense. Is there a story that you've worked on that. Or that you've worked on a published, broken in some way that has changed the conversation. Like one of these that's gone viral. and I'm sure there's plenty, but a favorite that you'd want to share.00:41:11 Sherrell:Yeah, I actually, this was a surprise, piece that went viral. this was, following the murder of George Floyd, last year. And I happen to be, on Twitter as I started to see a lot of tech CEOs, speak out and really address this issue on police brutality, and justice. And, you know, I had mentioned, you know, I'd been working in tech for a few years and you know, it's not like this was an anomaly, right?We we've seen this happen in play out, unfortunately, in so many different ways, but I had never really seen corporate leadership or, even just tech leadership really speak out. And so I started documenting the public statements that were coming across my timeline and really scraping Twitter to kind of see which brands which companies were making these states.And also kind of comparing that across the board of what their diversity equity inclusion results were saying about their commitments to, black and brown workers who was actually in leadership roles, who was actually on the board and really getting a sense of our companies kind of here for the moment.Or are they actually kind of living what it is they say their, their actual core values are.And again, this was kind of a, project that I just want it to be able to have ready and to have something to say for the following week and decided with my team, well, we're going to need some additional help so that we don't miss out on any conversations that.May have happened. And so I allowed the database to kind of be open for people to contribute to. And I started creating a visualization, really creating a timestamp of when companies were speaking out against, sort of against just the general timeline as like the country sort of erupted in protests on a national level.It went viral immediately. and again, without intent, I was really trying to do some research and also just kind of share, like, here are some of the companies that have made statements and here's the timelines. it went viral and it was overwhelming. I started getting messages across the board from CEOs, from recruiters.I even had. Folks who I'd worked with in previous years, reach out to me like they were like in Amsterdam, they're like, you know, your, database your visualization, like we're, it's at our all hands. And like we're talking through, 00:43:44 Nathan:Sorry 00:43:44 Sherrell:Our statement will be. I started getting signal messages and for those who are unfamiliar signal is like the private messaging app and encrypted and all of that.And I mean, people are sending me company emails and I mean, it was a great time be a journalist in that moment. And to really like, experience the wave of like what journalism should be in terms of, public service. It was also a very hard time, as you can imagine. as, as it was the middle of a pandemic, I'm at home by myself, with my plants in my wifi feeling somewhat powerless and just feeling like this is how I can contribute to the conversation into the movement and what really spurred out of that.And this idea of transparency as well as accountability. And, a year later we were able to work in partnership. The Plug was able to work in partnership with fast company to do an evaluation out of all of the commitments that had been made and all of the sort of, public statements and kind of PR moments where have companies now come when it relates to inclusion and diversity justice.And so it appears now. And so there's much more, practice around evaluating those commitments, and asking companies to be much more transparent. And I think some policy as well, that is, that is kind of getting started in DC around how reporting on equity and inclusion should be commonplace for all employers And so, so that I feel very proud of, from our work, in terms of helping to spark that movement. And there were other folks who started building very similar databases in their specific industries. So from beauty to music to gaming, just across the board. and again, that was unexpected. I felt like there are stories that I like thought were going to go viral.Cause they, I thought they were really dope to me and people enjoy them, but this one definitely took off. And, I'm very proud of, of the work that we did. And I'm proud of the, the interns that we also had to, who, who stayed up with me for 36 hours to kind of get as thorough who could,00:46:00 Nathan:Yeah.00:46:00 Sherrell:As well.00:46:02 Nathan:Yeah. When you're leading with data, that way the data has to be correct. It has to be accurate. that often is hard to do on a tight time on like that.Let's talk about the business model for The Plugin. so you mentioned, you know, paid memberships as well as sponsorships. if you're sharing it, what's kind of the split maybe percentage wise between, you know, revenue from sponsorships or memberships and then any other 00:46:24 Sherrell:Yeah, I guess so. So memberships or subscriptions really make up about 25% of our total revenue. That's something that we're looking to actually increase. Our biggest goal was not to be wholly dependent on advertising response.00:46:37 Nathan:Yeah.00:46:38 Sherrell:But advertising sponsorships still does very well for us. And the great thing is that because we have a very specific audience, we are really able to capture advertisers and sponsors that are, you know, providing products, tools, and solutions to that audience in a meaningful way.And so those relationships have been really, really strong for us. and then we also have, licensing. So, we do original reporting, you know, as, as, as mentioned. And, we syndicate on the Bloomberg terminal, and that parts came about in April. and so all of the Bloomberg terminal subscribers folks across financial industry also receive our work and, you know, Bloomberg pays us annually, you know, for that particular access.We've also had prior relationships with folks. Business insider and mobile dumb. that's a very small percentage of our total revenue, maybe about 10%, you know, advertising and sponsorships really make up the core. and then also, I mean, this isn't necessarily like earned revenue, but, grants have been really, really critical to part of our growth is.I think, especially we haven't taken on a lot of venture capital. you know, we've, we've raised a pre-seed round last year, which allowed us to bring on some employees. And so we've wanted to be very intentional with the way in which we took on capital, in order to grow. And, fortunately we've been able to participate in really great, journalism based accelerators, which have provided really cool grants and have allowed us to do things like spend on advertising, do website redesigned and audits and bring in, you know, a chief marketing officer.And so, so I'm, I'm still very proud of that because even though grants aren't necessarily considered revenue, like there's still work involved to apply to.00:48:36 Nathan:Yes.00:48:37 Sherrell:So the ROI is really strong. and it also means that I give up less of the equity in my business, and we're able to use those dollars, effectively.So that's the breakdown.00:48:47 Nathan:Yeah. like working with sponsors, what's something. You know that, you know, and understand now that like you wish you knew two or three years ago where you're like, 00:48:56 Sherrell:My God. 00:48:57 Nathan:Pull aside server out to use it it's three years ago and be like, let me give you a little advice. What would you say?00:49:02 Sherrell:It's just so many things. My gosh, I just wish we had like a full day, day, maybe like a nice hearty drink. you know, honestly, just did not know what I was doing in the beginning. kind of took whatever. I think because we never tried to compete on numbers, we tried to compete on value, demonstrating that.And, and being able to articulate that to sponsors, is always kind of an ongoing challenge. you know, and, and knowing the leads the lead times as well. We're very fortunate in that. So much of our revenue from advertising is typically inbound. So we haven't had to do a lot of like chasing. and, and as you know, like just pitching, it just takes a while.And if you don't have the team, the staff to kind of manage that process, it can get a little crazy. but one thing I will say is really identifying, the assets early on and sort of being clear about the metrics that you can deliver. I think a lot of times, you know, we're kind of only measuring, like click through rates or things like that.We did a lot of like virtual events before that became commonplace in the world. we really should have, created full packages that helped us to both expand our brand, and also really highlight, the core product of our partner.But I think we could have been a bit more judicious in terms of who we partnered with and why, and sort of how that was going to be a best fit. And then also, the retention as well, selling not just for that time, but really looking across the spectrum of opportunities to continue that relationship and continue that inflow of cash, every quarter or, you know, every year.Again, we, I think we got some really good lucky breaks, but I think overall we've had to be a bit smarter about overall inventory, and ensuring that, that, you know, we're, we're keeping more than we're having to go out and pay.00:51:05 Nathan:Yeah. So when you're talking about packages, is that like saying, Hey, you're sponsored the newsletter for three months and these events that we're doing, and like, you'll be a title sponsor across all of this, rather than saying, you know, we chart our CPM on the newsletters, this, and so a single slot00:51:21 Sherrell:Yeah, absolutely. I think that, we've had to measure against like, what is the actual work involved in integrating a particular advertiser into our emails? you know, a, a CPM kind of works well when you have a significant subscriber list. Right? And so I think that that kind of delivers tremendous value, but for us, because our newsletter, you know, isn't the tens of thousands versus hundreds of thousands.You know, we've had to really charge based on value and engage with. And sort of caliber of our audience, and really also tie that into how do we reinforce messages so that your ad or your promotion or your call to action is not lost in the sauce? right. So whether it be through like dedicated emails, a, an IgG live or a LinkedIn live conversation, the biggest thing for us is really being able to deliver value to our audience at the end of the day.And not just like, oh, like here's like a random sort of like product, we should buy it more. So, you know, how do you, like we, we've had some financial institutions that have, advertised with us and their goal has been to recruit. More companies into their accelerator programs or things like that.So there's really a strong use case that you can easily sell to advertisers at this level where they're really looking for much more than just like the banner ad. they're also looking for engagement. so how do we create engagement opportunities that fit our brand and also give, an opportunity for that engagement piece amongst our readers, who also want to kind of get to know each other.And so creating those kinds of moments, we're able to sell those as packages versus kind of that one-off like here's a banner ad go a God, give us a report later. so, so, so a little bit more00:53:21 Nathan:Yes.00:53:21 Sherrell:But you, you kind of build for longevity.00:53:24 Nathan:Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. I want to talk about the, the team side of things. Cause a lot of people start, you know, it's relatively easy to start a newsletter these days and it's just them for a period of time. And then it gets to the point where you realize, okay, I've built something bigger than myself.And sometimes people scale up really fast and then they find that that's really challenging and really unsustainable, you know, if you have a down couple months with, sponsorships or whatever your revenue stream is. so it's just hard. So when did you really think about bringing on your first team member and how did you go about like methodically scaling up the team, to what happen.00:54:02 Sherrell:I could say like the first nervous breakdown.00:54:08 Nathan:I should, I should lead with that question going forward. When was your first nervous breakdown? As a creative,00:54:14 Sherrell:Right?00:54:15 Nathan:Will have a story.00:54:16 Sherrell:Absolutely.No. It really, I really looked at, where I was feeling too exhausted to do the kind of work that I wanted to do, because I was kind of in the weeds of the newsletter also feeling like, okay, what's going to make people stay subscribed. What's going to make them feel like The Plug continues to be interesting on the nose and giving me something that no one else is going to give me.And that's hard to do consistently when you're by yourself, because you have great days. You have not so great days. You have, sometimes you get sick. Sometimes you need to fly to back home for a friend's wedding. And it's like, your level of concentration has to really, really scale through other people who are talented, if not more talented, to really bring you to the next level of your work.And so. Once we sort of were able to take on a little bit of capital from an angel investor. I brought on our managing editor, to really take over that process of the newsletter and to really help ideate with me where the newsletter was, where it should go. we really benefited from being in different sorts of, journalism accelerators, as I mentioned earlier, because we also got to learn from other news teams and newsrooms about the anatomy of a strong newsletter and sort of thinking through the entire process from start to finish of how we build out our newsletter.And then of course getting feedback and doing more surveys and collecting the data from our audience on what they were looking for. So again, constant experimentation, but also being open to, to realizing like, okay, this is good, but how do we go from good. And just even now, as we've had one of our reporters launch the HBCU newsletter, you know, we kind of talk through the shifts of that as well.And sort of know this is a completely different newsletter compared to our weekly briefing. and so it takes on a different tone. It takes on a different feel. It has a different kind of, objectivity that we kind of want to ensure, continues to serve in, in feed our audiences. So, everyone on our team is in some way connected to building the newsletter.We have a section in our slack, called editorial and everyone just tosses, really interesting articles they bred or tweets, or just Abe. I found really interesting into that and it helps us to really like brainstorm like what the newsletter should be. And the cool thing is that it really has. Gives you an insight into the minds of your team members to see like, well, what are they reading, right?What are they subscribed to? it that they find interesting? So we're all contributors, you know, at the end of the day, and it's helped so much because it's not just all on you as a leader, right? Like we have to continue to grow the business. We have to hire more people, make sure that money comes in so that everyone can like, you know, get paid and by crispy cream or whatever it is, they buy with their money and, and continue to, to find ways, to grow even just the subscriber list, which has its own kind of marketing needs.But yeah, it really came from that breakdown of like, I'm getting sick of this and I want this to be great, but I've reached my capacity on the day-to-day basis and I need other people to help chime in to make this great.00:57:43 Nathan:Yeah. I like that. Working with the team. It's just remarkable and wonderful. I know a lot of people who like their whole dream is to be a solo entrepreneur and they set up, you know, they're publishing and everything they do so they can run it just themselves. And it's a highly profitable business and I have a ton of respect for them, and that's just not at all what I want.Cause I want a team exactly what you're talking about to produce a newsletter and to put all of this content together. And you can just do so much more with the team. So anyway, I'm preaching to the choir here.00:58:13 Sherrell:Well, I get it. Like, I was such a huge fan of like Paul Jarvis has company of one. And I think initially that's kind of the direction I was going in. but I realized like I didn't want to just do this. I wanted to produce really strong visualization. I wanted to produce really strong, original content and also do, you know, live conversations and host events and, and, and just really like create.Opportunities for touch points and the ways in which people learn and engage, which isn't always like through reading. Right? Some, some of it is audio. Some of it is, is visual. So, totally hear you. I mean, I think that we all would like some kind of like automated system that works like kind of perfectly.But I find that I also learned so much from having a team and people who think vastly different than I do. And, and, and people who are bringing new ideas every week, it keeps, it keeps the work exciting.00:59:10 Nathan:Yeah. And I think that, what I love about Paul's work is that he's pulled together all these examples to say, Hey, if you want it, this is something that's available to you. You can, you know, and then people could look at it. So yes, that's what I want. Or they can, you know, like so many people, you know, in your early career where that mentor for you or something else.We can have those examples, as well.I want to wrap up with that, related to goals for the next year. My friend Clay Hebert likes to ask this question of, “If we were to meet a year from now with a bottle of champagne, what would we be celebrating?” What's the thing that you're working towards that you hope to accomplish in the next year, that we'd sit down and celebrate?00:59:54 Sherrell:That's such a great question. I really love champagne, so I want to get this right, so that this happens.I think for us, it is launching at least two additional newsletter verticals. One hyper-focused on climate and green tech, led by innovators of color.Secondly, sort of a more essay exposé from thought leaders in this space, that becomes a regular cadence for us.That's kind of one of my major goals. I think also, secondarily, that we really have a full fledged functioning team, growing by maybe four additional team members, which would include researchers as well as additional journalists. Again, we're fully remote, but we are producing great work at a very, very high level.We're also seeing that reflected in the kind of partnerships and advertising that we have. That, for me, as a leader I have effectively curated an incredible team, and we're doing the work that we said we wanted to do, and it's having impact and it's setting a standard, and we're in all the rooms that we want to be in.Those were lots of things, Nathan.So, a year from now I expect champagne.01:01:15 Nathan:Sounds good. We'll make it happen.Well, where should people go to subscribe to The Plug and follow everything that you're doing?01:01:21 Sherrell:Absolutely. Head over to TPinsights.com. We're also TPinsights across the web, and you can always come hang out with me as well on Twitter, because that is where my life starts and ends every day.01:01:37 Nathan:Sounds good.Well, thanks for coming on, and we'll have to make a plan for that bottle of champagne.01:01:42 Sherrell:Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me, Nathan.

Clay Hebert once attended a conference in San Diego. He sat next to a fellow who inquired about his work. "What do you do?" the fellow asked. Describing the encounter, Hebert told me, "That question stumped me." He had fumbled his introduction to Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress.

How to correctly think about your marketing, positioning, branding, and messaging if you're a successful company. If you'd like to join world-renowned Entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network Event or want to learn more about Genius Network, go to www.GeniusNetwork.com.   Here's a glance at what you'll learn from Clay in this episode: The 2 most powerful words in marketing AND the 3-word formula for making your marketing 10x more powerful How to differentiate yourself from your competitors (PLUS: How to increase your wealth using “Portable Story Math”) The Perfect Intro: The most effective way to explain what you do (Most people get this wrong. Here's how to do it right.) One of the best ways to use testimonials and social proof that makes your marketing A LOT more persuasive A ninja trick for discovering what your Customers are searching to find you (This is one of the most useful secrets on the internet) The best piece of advice for maximizing your book and why a book is one of the strongest pillars in building your personal brand

Today we are talking about the perfect intro: how to explain what you do as a speaker so people understand and want to hire you. On this episode of The Speaker Lab, renowned speaking and branding expert Clay Hebert, is here to explain how he helps people find what they do and also how he helps people define and share their perfect intro. We'll be diving into those topics and so much more on today's edition of The Speaker Lab!   THE FINER DETAILS OF THIS SHOW: Why does he want to kill the elevator pitch? What are the three myths of the introduction? How to frame the perfect intro so it elicits a response. What are two rules to the perfect intro? Can you ever use your perfect intro in other communications? Why you should focused on becoming an expert who speaks, not a "speaker". Should your intro change over time and can you have more than one? What is a case story and how do you construct yours? And so much more! EPISODE RESOURCES Clay Hebert's web site Clay Hebert on Twitter Clay Hebert on Instagram Text intros to 33444 Episode 5 of TSL Episode 260 of TSL Booked and Paid To Speak program The Successful Speaker Speaker Fee Calculator Got questions? Send them in here! Subscribe on iTunes, and leave us a rating or review

Clay & Angie teach you copy hacks!  Free Instagram Marketing Training:  www.AngieLee.com/1000 @ClayHebert 

¡Os traemos el cuadragésimo cuarto podcast de Ethos Global Fitness! Presentado por Edu Barrecheguren, Alberto Álvarez y Carlo Marella. En estos podcasts hablamos de fitness, entrenamiento, herramientas psicológicas, motivación, filosofía, deporte... ¡Y de mucho más! Pasamos nuestra vida buscando libertad y sentirnos bien, sin embargo, llenamos calendarios y listas de tareas sin pensar. Hoy hablamos del concepto del calendario perfecto. Esta herramienta concebida por Clay Hebert, podrá serte de ayuda para plantearte que cosas estás haciendo en automático y están añadiendo ruido a tu vida. Como siempre, like it, share it and leave a comment!

Previous to attending the most selective MBA program in the country where Clay Hebert was one of only 9 people to learn directly from marketing expert Seth Godin for six months, he had led teams at Accenture, the world's largest consulting firm, solving complex problems for global Fortune 500 companies. After the program with Seth Godin he went on to help over 2000 projects raise over $100 million total on crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Clay's work has been profiled in the books Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss, Entrepreneurial You by Dorie Clark and Deep Work by Cal Newport. Forbes called him “one of the next generations of business and media influencers” and he was recently named one of Entrepreneur Magazine's "50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs"...along with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. In our discussion we talk about the key threads that he sees from the companies that he works with, ranging from startups to large Fortune 500 companies. We also talk about why you need to develop your perfect intro and how developing your perfect calendar will help you zoom out to see what really makes you happy and then take the steps necessary to achieve them.

"Marketing is about understanding how your customers want to feel...and then giving them stories and products and services that help them feel that way.Word of mouth is about those stories being portable stories that are easy to spread.It's that simple. And that hard." -Clay Hebert tweet See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, turn up your volume it's podcast time. And that was probably the cheesiest way that I could start an episode. But today, today we are going to be talking about the two keys to scaling a business, and it is literally impossible to scale your business without these two major keys that make it scalable, sustainable and simple for the SSS method just I made up. Here we go. Ready? So simple, sustainable and scalable.  I'm actually really excited about this episode. And I'm sitting here recording this live in my office. If you're listening to this, or if you're watching the video, you can see me staring at my iPad. And I have some notes here to talk about with this, because you know, for me, when I think about the last 11 years of my entrepreneurial journey, I mean, really like my whole life has been entrepreneurial. I should probably stop lying to myself. Okay. So I have my first job when I was 12.So, you know, I lived in Massachusetts when I grew up and I was in a situation where there wasn't much provided for me. And some of, you know, my story send me know my backstory. And so basically from a very young age, if I wanted anything, if I needed anything, I had to create it on my own or find it. There were points in my life where I stole it and things like that. And when you're living in a face, not you, when I was living in this space of survival as a child, Really every single thing in my day, every single thing in my life was designed to do one thing. And to help me basically meet my Maslov's hierarchy of needs, food, water, shelter, and safety. And, I always had water, food, not so much, shelter, not so much in safety, not so much.And so I went through a lot of these different experiences in my life where I felt like I was a wild animal backed into a corner and I had to survive and had to survive and had to survive. And so. I say my entrepreneurial journey starts here, but most of my life from a very young age, I had to be entrepreneurial or what we would call entrepreneurial. I had to be resourceful. I had to be resilient. I had to create things out of nothing. I had to find things that didn't exist. I had to find ways to have it. And so, I mean, for me, my first job. Started when I was 12. Now that was my first like, official job. But before then I think at nine or 10, I was already delivering papers. I had three paper routes and most people had one. I would walk or ride my bike for two to three hours a day. And it was before school that I had to get myself to because my parents were pretty unreliable. And quite frankly, they didn't want to be in my house anyways. And so I would get up at 4:00 AM, once a week, because I did like one of the local newspapers, they would all get dropped in my driveway at like 3.30.I would roll them all. I would put them all in my satchels, if you have this image and I had this blue BMX bike, cause my favorite movie, was Rad. And now in this episode, I think I've officially dated my self. I used cool running in the intro. And now I'm using the movie Rad, but Rad racing was one of my favorite movies ever.I probably watched it. I don't know, 6,000 times I was told we had seven copies of the VHS tape. Cause I watched it so much, they would burn out. And so if you know what I'm talking about with cool runnings and Rad, you're my friend. And I love you. And you should tell me, you should send me a message or leave it in the comments or, you know, wherever you listen to this episode and this all has to do with.The two keys to scaling a business, but a story times are important for me. And help you understand kind of how I got here. So I would then roll my papers. I'd get on my blue BMX bike. And this thing was awesome. It was like a light baby blue, like a Justin Timberlake blue. And then it had a white rims.And, it was for show cause it was like a BMI strike bike, but I would drive it long distances and deliver these papers. And so I would deliver these papers at nine or 10 on my paper outs, in the rain and the snow. It didn't matter. And then as soon as I was done, I would come drop my bike off at home and then I would go to school.And I did that, that with like, you know crazy neighbor hustle and I mean, neighbor hustle, like they wouldn't have leaves in their yard and I would convince them they did so I could, you know, rake them up. I would go shovel their driveway first and then go to their door and ask for payment. And I didn't know that at the time, but I was like, okay, I was just doing it.Someone had given me that advice. So I was an entrepreneur at a very young age. And so my first official job was at 12. I was a skate guard, at an ice skating rink and a few other places. And then I got into construction, like under the table construction. And so for me, How I got into business, how I got into entrepreneurship, how I got into, I mean, basically life was born out of survivalAnd in that though, there were some lessons that served me really well and some ways in which I was being, and living and working that served me really well and got me here and they were needed to get me here. But then also once I reached certain levels, there were also needs to audit. And to remove things that were no longer needed, they had served their purpose.Like I had this very wise shaman in Costa Rica,talk to me and I was talking about some things that had come up for me during,like  A spirit journey, a solo quest Iowasca plant medicine, a couple of different things. And I was talking about relationships, but like relationship with myself, relationship with some friends relationship with business partners.And he looked me dead in the eye and he said, I believe he called me son or brother, but I think called me son. And he said, son, relationships only happen for a reason, a season or a lifetime. And I don't think that really sunk in for me for about six months. And then once it finally did, I started realizing the parallels between business and life, personal business, personal life, and all the things in between because we don't compartmentalize.And then I started thinking about business and entrepreneurship and, and growth through that lens of everything I'm experiencing either happens for a reason. A season or a lifetime and the end goal of every single entrepreneur, the end goal of every single business.? Like the, non-negotiable not like our hundred million dollar goal, our $500 million goal to change the world.Like all of those are required. All of those matter. They're all in your beacon of belief that we talk about, but really the goal is every day in business in life, there should be two things that we are seeking. Unapologetically, but as aggressive and resilient as possible. And I mean like blood, like a devil dog is what comes to my mind. Cause I was a Marine for so long, but like a level of commitment that we've only experienced a few times in our life or when we turn the switch and we know, or when our life is at jeopardy or are, are we're backed into a corner and we're trying to figure out like where we're going, but we're like, it doesn't matter if we know the path.If we know how we're going to get there, it doesn't matter what I have to do. If I have to blood. If I have to sweat, if I have to, you know, cry, I'm like not speaking right today. If I have to blood, if I have to bleed sweat, Cry push. It doesn't matter. Like when I am crystal clear that I want to get to that finish line and I have enough evidence in my corner. I either why and my beacon of belief, I'm going on a level of which you can't even imagine. Because I'm really, really, truly rooted in that. And I'm like, this is my life. This is my existence. There was no reason of being here unless I have this, this is the level of commitment I have. And that's the level of commitment that we as humans, as leaders, as parents, as friends, as bosses, as employees, as entrepreneurs, as business owners, as influencers have to have in pursuit of these two things to build and scale a business.And those two things are really, really simple. They are simplicity.And at the end of the day, we should be in a relentless pursuit of those two things every single day in order to build or scale our companies or our lives. And so, as I tie this together, the reason I'm saying relationships happen for a reason, a season or a lifetime is that our business has have things that come into play.There are ways in which we have to be as a business owner, as an entrepreneur. To get off the ground and even get an idea into the world. That's not easy work. I don't actually recommend anybody go launch physical products or sometimes digital products or internet marketing, unless they really understand that we're giving up working 40 hours a week for somebody else to work 24/7 for ourselves, and to have potentially one of the best bosses in the world.And other times some of the worst bosses in the world and not being ourselves and our beliefs and how we see things and how we treat ourselves. But it's not an easy undertaking by any means. I it's rewarding. I love it. I wouldn't change it. I believe entrepreneurship. I believe helping customers. I believe solving problems. I believe marketing. Like I love it. It's in my DNA.  And there are times that it's challenging and there are times that things are hard. And there are times that we have to do things that might not be aligned with what we want to be doing, but they are required in that moment. They are required for a reason to get us to the next level.And so for me, when I look at the mistakes that I've made and the successes that I've had, and there's a lot on both sides of it from losing. And here's a record. I don't share this publicly. That often the most amount of money I've ever lost the day is I actually lost $43,000 in 19 minutes because I was running a Facebook ad and this ad account that I was running, that I was a part of. We were spending over a million dollars a month. Than ads. And so I ran an ad that had multiple broken links in it, like multiple ads with broken links and we had tested them, but somehow the redirecting plugin that we were using stopped working. And so we were spending at such a volume that by the time we caught it, we were out almost 50 grand.And then on the other side is I've helped companies sell for billions of dollars, just helped another one get like a $400 million cash infusion have broken records, New York times bestseller, all that stuff. And I've been on both sides. But really the core of all of it when we get down to it is that we need to have simplicity and clarity in order for any of it to work.And there's parts where things get muddy. And sometimes the muddiness is required. Like we have to be everywhere in this one moment, but that's not everywhere forever. It's everywhere in that moment until we can reassess an audit to get back to simplicity and clarity. And when I say this, I say that the two keys to successfully building or scaling our business are having simplicity and clarity.It is almost an accountability tool that keeps us in check because if every day you're like, is this the most simple way I can be doing this? And am I clear that what I'm doing is moving me towards my goal. It becomes a feedback loop. It becomes a feedback loop where we have to look at what we're doing in our lives and in our business, and make sure that it's aligned to where we want to go.But everything has a purpose. It has intentionality. It's like, Hey, I don't want to be on social media, but I have to be for now because I'm not generating enough revenue to outsource that or hire it. And it's a chicken and egg conversation. So I'm going to put a container around it. And then I'm going to do as much as I can to build the best systems and processes until it generates X amount of revenue. And then I'm going to immediately hire that out. And then that was for a reason. And then you move up to the next level, constantly seeking that simplicity and clarity.  So that feedback loop is really, really important because the trap of entrepreneurship and especially the trap of solo preneurs, like working in an echo chamber, or just behind our laptop on the only interactions we choose to have are the ones in which we go out on social or go out on email or text people when you and I both know that most of the time when things are hard or we're struggling, or in doubt, we avoid those communications. And then we'll like, you know, go consume more content or test a million different things. And we kind of get stuck in that, in that I didn't even want to like the muddy water. We kind of get stuck in the washing machine cycleWhen we're around, people were around our friends or when we're with our business partners or when we share these things, it's a pattern interrupt that shifts it. But when we're isolated away from them, then it kind of becomes this cyclical thing that goes too long. We repeat the patterns, then we get frustrated and we're like, I did it again.And so for me, my accountability is simplicity and clarity. So every day I have to check in with myself, like did what I do today. Move me one step closer. Yes or no. Yes. Cool. What worked, what didn't work and what am I going to do differently? And then I make adjustments.And the reason I say this is because for me, and to close this loop, the trap of entrepreneurship or solo partnership, as I was saying for me, is allowing us to maintain a path or driving down a road that we've been driving down a little too long and we need to stop and turn around. We're kind of lost per say because the road is where we needed to go.But at some point we just kept driving, missed our turn though. I go, we're lost. We'll keep going. We'll lost. We'll keep going. We're lost. We're keep going. That's what we call being romantic about how we do things and in our world. Like today's world and in business and marketing today, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, there are going to be some absolutes that ring true.One of them is that it's going to be different every day. I guarantee you it's going to be different every day. And if you are doing your job and marketing correctly and doing business correctly, and you have customers and you have a product, the fact that there is uncertainty and ambiguity every day means you're doing it right.Because if you're crystal clear that like, this is how our marketing is, and this is how our messaging and this is our product and you stick to that, your not meeting the needs of your customer, seeing the words, the pain points, the current state of the world, or the ways in which we can constantly approve, because none of us have perfect products because there is no perfect product because the moment it's complete and perfect, something in the world changes something in you change as something in the model, changes something in the information changes, and we have to be committed to being lifelong students.And so for me, Having this lens or this North star per say of every day, I need to find simplicity and clarity gives us the ability to pattern, interrupt ourselves and to audit ourselves, to catch ourselves and be like, Oh my God, I'm still doing this. This isn't simple. And I don't even know why I'm doing it.Stop. Pattern interrupt. What's working. What's not working. What can I do differently moving forward? And so for me, these two keys encompass all of that. They encompass the ability to have a honest conversation with ourselves. Not that we lie to ourselves intentionally, but what I mean by honest conversation is an accurate view of what's really happening.What do we do with our time? Where did we put it? What was the output? What was the result? Was that the best use of our time? Is that really where we're going? I'm doing that. Cause I don't know where I'm going. Okay. Time to unplug, figure out where I want to go and then create the way points to get there because we all have these destinations in our mind.We all have these places that we want to go in business in life and in entrepreneurship. And in order to get there, we need two things. We need to know where we want to go. Clearly not like I want to go to this state, like don't tell me you want to build a business in California that doesn't help me get you an address or a building.Tell me that you want to build a business in San Diego, in the Gaslight district with a 2000 square foot building that requires you to be there 10 hours a day with seven employees as you create products that help solve water crisis is throughout the world that you deliver as a part of your for-profit company with a nonprofit arm attached. And this is how you're going to do it. That's a destination.  And then when you know, okay, well, here's where I am. I'm sitting at my house in Temecula, just for me to get down. There's a 65 minute drive. And then this is where I am. This is what I'm doing. This is what I have. And this is the clarity. You now know where you are, what ingredients you have and then where you want to go. And you can clearly see the gap. And in that gap has all of the things that you need to create or to learn or to bring on, to get to that destination. I E every turn, how many miles and where you're going. And the key to that is having clarity and then simplicity. And then every business and I mean this, every business, every successful business, every large business. And I mean success, and I'm not talking about success. Like they're a fortune 100 company I'm talking, they've been profitable. They're profitable from day one. They take care of their employees. They know their numbers. They think in decades, not in weeks. And really good book recommendation to pattern interrupt on this one. The infinite game by Simon Sinek, he gives a lot of examples in that book. One that rings true to me that I referenced all the time is Victorian X, which was the, which is the leading Swiss army knife manufacturer in the world. And on September 10th of 2001, this Swiss army knife accounted for, I think, 80 plus percent of their revenue and on September 12th of 2001, it accounted for less than 10%.And so there's an entire story on that and I can't do it justice, but how they pivoted and how they used their clear vision, their clarity. And then very simple levers to basically thrive through that. Come out the other side, 25 times greater and now is completely unrecognizable as a company compared to where they were.And so for me, for you, for everybody, this is one of those things that will never change. Simplicity and clarity will always be the secret to success. And it's where we need to drive ourselves. It's where we need to hold ourselves. It's where we need to readjust ourselves back onto that lane. And there's going to be times that we jump in the fast lane and it feels so good, but we realize that we're not supposed to be there.We've been in there too long. We were only supposed to pass and either we catch it and move back over into the clarity and simplicity lane or somebody else catches it, IE a cop and gives us a ticket. But in the world of business, Normally the market catches it or the financials catch it, or the team catches it and culture is affected finances and cash flows affected marketing and social media is affected because when you spend too much time distracted or distracted from the simplicity and clarity, that is your business, it becomes a liability.And so that's why we constantly have to audit. And be in observation and be an integrity about our businesses and what we're doing and what we're not doing so that we can maintain in that lane. And so the two keys are simplicity and clarity, and I'm going to talk about some of the parts of them that I have that are really, really big areas of focus that I think are important in my area.Expertise and my experience and what I've done. And I still have a whole lot of learning to do. But this is what I've found to be important and effective. So when we think about simplicity, Why is simplicity so important? And number one is we can't scale a complicated business. That's when things start to break or people just straight up don't buy because they don't get it.You have to be simple. Your messaging has to be simple. Your offer has to be simple. Your pain point you're solving has to be simple, knowing your customer has to be simple. That is really the key to it, but yet we live in this. Give me more society. And even in digital marketing do more, add more value stack.And I was like, but by the time you're done value stacking and you're getting all those customers, you've attracted 99% of the wrong ones. Yeah. Because you convinced them to buy, not enrolled them and actually solving their problem. And you don't want to deal with the follower of that down the road. If you ever want some examples, hit us up in the comments somewhere, or send us an email or come to our social and ask, and I'll do an entire episode on it.But it's really, really important that you maintain simplicity because simplicity is what gives you a control. It's what gives you the ability to be like. Every time we post about these three topics on this platform with this call to action. My ideal customer sees it. They make a commitment and they achieve their results. And so now I can double down, but if it's like, Hey, here's our 65 different messages this week. Here's our 240 Instagram posts that are all about these different ideas. With some calls to actions, no calls to action. And I'm telling everybody they can choose one of these 19 entry points. You're not going to have anything.No business, no life, no success, no customers, because even if something does start working, how do you know what it was? Was it that post, that call to action, that journey, that customer, that day, the news that day, the current state of the world, you don't know. And if you can't measure it, you can't build it or scale it.Another thing is people are attracted to simplicity. Nobody wants to bring complicated into their lives. Customers are in a complicated situation, looking for clarity and simplicity employees that you're going to hire are leaving their job or looking for a job because they're in a complicated situation. And they're looking for simplicity. Simplicity speaks to your authority. And you know this to be true. Think about some of the best speakers. Think about some of the best teachers. They do one thing more than the other thing. And it's the reason that we have two years in one mouth and I'm still working on this one.There's a lot of times that I vary much recognize that I have diluted my power or diluted my delivery because sometimes I take it too far and it's something I work on every single day and there's nothing wrong with it. It's about being iterative, but if you came to me and you're like, George, I would do anything. If you could help me fix my email marketing, I'm like, okay, cool. And I could do one of two things. I'm like, I got you. I just need you to do this one thing. And I guarantee you, it works or yes, I got you. I need you to do this one thing. And then I have 67 other things in 42 different places to start. Which one are you going to choose?Of course, you're going to choose the simplicity, right? Simplicity creates authority and it creates safety. When you were a simple, like speaking simple and clear and simple doesn't mean cheap or devalued, but when you are simple, you know exactly what you're saying, how you say it, where you're going, what you're charging.That comes with a level of power and authority and safety baked into it that most people don't understand. And when your messaging and your branding and your marketing and your communication both internally and externally is simplistic and clear, you are the best that there is like, think about Nike.Nike is not like, just do it when the weather's perfect and you want to, and you're this person with these running shoes in this clothes now. It's just do it. And Nike is not like, maybe do it. I'll do it later. If you want to do it, it's like, no, just do it. And there's simplicity and power in that message.And so simplicity is a good thing to have everywhere. And I watched business owners, complicate, email marketing, social media, marketing, customer insights, journey mapping, and everything. And I also see that. That's why the reason that 99% of businesses are struggling because if all you do. In every time you create space or you have a little extra time in your days, you're like, Oh, we're going to add this. We're going to launch this. We're going to go here. We're going to go on that platform. We're going to launch a second account. All you're really doing is diluting your depth and your business is built on depth. not with, there's not one business that was built and successful and profitable because everybody came and had one transaction with no result.People have to feel the results. They have to be enrolled into it. They have to be able to win. And then they have to be able to take a next step. And so the key here is being intentional and if you're into marksmanship, it's the difference between a shotgun with birdshot and a sniper rifle, right?Bird shot. You're going to hit the target you're going to, but you also don't have to aim and you kind of can get away with slop because anywhere between eight and a hundred pellets come out of that bullet or that per say, that, that shell, that cartridge and hit the target. Whereas a sniper rifle, you might take an extra two seconds to get on target and pull the trigger. But where you aim when you pull that trigger is where you hit to, because that's where you intended to hit. And that's what we need to be in business simplicity. No reason to be on 12 social media platforms and follow your audiences on Instagram. They're asking if you on Instagram, we've gone through this.Everybody listening to this right now, all of you, we were like, everyone's like, we want you on Instagram. So we spent the last. Four months on Instagram posting two to three posts a day of the best content I've ever put out on social media and nobody consumes it. Nobody engages it. And you all know it's there and there's nothing wrong with that. But we also realized that it was being detrimental to our core business, which is our Facebook group, which you know, is that mindofgeorge.com if you're not in yet. And we weren't able to really go deep with people in that group because we were spreading focus and there really wasn't a need. Or the capacity to be on Instagram. I didn't want to hire somebody in to do it. It didn't have a measurable, tangible, positive return for the customer or for our bottom line. And so I said, Hey, let's pause it. We're going to put a post up that says, Hey, we're here. We love you. We're not running this right now because it's not aligned with our vision of helping and empowering you. And we had to look at that, but then on the other side, I got on tech talk and I was like, Oh, I'm not going to build followers here. Like, I don't know, but I'll play with it. And then in my first month I had over a million video views. I had to go viral and it's very minimal effort because it only takes me five to 10 minutes max a day. And I get a very dramatic return on an investment from attention. My team doesn't have to do anything. I don't have to do anything besides create. And it automatically links to my YouTube channel and they know where to find me. So that was a pivot that I made to be aligned and simple. I'm like, this is where people are responding. This is where they want it. This is where I'll be right now.  But in three months, if it stops working or nobody's, there, there's no point in me maintaining it. And so we always have to be chasing that base of simplicity and clarity. And so for me, this starts first with ourselves. It starts with our day, it starts with our calendar.And if you haven't listened to our perfect calendar, if you haven't watched that video, we have it in video form. It's in our group, reach out to my team in the Facebook group and we'll see if we can send it to you. It's included in our lighthouse method course, probably the most important, way to go about this and having simplicity and clarity.And it was created by my buddy Clay Hebert. Yeah. And I've been considering bringing him on the podcast to talk about it. So if that's something you want, I need you to let us know.Let us know on social. After you listen to this episode, let us know in the Facebook group, let us know somewhere, share this episode with your friends and tell them to come convince me to get him interviewed.I've never heard him share it publicly, but I could probably convince him with some really good wine or I'll make a mistake, dinner or something, and we'll talk about it, but it starts with us designing our perfect day. Right. And making sure that there is simplicity and clarity there. Then once we've done that, we empower our team. If we have one to do the same, and then once we're there with the individuals, then we go into the company and this is internal our systems, our messaging, our processes, how we do things. From customer service to marketing, to email, to a three PL to our Amazon ads, our listings, our rankings, working with agencies, getting all of it there.And then once we are there internally on the outside of the world, our customers and the people that interact with us will already feel it. But then we take it to the next level. And then we start intentionally creating more simplicity and clarity on the outward facing part. Or the light out of our lighthouse because the internal is good.And so that's how I go about doing it and it needs to be done and it needs to be done. Often. We constantly need to be auditing. Is this working? Is this not working? Is this for today or tomorrow? And it doesn't mean that if we spend a month planning a marketing initiative and we do a quarterly initiative and a month, then it starts to flop and it's not really there.And people aren't liking it. It doesn't mean it's trash forever. It just means no right now that's good. That's good. Like I love when I come up with ideas and they flop because I get told very easily that wasn't worth it. That's not what we want, which also tells me what people do want. And then I'll bring that same idea back six months later and it'll be viral or a home run because it had to be the right offer or the right message for the right market or right audience at the right time. And so that's kind of how I look at it.  So just constantly be an audit, constantly being adjustment, not big sweeping changes, changing email platforms, firing people, changing the company, but like iterative audits, right? Like just like when you do the same thing in the gym over and over and over again, you become used to it. It becomes your new normal. You have to increase stimulus a response when you eat the same foods and you're trying to gain weight. Sometimes they work. Then they stop when you're eating the same foods and trying to lose weight. Sometimes they stop and sometimes they start and we're constantly making these micro adjustments and it starts by looking at our game and being like, wow, this is how I played today.This is what worked, and this is what didn't work. This is what I'm gonna do differently. And so that's what I want you to do. When you think about simplicity, our base mission every day is how can we simplify this? Because business and life should be simple. If it's complicated, we're adding unneeded stress that really detracts from us accomplishing our goals and mission.  And then the next one is clarity. And this is my favorite one. So if you're listening to this, I'm not going to edit this out. I'm taking a sip of my coffee. If you're watching this, it's a really delicious iced coffee with almond milk. 20 grams of honey and cinnamon and it makes my heart happy. So when we think about clarity, these are some of the questions that I ask. If I were to ask every person on your team right now, what is the primary goal or focus of your company right now, when I get the same answer for members, single person, yourself included, or would they your team andn that includes agency owners, outsourced, part-time VAs yourself, even your family with their support and what you do, would they, or you be able to clearly tell me what the primary initiative for your company is this quarter, or can they describe what the company is going to look like a year from now, according to your company, vision planning, is there a clear, obvious queen bee role for your company?And then, is there a clear, obvious queen bee role for each member of your team? And if you don't know what a queen bee role is, I'm going to give you a mandate right now. I'm going to give you an ultimatum. You need to go read the book clockwork by Mike Michalowicz  as soon as possible or else I'm not going to be your friend anymore.I'll of course will be your friend, but I highly recommend it. And then when you're done with that, read an amazing book by my friend Bo Eason called there is no plan B for your A game. And then when you're done read the rest of Mike  books, cause we're not friends yet, but I really want to be his friend, but there's no reason for me to reach out to them.But if you know, Mike should tell him that I've probably sold 10,000 copies of his book because there's some of the best things I've ever seen in my life. And so clockwork by Mike Michalowicz , then there's no plan B for your, a game. And then. The next question. Do you and your team have clear, measurable goals?Is there a stick to measure success against? Is there a target that everybody's aiming at? This clarity is crucial and  I would venture on a limb to say required for you to even have a chance to have a business nevermind for it to succeed. This has required. This is like, if you don't have that, you shouldn't be allowed to have a business.You shouldn't be allowed to take a loan. You shouldn't be allowed to sell to a customer if you don't have that, because you need it internally because you also need it externally. Because one of our jobs as business owners is to know where our customers want to go. Or plan on going before they do and hold the path for them to get there.We might sell a product for step one of their journey, but it's still our responsibility to help them get to step 30. And you require clarity internally in your company before you can ever give clarity externally for your customers and without clarity and simplicity, they can't trust you and they won't feel safe.And if they don't feel safe and they can't trust you, they sure as crap cannot pay you. And so clarity. And simplicity are the two most important things in your business. They should be the keel of your boat in the water. They should be looked at every day. You should live in this state. Is this clear? And is this the simplest way I can do this?Is this clear? And is this the simplest way I can do this right. And on this episode, I made a couple of book recommendations. I'll run over them again. A book number one I referenced was the infinite game by Simon Sinek. Book two was clockwork by Mike Michalowicz and book three was there is no plan B for your, a game by Bo Eason. And then book four through five, six, seven. Books four through seven would be the rest of Mike  what's books  and that would be the pumpkin plan profit first, and then his newest one that I've read twice. Now, fix this next.  And so here's what I want you to do. You've made it this far. You're listening.  You're intrigued. I'm going to ask you those questions for clarity. One more time. And I just want you to check in with yourself. Do you know the answers? Does your team know the answers? And if you do amazing and if you don't amazing, I don't know most of these answers every day when I wake up. So I have to check in meditate, checking with my team and we're like, where are we going?What are we focusing on? And we have our goals and stuff, but we always plug back into it to make sure that we're on target and we're heading in the direction that we need to be not. We turned around and ended up going in another direction.  So the questions again, if I were to ask every person on your team, And yourself included. What is the primary goal or focus of your company right now? When I get the same answer from every single person, would they, or you be able to clearly tell me what the primary initiative for your company is this quarter? Can you wear them? Describe what the company is going to look like a year from now, according to your company, vision planning, your beacon of belief and all the different pieces that we offer you. Is there a clear, obvious queen bee role for your company, for N for each member of your team? And do you and them have clear, measurable goals. And I have more questions than that, and we have some in our Facebook group, but that is a great place to start.  So here's exactly what I want you to do. And this I want you to do in the next seven days. And listen, if you don't great. If you do amazing. I do this a lot. I've been behind the scenes more than, you know, and under the curtain and hood of more businesses. And, you know, and I live this every single day and I don't feel the need, my ego wants to name drop and be like, well, I did it with this company.I did it with this company and they, that doesn't serve us. It doesn't serve you. It doesn't serve me. It does serve my ego, but I'm not insecure right now. I'm super secure and grounded and loving this episode and you for listening to it. So thank you but I want you to take this serious. I do. Look at it like a prescription, because at the worst, what comes out of this is more clarity at the worst, at the worst, at the best everything you've ever needed.To have a clear path for your business to work. There's no way to lose this game. If you're just intentional and take a little time to do it, I'm about to share. So I challenge you in the next seven days to commit to doing this and put it in your calendar and make it a priority because without it, there's no easy way to get to where you want to go.And I'm telling you right now, You can name me a company. I'll tell you they do this. You can ask me any of my clients. They'll tell you they do this. And they range in revenue all the way up to from zero to $30 billion. And it's the same everywhere. Okay. So I want you to take a half an hour over the next week, and I want you to sit in silence and ponder the questions I just mentioned.I wind up upon to them. And I mean, this no phone, no computer, no music go to a place that you're not going to be interrupted for 30 minutes to an hour. And on a piece of actual paper, real paper written paper. I want you to write on the top, all those questions that I asked you in the clarity section. If I was to ask every person, your team, what's the primary goal of folks, your company, would I get the same answer?Would they be able to clearly tell me what the primary initiative for your company this quarter, you come up with these ones and use these ones, or you come up with your own. But I want you to write these questions on the top of the paper, and I want you to ponder all of them. And it doesn't matter if you get clarity in five minutes, you sit for at least 30.The clarity that comes in five minutes is reactive and temporary. You need to sit with it and you need to be with it. And if you get super clear in 10 minutes, will you have 20 minutes to meditate and manifest that vision for you and your company and your team. And I want you to ask yourself some of these questions, where am I unnecessarily over-complicating things? Where is there a lack of clarity? Where can I be more simple? Who do I need to enroll in order to address and fill these holes? What do I need to learn to order in order to address and fill these holes? What do I need to share with my team in order to in addressing affiliate holes.What areas of my business need the most love and attention right now, and don't act on it right away. Here's the best part of this. You're going to spend 30 minutes to an hour minimum writing this down and I mean, jot it out, let it come out and flow chicken, scratch notes, shorthand pictures. Doesn't matter.The whole point of this is to start processing and getting these thoughts out into the world. So you can get deeper and deeper into clarity. And when you are done with this session, You then have to take that piece of paper and put it away for 48 hours minimum. Put it in an envelope, put it in your desk, write the date and time in which you wrote it. And then write, I can't read or act on this until nd then at minimum 48 hours later. Minimum 48 hours later, because if you do it's reactive and it will create more of the same problems. We need to focus on the foundational principles. We need to focus on foundational shifts and those require plans, blueprints are needed to build a house.Well, you need a blueprint for how to do those things. And so don't act on it, just be aware and allow yourself the ability to celebrate that. You had all that clarity. If you do find something that's going to put you out of business and the next hour or 48 hours address it. But the rest of it can wait.So document any realizations you have, this is seriously and the most important step in building or scaling your company.So I want you to document it. And then after your two days, I want you to look at it and then you have to prioritize it and you have to prioritize it based on what moves the needle for you.And then you make a plan for it. You prioritize it. You're like, this is number one. Okay. I'm going to do this one. And these time blocks, put them in your calendar and it will be done by this day. And then when it's done, I can move on to the next one. And this is just a little glimpse. I teach this at full length at full length in our lighthouse method course.It's my nine step process for building and scaling your company from pre-revenue all the way up to 10 million. And it doesn't matter if it's Amazon only Shopify only both physical or digital. It is the same nine step model I've used forever. 500 companies and some of the accolades that you've seen and it's pretty, pretty mind blowing.And I decided to take it all. And because of the current state of the world and the things that were going on, I basically tried to put myself out of business for what I priced to that. So if you're super interested in it, you want to check it out. You can go to our Facebook group, we post about it all the time, or you can just go to becomealighthouse.com.I also think it's linked on our website with this podcast, mind of george.com. But I would love to have you in there because this is just one small section and it can be done easily. And then how these things get implemented into practice, how you use this in your systems, your processes, creating our offers, finding your audience and all that stuff.We include all of it. So if that resonates with you, come in, I love you either way, but that is what I want you to do. So just to be clear, I want to say it again. There are only two things that you need to build and scale your business, and it is simplicity and clarity and your mission every single moment of every single day should be trying to get yourself there and then sharing that love with your team and then allowing your customers to feel the results of that love that you've created.So that is the end of today's episode, having. Absolutely beautiful day, whatever day it is. Remember to subscribe. Remember to leave a review, please tell your friends, and I'm going to be specific. If you could please tell five of your friends about me, just five of them. Just tell five of your friends about this episode or an episode that supports them or serves them and will help them.It would mean the world to me and a world to them. And if you want to send 500, do it. If you get 500 people to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review, you should probably call me. Cause I'll probably give you the. Biggest gift of your life that you can't even imagine what would come out of my mouth.So I absolutely love you guys all have a beautiful day. I will talk to you soon and remember that relationships will always bet algorithms. 

In today’s show, Phil interviews Clay Hebert, creator of The Perfect Intro, The Perfect Calendar, and The Perfect Brand. Our main theme for today is the word, “clarity”. We talk about clarity from a professional point of view. As the virus continues to disrupt the livelihood of many, how can you stop, pivot, and grasp the new normal? How can you get a 30,000-foot view to truly understand what’s going on? Listeners will first learn how a mentor on your side can help you gain clarity. If you are feeling stuck and confused, a mentor can act as a sounding board to properly understand the context in its entirety. Clay also explains his FRT philosophy. F- R - T stands for Foundational – Relational – Transactional. Are you a physical trainer who can no longer train due to the current situation? Or maybe you are a photographer or consultant?   Clay shares how you can leverage your foundational skills and relations and then come up with new offer that truly resonates with your audience.  Especially, many professionals tend to stick to their old offers that are a total misfit given the current crisis. In this segment of the show, Clay shares how cultivating empathy can help you truly understand your customer’s psyche and then come up with the perfect offer. We hope you enjoy this show! What You Will Learn In This Show How to stop, pivot and adjust to the new normal How to step into your customer’s shoes and come up with a congruent offer that truly sells How a well-meaning mentor can help you understand this current situation in its entirety And much, much more... Resources Clay Hebert Clay’s Marketing School

Every couple needs to hear this in 2020. Why you might ask? Well you are a modern, driven couple and with that drive it’s so easy to ‘bulldoze’ your partner with your ideas, energy, decision making, and just being a boss in your own life. Yet that doesn’t always lead to a collaborative relationship. Today you’ll meet Angie Lee & Clay Hebert. These two not only have modern relationship wisdom to share, but they also are powerhouses in their own respective business! Their stories will show you how you can be powerful and driven in your profession/business AND be a supportive, encouraging, and present partner when that’s what the relationship calls for!  In this episode you will: Know ways to not bulldoze each other or get into power struggles. Have the most effective and modern ways to communicate, bring humor, lead, and look at relationship roles to best serve the relationship in any situation.  Feel ready and confident to take on the world as a POWER COUPLE! Questions Asked In this Interview: Both of you individually are successful in starting a business and running a company. What principles or mindset has made you successful in business that you see will have the relationship also be successful?  How do you switch from a dominant leadership role energy to softening into a supportive and open state when your partner needs it? (And not just bulldoze them) That’s such a great point you make so can you talk more about leading within the relationship and the roles of Provider/Protector and Supporter/Enhancer? What else do you see is needed for really effective and smooth communication within the relationship?  For women if safety and appreciation is the foundation for physical intimacy, how do you have your female partners continue to feel safe and appreciated?  How do you keep from feeling guilty or your partner feeling neglected when you want to focus more on your business and your impact? Quotes: “Consistency in a successful business and in a relationship is the same,  it's a choice” - Angie Lee “When you take care of yourself (your own health and energy) the partnership just explodes.” - Angie Lee “One thing most men never get taught is that most women have to walk through the world a little on the defensive for their safety. Most men don’t ever have to think of that.” - Clay About The Guests:  Angie Lee is a Podcaster (of Forbes top rated podcast: The Angie Lee show with over 7 million downloads), Creator, Owner of Soul DBC, Speaker, and Entrepreneur Marketer for Women to not suck at sales! Imagine if somehow Tony Robbins, Gary V, and Ellen had a baby… it would be Angie Lee.  Her partner Clay Hebert is the Merlin of Marketing and founder of The Perfect Brand Workshop and The Perfect Introduction. He helps leaders, entrepreneurs, and brands get clarity, tell their story, and fund their dreams!  Other resources: Follow us on Instagram Get a FREE hard copy of the book The New Power Couple (just cover shipping) and join the Power Couple Book Club!  ATTEND Angie’s ‘Pays To Be Brave’ Women’s Conference here: https://www.angielee.com/PTBB2020  

  www.organifi.com/angielee www.beekeepersnaturals.com - code "angielee"    The Empowered Couples Podcast with The Freemans    Questions Asked In This Interview: Both of you individually are successful in starting a business and running a company. What principles or mindset has made you successful in business that you see will have the relationship also be successful?  How do you switch from a dominant leadership role energy to softening into a supportive and open state when your partner needs it? (And not just bulldoze them) That’s such a great point you make so can you talk more about leading within the relationship and the roles of Provider/Protector and Supporter/Enhancer? What else do you see is needed for really effective and smooth communication within the relationship?  For women if safety and appreciation is the foundation for physical intimacy, how do you have your female partners continue to feel safe and appreciated?  How do you keep from feeling guilty or your partner feeling neglected when you want to focus more on your business and your impact?      

www.foursigmatic.com/angielee  Text CLARITY to 31996

In this episode of the CXChronicles Podcast Adrian chats through his recent experiences joining the Comcast CX Technology Day 2019 in Philadelphia, PA. Adrian joined an incredible group of CX thought leaders, authors, podcasters and business owners including; Jay Baer, Dan Gingiss, Geno Church, Mitch Joel, Mike Wittenstein, Jackie Hubba, Colin Shaw, Kerry Bodine, Natalie Petouhoff, Marsha Collier, Megan Burns, Steve Walker, Chris Penn, Steve Shapior, Clay Hebert and Jim Tincher. In this CXWeekly update you will learn about how a massive company like Comcast thinks about building, scaling and managing their massive CX and customer service team. We get into the weeds on CX technology, social media care, telecommunication technology updates + how the CX executive team Comcast is planning for their future. Listen to the CXChronicles Podcast today to listen and learn from amazing customer focused business leaders! Support the show (https://cxchronicles.com/)

How do you know if your speaking topic is financially viable or if your audience will actually pay to hear what you have to say? The man to answer those questions and more is your friend and mine, Clay Hebert. Clay was here way back on episode 5 of The Speaker Lab and today he is back. We have a fun conversation about several topics including how to figure out if your audience or target market can actually pay speaking fees, the best way to respond to the question of what do you do and why you need to work on your personal brand while also working on your craft. Tune in to hear the details on episode 260 of The Speaker Lab!   THE FINER DETAILS OF THIS SHOW Why certain talks don't pay but can still build your brand and change your career. What three entities pay for speakers? What's one of the big untold secrets in the speaking industry? Why it's important to work on your personal brand while you're also working on your craft. Is it true that winners quit all the time? When does a talk become great? Why do speakers some times choose safe topics? Success leaves what? And much, much more!  EPISODE RESOURCES Clay Hebert's web site Clay Hebert on Twitter Clay Hebert on Episode 5 of TSL The Dip, by Seth Godin A free strategy session with our team Got questions? Send them in here! Email me!  

On this weeks episode, Nic and Ali catch up on the morning of Fourth of July, hence the name of the episode. Nicole recaps TravelCon 2019, http://www.nomadicmatt.com (Matthew Kepne's) travel conference that was in Boston this June and the fun that was had! Everyone there was doing amazing, inspirational things, from travel bloggers, travel vloggers, journalists, podcasters and tour operators. Some of the keynote speakers included http://www.cherylstrayed.com/ (Cheryl Strayed), http://www.cherylstrayed.com/ (Mark Manson), and http://clayhebert.com/ (Clay Hebert).  Nic caught up with a few familiar faces including Melissa Bitz from https://www.travelingbitz.com/ (Traveling Bitz), Aaron Schlein with https://aaronschlein.com/ (Dramatic Dad) and https://aaronschlein.com/podcasts/family-travel-radio/ (the Family Travel Radio Podcast), Kevin Hill with https://twoadultsnokids.com/ (Two Adults No Kids) and Erick Prince, http://minoritynomad.com/ (the Minority Nomad) a photojournalist. She also chatted with https://bossmeggan.com/ (Meggan Kaiser), the author of https://bossmeggan.com/the-book/ (Everything for Free – Free Travel for the Modern Nomad). Nicole shares Clay Hebert's incredible advice on how the elevator pitch isn't doing you any favors and how to properly introduce yourself. Ali catches us up to speed on what she is reading which is Esther Perel's the ‘https://www.amazon.com/State-Affairs-Rethinking-Infidelity/dp/0062322583 (State of Affairs)‘ and Peggy Orenstein's ‘https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Sex-Navigating-Complicated-Landscape/dp/0062209744 (Girls and Sex)‘ in preparation for raising a young daughter. She is contemplating how girls are taught to view their bodies and changing that landscape. Ali also had a guilt free mommy night out with one of her best friends and details how that felt. What is new with you? What are you working towards? Thanks for listening!      

I love interviewing Clay Hebert. He's got the perfect introduction, the perfect brand, and more. Catching up with Clay is HUGE! 

Today we have a special show.  Myself, JLD (https://instagram.com/johnleedumas) and Clay Hebert (https://instagram.com/clayhebert) talk about all things marketing, from how you introduce yourself, to improving your chops, to having great conversations.

Great crowdfunding is nothing more than great marketing, yet 64% of crowdfunding projects fail.   In this episode, Clay Hebert shares popular crowdfunding myths and misconceptions and how to know if your idea is right for this exciting space.     If you would like access to the complete presentation, the show notes, the links, and the special resources for this episode, please visit GeniusNetwork.com/108.   Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn from Clay Hebert in this episode:   Clay shares a fascinating story from the 1800's about an American pioneer who crowdfunded the Statue of Liberty 5 myths and misconceptions about crowdfunding and the fundamentals that every entrepreneur needs to know before starting a crowdfunding campaign $34 Billion: Why crowdfunding is on its way to surpassing venture capital as a source of funding The difference between Crowdfunding and Crowdsourcing and the 5 main types of Crowdfunding 3 reasons why relying on platforms, strategies and tactics can be a huge mistake and 3 things savvy crowdfunders do instead The Alarm Clock Test: A simple way to come up with breakthrough ideas your customers will love Customer Avatar Masterclass: Clay gives you a step-by-step blueprint for understanding your customer so well your products sell themselves 64% of crowdfunding projects fail. Avoid failing by using these 10 magic marketing questions that will help you succeed… The Portable Story: How to design it and have your products and services spread to millions of people How to know if your idea is right for crowdfunding (Plus: 5 smart reasons (beyond money) for running a crowdfunding campaign)"

“While givers and takers may have equally large networks, givers are able to produce far more lasting value through their networks, and in ways that might not seem obvious." - Adam Grant, author of 'Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success'What is something you have done for someone lately with no expectation of anything in return? Do you tend to have a predictable reaction to a problematic situation, or do you tend to respond more pragmatically? How do you define vulnerability, and how is it different from authenticity? Join host Chris Schembra in this week's episode of his podcast series, 7:47 Conversations, as he welcomes entrepreneurial philanthropist, cookie connoisseur, and Editor in Chief of SJO.com, Sol Orwell, whose natural curiosity about and genuine interest in humanity has provided him with many unique and memorable experiences through the interesting people he has met. Mr. Orwell asks thoughtfully, while reflecting on the opportunities that have presented themselves to him in unexpected ways, "Would I read my own memoirs? Am I writing an interesting chapter in my life?"A self-proclaimed "digital nomad," who seeks to do good in the world through knowledge sharing and charitable initiatives, such as his annual Cookie Challenge, Mr. Orwell expresses his views on what makes for an interesting conversation, why he prefers pragmatism over idealism, and his deep appreciation for the value of expertise.Learn about his influences, including Clay Hebert, an inspiring speaker and New York Times bestselling author who has developed a simple framework around 'The Perfect Intro[duction],' and Adam Grant, of the 'Give and Take' principle. Whether you are confidently following a path towards personal fulfillment, or seeking guidance on the subject, this conversation is certain to enlighten and entertain.In 2015, the 747 Club was founded by Mr. Schembra to create a conversational environment promoting Authenticity ~ Empathy ~ Vulnerability ~ Safety. In sparking dialogue between people from disparate backgrounds and experiences, with different interests and viewpoints, a sense of community is formed within this shared experience, creating real understanding and an acceptance of others. Through this podcast, a wider audience will now learn about the 7:47 Club’s incredibly important mission.Sharing and growing our community with every listen... the 7:47 Club welcomes you.

“What’s funny is why we get introductions wrong. We either never get taught how to do it, or we learn this stupid thing called the elevator pitch.” ~ Clay Hebert Click to Tweet A good introduction should engage you, draw you in, and leave you wanting more. It’s not a slogan or a sales attempt, and if it comes across like one it will turn people off. If your nervous, unprepared, or a little too aggressive you not only compromise what you’re saying but how you’re saying it.   The good news is that how you introduce yourself is completely within your control; something that you can and should prepare in advance. In this episode of Community Made I sit down with Clay Hebert to discuss how to craft the perfect introduction, engage in small talk, and nail first impressions each and every time... Reviewer of the week: Melissa C Select Links and ReferencesNever Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman Automattic The Perfect Calendar The Perfect Introduction Facebook Group People mentioned in this episode: Brian Kurtz Phil Randazzo Michael Fishman Joey Coleman Matt Mullenweg Richard Branson Elisha Otis Jim Kwik Simon Mainwaring Dan Martell Doug Brackmann

#284: Crowdfunding expert Clay Hebert shares his best advice for validating and building a successful crowdfunding campaign. Clay shares how to determine what your Kickstarter goal should be, how to set your perks, and what you need in your campaign video. Podcast show notes available here: https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/session284

Clay Hebert is a crowdfunding genius, a marketing strategist and the creator of the Six-Word Intro. As one of the world's leading crowd funding experts, Clay has helped over 150 entrepreneurs, and raised over $50 million dollars on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Clay has trained senior leaders at fortune 500 companies, with clients like Accenture, Pfizer,…

The concept of working a 9-5 position isn’t ancient. You may not realize it, but it’s actually only a few generations old. While people in the 1500s certainly had trades and appointed positions, the work force looked very different prior to the Industrial Revolution.”The concept of going to a big dark building was so foreign [500] years ago. [But] in the last five to ten years, there has been a shift. Entrepreneurship is the future,” explains Clay Hebert, marketing and growth hack expert. Prior to the turn of the century, the folks who approved or denied access to certain opportunities - otherwise known as gatekeepers - were the game changers. And although they still exist, Hebert believes they are a lot less relevant than they were in those days, stating, “All of the gatekeepers are gone. Except one. You are the last gatekeeper.” In this podcast, he explains his philosophy behind the quote, along with ways entrepreneurs and creatives can begin to rethink how they view gatekeepers. Gatekeepers follow the standard rules and procedures that have been around for ages, which means that sometimes “[they] don’t have good taste”, he notes. In fact, J.K. Rowling’s first book in the Harry Potter series was cast aside by publishers and picked up by his daughter, who begged him for a sequel. Hebert came to this revelation after leaving his decade long position with consulting firm Accenture. “I worked with awesome, brilliant people, but they didn’t value entrepreneurship like I did,” he recounts. In 2009, he studied under Seth Godin’s alternative MBA program and went on to help brands and individuals with digital marketing. After helping a friend hold a successful Kickstarter campaign for a film she was directing, he began to realize how gatekeepers were slowly going out of vogue. “In order to make her film, she needed to raise $30,000 for post production costs. But there were gatekeepers telling her no. With my help, she got past them and found another way.” The film went on to be shown at festivals and win awards, further cementing his idea that gatekeepers were a thing of the past. Of course, some gatekeepers are useful. “I want to be sure that my pilot is trained and certified, and isn’t some hipster guy from Brooklyn that just randomly decided he wanted to fly a plane,” Hebert jokes. However, when it comes to more creative and entrepreneurial pursuits, he believes that people simply need to get out of their own way. A big part of this is monitoring what you consume and becoming a gatekeeper for yourself. Whether it’s the latest vacation photos from an old high school friend on Facebook or the salacious headline in the paper, it’s important for entrepreneurs to keep a pulse on what they are “ingesting”. “99% of people don’t care about you or what you do. And that’s great news,” Hebert says, “Ignore them. so you can give value to the 1% that do care. That’s hard to do when you’re ingesting all of that noise.” He encourages entrepreneurs to subscribe to author Kevin Kelly’s concept of finding and nurturing 1000 true fans, while building from the ground up. Click here for a special bonus gift from Clay Hebert and make sure to listen to the podcast.

My buddy Clay Hebert was in studio today. (https://clayhebert.com)  Clay is a crowdfunding and marketing genius.  I was way overdue having him on the show! It was one of those shows that could have gone for hours! and we talked how to introduce yourself at a conference, the sales process, how to hack Amazon to get […]

Welcome to Minisode Monday, where we kick off the week with something quick and actionable -- to make you more magnetic and effective -- that you can implement right away. In this Minisode Monday, Clay Hebert joins us to talk about what makes a perfect day, month, or year and working backwards to make this happen. Let's get to it! The Cheat Sheet: Whatever motivates you toward action -- no matter how lame someone else might think your methods -- is fair game. Think of what a perfect day looks like to you. For Seth Godin, it's being home by a certain time every night to cook dinner for his family -- and he builds the rest of his day toward that goal. Design a day with structures that support what makes it perfect for you. Eliminate, automate, and outsource the hitches that disrupt perfection wherever possible. To learn more about social dynamics and productivity hacks, take the Art of Charm Challenge by clicking here, or text CHARMED to 33444. Also be sure to check out our Social Capital Intensive here! Let us know about how you put today's Minisode Monday into practice! Leave a comment below, tweet with @TheArtofCharm in your response, or write to Jordan directly: jordan@theartofcharm.com (he reads everything)! Does your business have an Internet presence? Now save a whopping 50% on new webhosting packages here with HostGator by using coupon code CHARM! Find out more about the team who makes The Art of Charm podcast here! Show notes at http://theartofcharm.com/podcast-episodes/minisode-monday-24-make-perfect-day/ HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! If you dig the show, please subscribe in iTunes and write us a review! This is what helps us stand out from the crowd and help people find the credible advice they need. Review the show in iTunes! We rely on it! http://www.theartofcharm.com/mobilereview Stay Charming!

Clay Hebert (@clayhebert) is a storyteller, marketing provocateur, and founder of Crowdfunding Hacks. He joins us to explain a framework he developed called The Perfect Intro: How to Confidently Introduce Yourself, Your Business, or Anyone Else in Six Words or Less. The Cheat Sheet: How do you introduce yourself in six words or less? Learn how to tailor the introduction of yourself and your business to suit the crowd and room where you are. How do you introduce others to one another in an effective way that makes everyone look good? Here's a technique to ensure that people welcome your introduction on both sides. Find out how Clay inspired our very own Minisode Monday episodes here at AoC. And so much more... Does your business have an Internet presence? Now save a whopping 50% on new webhosting packages here with HostGator by using coupon code CHARM! DesignCrowd helps startups and small businesses crowdsource custom graphics, logos, Web design -- even tattoo designs! Check out DesignCrowd.com/Charm for a special $100 VIP offer for our listeners or enter the discount code CHARM when posting a project. If you want the most amazing shave possible, take it from us: use a fresh DSC Executive blade and Dr. Carver's Shave Butter -- two reasons to join Dollar Shave Club here today! Find out more about the team who makes The Art of Charm podcast here! Show notes at http://theartofcharm.com/podcast-episodes/clay-hebert-the-perfect-intro-episode-555/ HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! If you dig the show, please subscribe in iTunes and write us a review! This is what helps us stand out from the crowd and help people find the credible advice they need. Review the show in iTunes! We rely on it! http://www.theartofcharm.com/mobilereview Stay Charming!

Clay Hebert is a Crowdfunding and Startup Advisor that’s helped creators raise more than $50M through Indiegogo and Kickstarter. He can be found at CrowdfundingHacks.com.   The Cheat Sheet   Crowdfunding campaigns get funded before they are launched, not while they are live Good crowdfunding is just good marketing. If you are really good at marketing, then running a crowdfunding campaign should be easy Why you should do your own crowdfunding campaign, instead of asking someone else to run it for you “Below MSRP” and why you need to be aware of it What are the 5 biggest mistakes people make when crowdfunding The importance of defining your customer avatar before you set out to launch   Subscribe through iTunes Subscribe through Stitcher In this episode, Clay and I discuss the common mistakes a creator might make when launching a crowdfunding campaign. We also discuss basic concepts and strategies which have a huge impact on starting a campaign. More about the Show Crowdfunding Uncut is a show and podcast hosted by Khierstyn Ross. Every week we co-host the show with successful project creators, and other minds in internet marketing. The goal is to help YOU become inspired, take action, and get real results when it comes to getting your campaign funded through Indiegogo or Kickstarter.   Thanks, Clay! If you enjoyed this session with Clay Hebert, let him know by clicking on the link below and sending him a quick shout out on Twitter!Click here to say thank you to Clay on Twitter! Click to tweet. Resources from this episode Clay’s website CrowdfundingHacks.com Special gift for listeners. Click here. @ClayHebert on Twitter Crowdfunding Uncut Episode 33: The Facebook Ads Hack that Helped Ravean Raise $1.33M on Kickstarter | Bryce Fischer This show is brought to you by Backer kit is a Crowdfunding Fulfilment Software Tool that’s helped more than 1,900 creators fulfil orders to more than 3.5M backers. Let them help you take care of fulfilment, customer surveys, upsells, and more! Head to Backerkit.com for more information.   You’ll also like Crowdfunding Toolbox (click here or text UNCUT to 66866 if in the US)On your phone? Click here to write us an honest iTunes review and help us outrank the riffraff! Claim your free download by clicking the image below.  

Stand Up and Speak Up

Episode 099: Clay Hebert - How You Should Always Introduce Yourself Clay Hebert is a giving leader who has experienced immense success in multiple life categories.   He has personally helped me in many ways along this podcasting journey.  I particularly enjoyed the part of our conversation where we riffed on his famous “6 Word Introduction.”  I put Clay on the spot to help me answer the question (that we all get daily), “What do you do?”  I think you’ll find a lot of use about of this live one on one workshop style conversation and it certainly is applicable to your life. Clay Hebert is a marketing strategist and the founder of Crowdfunding Hacks, where he helps entrepreneurs and creatives fund their dreams. As one of the world’s leading crowdfunding experts, Clay has helped over 150 entrepreneurs raise over $50 million on popular crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo. A frequent keynote speaker, Clay engages audiences around the globe on innovation, creativity, crowdfunding, marketing, entrepreneurship and the future of work. Clay has trained senior leaders at Fortune 500 organizations and his corporate speaking clients have included Accenture, Pfizer, Zappos and some of the top universities and nonprofits in the world and he advises corporations, executives and startups on strategy, marketing, innovation and culture independently and through Clarity.fm, Exobase and the First Growth Venture Network. Clay has written for The Washington Post, Forbes and The Next Web and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Lifehacker and The Financial Post. He is a regular guest on FOX Business. Episode 099: Clay Hebert - How You Should Always Introduce Yourself Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show “What’s Important But Not Urgent?  Let’s Design Your Perfect Day.” In This Episode, You Will Learn: Self-awareness (Being Honest about what they don’t know), curiosity, and saying “I don’t know” are the qualities of people who have achieved high levels of success How to understand and focus on you “important but not urgent” time Design your perfect day… Really take time to think about it The power of “Purple Cow” and Seth Godin Breaking PowerPoint rules – Get rid of all the words! It should be a visual presentation Answering the question, “What do you do?” Clay’s 6 word response… Read Greg McKeown’s book: Essentialism- The Disciplined Pursuit Of Less Living with Jason Zook in Southern California and the positive effect it can have living with creative people Surrounding yourself with people a level up from you – Accelerating your ideas Seth Godin’s Alt MBA and the power of it The power of waking up every day with a child’s mind  “I believe everyone can be a leader and I show them how.” Continue Learning: Go To Clay website: ClayHebert.com Go To: HowToIntro.com Follow Clay on Twitter: @clayhebert You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 085: Jessica Lahey – Why Your Parenting Style Is Wrong Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts Did you enjoy the podcast? This was a jam packed episode full of great content.  Clay Hebert is leader who is constantly learning in order to help us all live a better life. Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show! Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell   Bio From Clay Hebert  Clay Hebert is a marketing strategist and the founder of Crowdfunding Hacks, where he helps entrepreneurs and creatives fund their dreams. As one of the world’s leading crowdfunding experts, Clay has helped over 150 entrepreneurs raise over $50 million on popular crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo. A frequent keynote speaker, Clay engages audiences around the globe on innovation, creativity, crowdfunding, marketing, entrepreneurship and the future of work. Clay has trained senior leaders at Fortune 500 organizations and his corporate speaking clients have included Accenture, Pfizer, Zappos and some of the top universities and nonprofits in the world and he advises corporations, executives and startups on strategy, marketing, innovation and culture independently and through Clarity.fm, Exobase and the First Growth Venture Network. Clay has written for The Washington Post, Forbes and The Next Web and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Lifehacker and The Financial Post. He is a regular guest on FOX Business. After a decade solving complex problems for global clients at Accenture, the world’s largest consulting firm, Clay left corporate America and attended the most selective and unique MBA program in the country, a six month journey working with Seth Godin and eight other amazing people. Clay is active on Twitter at @clayhebert. He teaches crowdfunding at CrowdfundingHacks.com and writes about marketing, innovation and the future of work on his own blog at ClayHebert.com.

Thinking about raising money through crowdfunding? Then you need the wisdom of crowdfunding expert Clay Herbert. Clay is a marketing strategist and the founder of Crowdfunding Hacks, where he helps entrepreneurs and creatives fund their dreams. As one of the world’s leading crowdfunding experts, Clay has helped more than 150 entrepreneurs raise over $50 million on popular crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Clay is a frequent keynote speaker and engages audiences around the world on topics ranging from innovation to creativity, crowdfunding, marketing, entrepreneurship and the future of work. Clay has trained senior leaders at Fortune 500 organizations, and his corporate speaking clients have included Accenture, Pfizer, Zappos and some of the top universities and nonprofits in the world. He has written for The Washington Post, Forbes and The Next Web, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Lifehacker and The Financial Post. He is a regular guest on FOX Business. After a decade solving complex problems for global clients at Accenture, the world’s largest consulting firm, Clay left corporate America and attended the most selective and unique MBA program in the country, a 6-month journey working with Seth Godin and eight other amazing people. He now teaches crowdfunding at and writes about marketing, innovation and the future of work on his own blog at . The show is packed with crowdfunding wisdom from Clay. Important tips include: * The four main types of crowdfunding (and key distinctions of each)* The critical steps you must take before you launch a crowdfunding campaign* Why you should not hire an agency to promote your Kickstarter or Indiegogo project* The “ice cream sundae” problem (what it is and how to avoid it)* The basic psychology of reward levels* Examples of some of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns and lessons learned (including Coolest Cooler and Kittyo)* When campaigns really get funded* Why crowdfunding is like a party (and what you need to bring)* Why stealth is b.s. (and no one is going to steal your idea)* Advanced signals that indicate whether your crowdfunding campaign will succeed or fail* Why media coverage may not bring a flood of backers to your campaign (but how you can leverage placements regardless)

On this episode of The Speaker Lab, world-renowned speaker Clay Hebert joins the show to talk about starting your speaking career. Clay specializes in speaking to corporations, associations and conferences for entrepreneurs. He began his career speaking for free at conferences, and eventually made his way into speaking at bigger engagements and paid bookings. Today on The Speaker Lab, Clay talks about who does and who doesn't pay for speakers, how having a relationship with a fellow speaker jump-started his career, and how to get your best talk across every time. Listen in to hear all of that and so much more on this episode of The Speaker Lab! THE FINER DETAILS OF THIS SHOW Why you need to do some unpaid speaking jobs. How relationships can change the course of your career. Why mistakes are nothing to be afraid of. When can customizing your talk actually hurt you? What themes or talking topics are people willing to pay for? How can you determine which audiences are right for your talk? The speaker who helped Clay's career, and what it means to you. And much, much more! EPISODE RESOURCES Clay Hebert's website Clay Hebert on Twitter Clay's crowdfunding website Persuadable, by Al Pittampalli Got questions? Send them in here! Take part in the contest Email me!

One great way to validate your business idea or to see who’s willing to pay for something is through Crowdfunding. It also gives you a financial kick start to get your business or idea going but it is not as easy as it may seem. Luckily, we have had the pleasure of having today’s guest […] The post MBA429 Guest Teacher: Avoid These 5 Crowdfunding Mistakes with Clay Hebert appeared first on The $100 MBA.

One great way to validate your business idea or to see who’s willing to pay for something is through Crowdfunding. It also gives you a financial kick start to get your business or idea going but it is not as easy as it may seem. Luckily, we have had the pleasure of having today’s guest […] The post MBA429 Guest Teacher: Avoid These 5 Crowdfunding Mistakes with Clay Hebert appeared first on The $100 MBA.

Clay Hebert helps entrepreneurs fund their dreams. Cl​ay shares a ​three-step structure to build and attract a loyal following for your business, the six-word introduction to describe your business and specific reasons it's so important to connect in today's economy. The episode concludes with a quick recap of actionable steps you can take to deliver tangible, immediate results for you and your business.

Another podcast on the go today... James received a text from a young listener who wants to earn a quick $5,000 so he can travel to Thailand. He asks, "What's a quick and easy way to make some fast money?" The easiest way is to do something online. James and Claudia's idea muscles are in overdrive today. They come up with a huge amount of great ideas. Regards, David Newman   ---------------------------Recommended Resources-----------------------------   by Jerry Seinfeld – Come meet James in person this Saturday. Ask Altucher Ep 245: Mimi Ikonn on How to Make seven figures on YouTube, and     AA Ep 170 with Clay Hebert from Kickstarter

# Episode 145 **Summary:** In Episode #146 talks to Clay Hebert of [Crowdfunding Hacks](http://crowdfundinghacks.com/), a blog that talks tips and tricks when it comes to crowdfunding. During the interview, Clay details the differences between IndieGoGo and Kickstarter, explains what makes a campaign a boon versus bust and why some products simply don't work for crowdfunding. **Special Announcements:** # [Less Doing Does Europe!](https://www.gazelles.com/summits/EGS-2015/Barcelona/index.html) Watch Ari bring the lessons of Less Doing to some of Europe's most famous cities including Barcelona, Munich, Amsterdam and Budapest for the 2015 European Growth Summit. Ari will be joined by fellow masters of entrepreneurship Steve Martin, Director of _Influence at Work_ in the UK, and Verne Harnish, founder and CEO of Gazelles. ## EO Vancouver On June 18th, join Ari at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in b-e-a-utiful Vancouver, B.C. as he takes the microphone for _EO Vancouver_. Enjoy this unique opportunity to watch Ari candidly discuss life as an Author, Speaker, Teacher and – most importantly – Achievement Architect. ## [Less Doing Ringtone](http://www.paywithapost.de/pay?id=8c396e88-e364-4ec9-9e6f-c5620039cdcf) Want to get access to the _FREE _Less Doing Ringtone? Click [here](http://www.paywithapost.de/pay?id=8c396e88-e364-4ec9-9e6f-c5620039cdcf) to Tweet about our live event and get instant access to the ringtone created by our very own Fantastic Felix! ## [Less Doing Live Event](https://lessdoinglabs.businessresearchgroup.org/sales/live-event-optin) The **Less Doing LIVE Event** in NYC is _less than six months away_! The best minds in business and productivity are joining Ari in his hometown of New York City to share their tips, strategies and secrets for success. Visit [LessDoingLive.com](http://www.lessdoinglive.com/) to learn more about this fantastic opportunity running from **May 1st – 3rd**. ## [Mastermind Talks](http://www.mastermindtalks.com/) Looking for an opportunity to see Ari speak live somewhere on the west coast?—Look no further! On **April 29th and 30th** , Ari will be featured at the _Mastermind Talks_ event in **Napa, California**. To learn more about this opportunity to watch Ari “_Optimize, Outsource and Automate_” in wine country, click [here](http://www.mastermindtalks.com/). **Time Stamped Show Notes:** - 30:00 – Introduction of Clay Hebert of [Crowdfunding Hacks](http://crowdfundinghacks.com/) - 31:22 – Clay explains what he does: Help entrepreneurs fund their dreams using IndieGoGo and Kickstarter - 32:34 – The concept of crowdfunding - 35:10 – What _shouldn't _be crowdfunded - 35:35 – There needs to be a tribe of people who will get excited about the product being crowdfunded - 35:46 – Is it a portable story that the backer will _want _to tell their friends about? - 36:35 – You won't get funding just based on the quality of your product: the quality of your marketing and your ability to find people who are willing to get interested are more important - 37:55 – The importance of setting the right funding goal - 38:12 – One of the biggest myths surrounding crowdfunding is the existence of a “crowd” - 38: 35 – Set the funding goal as low as humanly possible to complete the project and deliver on your guarantees - 39:00 – Lower goals give confidence for later backers - 40:10 – Crowdfunded products are proof of market AND traction - 40:35 – The two elements that make or break a crowdfunding campaign?—Traffic and conversion - 41:10 – Traffic is rarely the issue, it's conversion - 41:45 – Tell a great story with the video and keep it as short as possible, ideally 2 minutes or less - 43:07 – Own a position in your customer's mind - 43:40 – Fundraising and crowdfunding are NOT the same - 45:15 – Fulfillment risk - 46:00 – Lack of clarity—poor copywriting—is a huge issue with branding and marketing - 47:45 – Momentum is big—Use the bartender fish --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lessdoing/message

Clay Hebert, founder of Crowdfunding Hacks, has helped over 100 entrepreneurs raise over $25 million in funding on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Clay talks about his processes for preparing a campaign and best practices for building a community of supporters that will be loyal to and support your project.

Clay Hebert, founder of Crowdfunding Hacks, has helped over 100 entrepreneurs raise over $25 million in funding on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Clay talks about his processes for preparing a campaign and best practices for building a community of supporters that will be loyal to and support your project.

Crowdfunding is more than just begging, or asking nicely, for money to assist with financing your next project. There’s a certain finesse that you need to attribute to your campaign in order to be successful.   You need to learn how to successfully market your campaign, but instead, try thinking of how to do that from the bottom up. The most important part of any successful marketing campaign is to nail down exactly who your audience is, versus trying to connect with everyone. Once you figure out who your “tribe” is, you need to start a buzz that garners their interest months before you even launch your crowdfunding campaign.   As a crowdfunding expert, Clay Hebert helps people fund their dreams, having assisted over 100 entrepreneurs raise over $25 million for their projects. In this show, Clay shares some of his “hacks” and strategies for running not only a successful crowdsourcing campaign, but also setting up an effective “pre-campaign” to set you on the road to reaching your funding goal.   http://www.themarketingagents.com/87

Please support the show with a quick tweet. Click this link http://ctt.ec/H0oL4. Thank you. Clay Hebert is an entrepreneur, marketer and speaker. He is a crowdfunding expert with a speciality in Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns. Talking about crowdfunding tips, Seth Godin and networking by helping others NBN51 Show Notes brought to you by Bluehost. Hosting beginning at $3.95 per month. Listen to episode 51 in iTunes or Stitcher. Join other listeners of NBN Radio to network and learn from one another in the NBN Club. FEATURED LISTENER & AUDIO COMMENT: Clark Buckner, TechnologyAdvice Podcast. Since 2012, Clay Hebert has helped over one hundred entrepreneurs, makers, inventors, authors and filmmakers raise over $25 million on crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Record your networking tip or audio comment at speakpipe.nbnradio.com. Clay's first Kickstarter client was Gold Star Children by Mitty Griffis Mirrer. Clay has worked on over 100 crowdfunding projects. Tons of media exposure for your crowdfunding project won't necessarily help you as much as your network will. The average crowdfunding campaign creator needs 500 - 1,000 backers. Make a list of the 100 people you need to reach out to first. Mike Delponte and the Soma Kickstarter campaign. Hacking Kickstarter from Tim Ferris' blog. Segment your personal address book into different groups and compose emails for each group. If you want to know who your most important people are review your text messages. Build a share page to make it easy as possible to your core 100 people. Create personal emails, it's not about blasting people (or blasting their eyeballs). Clay has shared the stage speaking with people like Seth Godin, Tim Ferris, Pam Slim and James Altucher. Jayson Gaignard amazing Mastermind Talks Conference. Clay's Mom's kitchen sign “Many have eaten here, few have died.” A life changed. Clay's summary of spending six months with Seth Godin in his SAMBA program. Stew Leonard's grocery store. Constantly try to help people. Julia Roy is Clay's awesome girlfriend. Follow her too. @juliaroy Wake up and figure out how to help other people each morning. Helping other people has been the most useful and powerful connection tool I have ever used. Most freelancers need to be better at positioning and selling what they do. Tell the story of who you are and include testimonials. Networking is one of the most important things to help your business. Start hosting dinners. Who do you want to invite to your private dinner? Skip the parties and host your own dinner. Go from attending to hosting. Thornton May runs Cambridge Technology Partners. Facebook is like holding a board meeting at a Chucky Cheese's. Download the free NBN Radio daily goals. “The single best productivity system is the one that works for you.” @juliaroy App Recommendation: Slack. Book Recommendation: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Someone Who's Been There by Cheryl Strayed. Thanks to Clay for our special Go Fund Your Dream offer to NBN Radio listeners. Submit your questions and comments by using #nbnradio. You can also record an audio comment at speakpipe.nbnradio.com. Click HERE to subscribe in iTunes Click HERE to subscribe in Stitcher   You can subscribe to the show by RSS, email or in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You will never miss an episode! Affiliate links used, read the disclosure. Theme music, Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba. Thanks for listening. You rock!

Our 7th Instigator is Clay Hebert, who was one of Seth Godin's first alternative MBA students and has helped over 80 entrepreneurs raise over 20 million dollars across various crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You Can Change Your Life Or at least that's what Clay Hebert did. In 2008, Clay was at a crossroads.  Should he continue to work for Accenture, where he had a guaranteed salary and could easily move up the ladder?  Or should he branch off on his own path, a path completely uncertain and paved with obstacles and possible failure points. It turns out serendipity was on his side: it just so happened that as Clay began soul-searching, he noticed a blog post by Seth Godin titled 'If You Could Change Your Life'... Would you? And for Clay, the answer was yes. Starting From Scratch After the 6 month intensive MBA program, Clay went straight into bootstrapping his first business: Tribes Win. At Tribes Win, Clay worked with a plethora of clientele, from entrepreneurs to authors, and helped them build their Tribes. After the success with Tribes Win, Clay moved onto bootstrapping two more companies: Workhacks.com and Spindows.com Both businesses have the chance to redefine their genres (and yes, you should check them out). Things we talk about: The fear of walking away from a guarantee into the unknown How to overcome fear The difference between Freelancer and Entrepreneur (and why it's crucial you know the difference) "Product Market Fit" - and why you need to use it, whether you're a writer or an entrepreneur The power of the lean startup versus conventional business development Why you should TEST and VALIDATE your business before you jump into your next venture How to multi-task like a ninja...but also why it's not recommended for most people! Quotes to Live by From the Interview: Don't start by building, start by validating. (tweeeeet!) Get out of the building and talk to actual customers. (tweet it!) Socialize: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Additional Show Notes: Crush It Hugh Mcleod Spindows Purple Cow Tribes Win Work Hacks The Lean Startup Launch Rock Skillshare

Todays guest is a man that is a true online mover and shaker. In fact he probably put the move into Mover, and shaked the shake until he got more than most people would have done, because wow he is doing some great things in the online world. He is an an entrepreneur, a marketer, and a graduate of Seth Godin's unique MBA program. As one of the world's leading crowdfunding experts, he has helped over 50 entrepreneurs raise over $5 million on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. He is a popular public speaker, engaging audiences around the globe on innovation, creativity, marketing, entrepreneurship and the future of work. But was it an easy path to his current successes? Did he have doubts and fears that followed him along the way, the kind of fears that stop so many people in their tracks? Well we will find out, as even with all the knowledge that he has gained he still found that some companies were not willing to entertain new and innovate ways of thinking. They were stuck in the dark ages, and unable to move into a bright new and prosperous world. So how did he battle that limited thinking? How did he express his contrasting views of how things should be done? Well he did what all good entrepreneurs would do, and went solo, working for companies in an advisory position. But then whilst on vacation in 2012, a friend of a former client phoned to say they needed help, and to me this one phone call signified the moment that he had found his true path in life. She had run a Kickstarter project to raise $20K to finish a documentary film and it was struggling and not going to get funded. With his knowledge of online marketing, they got the project seen by the right people and saved it. It went from 20% funded with 10 days to go to 113% funded before it closed. A lightbulb went on and our guest realized that the same marketing skills he was using to help Fortune 500 companies could be used to help entrepreneurs actually fund their dreams and change the world. And the rest as they say is history. So lets get chatting, and joining up some dots, with the one and only Clay Hebert