Podcasts about cloze

2025 is the year to become "acronimble" by familiarizing yourself with one of the most important acronyms in the industry: CRM, which stands for Customer Relationship Management. The BOSSES discuss how the right CRM tool can streamline how you engage with clients, leading to better organization, and more business opportunities. Learn how to maintain meaningful connections without constantly reinventing the wheel, and discover the strategies that help you organize client interactions to promote continued work. Through personal stories and practical advice, The BOSSES highlight the evolution from old-school Rolodexes to cutting-edge digital solutions, empowering you to manage your client interactions like a BOSS. 00:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, amazing voiceover talents. Do you ever wish boss marketing was as fun as it was being behind the mic? Well, check out my VO Boss Blast. It's designed to automate and make your marketing simpler. You'll benefit from your very own target marketed list, tailored to meet your goals and your brand. The VoBoss Blast Find out more at V. The VO Boss Blast Find out more at voboss.com.  00:27 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VO Boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Real Bosses series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am the BOSS with the VOS. That's the voiceover strategist, Mr Tom Dheere. Hello.  00:59 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Tom Hello. So that's boss VOS.  01:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Boss, VOS.  01:03 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) The BOSS VOSS, boss VOSS.  01:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) The BOSS BOSS with the V-O-S.  01:06 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) BOSS with the V-O-S.  01:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And you know, tom, let's continue the acronym party, shall we? Yes, please, Because I'll tell you what it's the beginning of the year, I'm going to manifest multiple new contacts and you know what I need to be able to keep track of those contacts in a BOSS CRM.  01:26 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Whoa, whoa Boss, boss CRM. What do you?  01:29 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) think Boss, boss CRM I like that. And you know, people ask me about what CRM do I use? What CRM do I use? And so let's talk about 2025 CRM.  01:40 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Fantastic idea, anne. First off, just to make sure everybody knows what we're talking about, CRM is Customer Relationship Manager. It is a fancy way of saying some form of system where you store your client information potential clients, current clients, past clients' information which you can use as a home base for your marketing strategies. So you use the CRM to develop relationships with customers. So just make sure everybody's on the same page.  02:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Then you could be CRM BOSS, you could be a CRM boss.  02:17 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) You could be a crim boss. No, we'll stick with CRM.  02:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But CRM reminds me of crumble cookies. Oh wait, now I'm going off.  02:28 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I diverge into a tangent of cookies. I was thinking crumb, like the god that Conan the Barbarian worships. All right, we're really getting off the rails here.  02:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I can see where my brain is versus yours.  02:36 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) You must be hungrier than I am.  02:40 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love cookies, me too. So, speaking of CRMs, so, tom, let's talk about why, first of all, is it good to have a CRM? Why do we need one? For a boss business?  02:51 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) It is critical for voice actors to have a CRM, because I tell my students that my definition of marketing is the art and science of developing meaningful relationships. That's what it is. You want meaningful relationships with clients. Now, we all know why you want meaningful relationships with clients. Now we all know why we want meaningful relationships with clients and they know too is because we want them to give us money to talk Like. We understand that, they understand that. And at the same time, it's complicated and there's a lot of moving parts to all of this stuff.  03:24 Having a CRM well, why you want to have it is because you don't want to have to reinvent the wheel every time. You want to get voiceover work. Also, it's a relationship manager, since you are trying to develop relationships. Relationships have beginnings. They start in a certain way Hi, my name is so-and-so Nice to meet you Handshake, firm handshake and all that stuff. And then it's the getting to know you stuff develop an understanding of each other, what you can offer each other, what you both need from each other, and developing trust. Trust is one of the most important components of any relationship, be it personal or professional. So why have a CRM? You do it to develop trust and nurture relationships with clients.  04:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And Tom, can I just say I love that. Can I just say, as a girl with about a million and a half and I kid you not a million and a half unread emails in my Gmail, if I don't have a place that I can go to see where are my customers, right, if I'm not doing something to organize that, basically emails just fly through my inbox and so I might forget that I was in contact with my client maybe a month ago and I needed to follow up with them for a particular reason. Maybe they were saying let me get back to you on this and I need to follow up. And so if I just relied on my trusty email system which, by the way, has a million and a half unread email messages and guys in my defense, right, I got a Gmail account in 1990-something Okay, how many years is that? Thirty-some-odd years, a long time.  05:04 When it began, I was one of the first like few hundred people that had a Gmail account and, because Google is a search engine, I just never deleted anything. So I have records, by the way, from my clients, if I want to. I have records going back to like 1992 or 96. I can't remember which year but yeah, that's amazing.  05:21 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I know it's crazy.  05:22 That's amazing, but fun stuff Another thing to keep in mind is that, for a moment, take out the word relationship and replace it with the term sales funnel. Yeah, a good CRM helps get voice seekers into the sales funnel and pushes them through the sales funnel. There's different permutations and levels for different people, but for me, my sales funnel terms are brand awareness, consideration, decision, advocacy. Brand awareness you send the cold email Hi, so-and-so explainer video company. My name's Tom Dheere. I'm an explainer video narrator.  05:57 Now they know that you exist, which means if they open the email, clicked on the link to your website, listened to your demos, downloaded them and replied hey, thanks for sending this, we'll keep you in mind for future consideration. They are now keeping you hopefully top of mind the next time a voiceover gig comes along that you're right for. So that's part of using the CRM to keep moving them through the consideration part of the sales funnel to the decision where they actually have a voiceover that you'd be right for and they remember you and they have your demos and they have your contact information and they actually reply to you. Hey, we think we've got something for you. Could you please read this script and let us know how much you'd charge for this? You do that and then you get the booking and then it goes into the advocacy part of the sales funnel where you did such a great job that they will remember you the next time a project comes along, because you did such a great job on the last project that you worked on.  07:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love how you just explained the sales funnel because I was going to say, like most voice actors are not necessarily aware, you went through the technical aspects of a traditional, like marketing sales funnel. Here I always have to go to my lipstick.  07:13 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Okay, let's go to your lipstick.  07:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's not in Ganguzza, unless I got my—okay. First of all, I have to have a need. I have to have a need, right, and so I may or may not be aware of different brands of lipstick, right, but because I've used this lipstick before, I'm going to start with my Chanel. Right, I have my Chanel lipstick and they're top of mind because literally they sit right here on my desk, because when I do my podcast video, I've got to make sure I have my matching lipstick.  07:40 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Oh, your lipstick matches your headphones.  07:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, brand awareness. That's one thing. What's the next step in the funnel there, Tom?  07:47 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Consideration.  07:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Consideration. Now, what are the factors that are going to have me consider? Now, just equate this to your voiceover business guys. Basically, this is the layman's terms of like okay, so what is it? The considerations of? Why am I going to buy this brand? Right?  08:01 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yeah, what are the advertising and marketing techniques that that company is going to use to remind you how awesome their lipstick is?  08:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, exactly. And also, what is my experience with the lipstick? Right? So I'm on their mailing list, right? And does Chanel go on sale? Well, no, but that's also brand awareness too. So we know that certain things don't go on sale. Chanel doesn't usually go on sale, but anyways, I keep up with them with their mailings and that's how they keep top of mind with me, but pretty much I also use it all the time and it sits there, so I visually see it. So it's either in my inbox or it's sitting here in my desk, right? What's the next step after consideration?  08:37 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Decision.  08:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Decision Okay, do I have the money at this time? Do I have the need? Do I have the money to buy this? Right. And I make that decision. I click on the email Right Because they say, oh, new colors are out and I'm like, oh, I could use a new color red Right. So I make that decision. I click, go to the website and then what's after?  08:57 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) the decision I buy it, right. Advocacy, you buy it and then advocacy.  08:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So if I buy it and I love the color, oh my God, oh guys, have you seen? All right, all my friends, I'm going to say did you see this color? Isn't this color amazing? Right, and I might even throw up like a social media. You know, like, ooh, branding awareness. Anne Ganguzza Voice Talent, right, branding awareness. I love this new color red, because you got to feel confident in the booth so that you can voice confidently. And so there we go, I'm going to advocate for the brand. So not only am I advocating for my brand, but I'm advocating for this brand as well. So that kind of just took you through the sales funnel with, like, just a traditional lipstick. Sorry, tom, you could maybe use a flannel shirt as an example.  09:35 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Well, I'm a Maybelline man myself.  09:37 Oh, okay, there you go, so I want to take exactly what you said and now let's look at it from the lipstick maker company's perspective.  09:46 They've got people that they want to buy their lipstick and they want them to love their lipstick and come back for more. So they have their own CRM and through their television advertising, through their radio advertising, through their digital and streaming advertising, through their print advertising on the side of a bus or in a magazine of some sort, they are trying to get people to be aware of them, brand awareness, and keep them top of mind, which is why there's always kinds of print and digital and other forms of advertising. And if they get you on that mailing list, they can send out emails at regular intervals based on people who haven't bought their lipstick yet and people who possibly have bought their lipstick yet. They also look at did they open this email, Did they use a promo code to try the lipstick or get a discount, even though they don't do discounts, which is very interesting because a lot of brands position themselves we are so valuable and we are so coveted, we don't need to discount. We don't need to do that.  10:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I did that for many years. It's very interesting for Chanel to do that. It's an interesting psychology behind it.  10:55 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) There is a psychology.  10:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) There are a lot of times where, if something is so cheap, I'll be like oh, I'm not so sure about the quality of that. I'd actually rather pay a little bit more money because I feel like I'm getting better quality. And that's the whole like. Know your worth, guys. Right, what should you be charging? Charge what you're worth versus going cheap, right.  11:12 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) More expensive equals superior from a branding and psychological point of view. So Chanel, chanel, right. Chanel sees all of us, potential customers, brand awareness, consideration, actual customers, decision and advocacy, and they use CRMs to get lipstick buyers into the sales funnel and push them through. Exactly Translating that to voice actors. We want to do the same exact thing, right, and a good, robust, interactive CRM can help us get voice seekers into the sales funnel and push them through.  11:45 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely, and you'll be able to know at what point in the funnel they are at Exactly. A good CRM will tell you exactly where they are in the sales funnel so you'll know what to do for the next steps. Maybe they need an additional email, maybe they need a phone call, maybe you'll put out some more social media advertisements, that sort of a thing. So really depending on where they are in the CRM is when you make that determination and decision on what to do. So now, tom, the question is we know why we need a CRM right and we understand the sales funnel and all voice actors need to understand that sales funnel, because we are selling our products, we're selling our voices.  12:17 Let's talk about actual CRMs. I mean, there's many of them out there. I know people constantly ask me which ones I use and I think the answer may surprise you unless you've listened to a podcast of mine before but I don't use any one. I use a multitude of CRMs in combination with one another because myself personally, I don't find one that does everything for me that I need. What about you, tom?  12:38 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yes, different CRMs fulfill different needs. Now, what we are talking about, and what most voice actors ask us about, is the software or app.  12:57 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) If you have a Rolodex from the 70s or 80s or 90s.  12:58 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) That's a CRM. Yep, yep, yep, A spreadsheet, A spreadsheet. Exactly that was the very next thing I was going to say A spreadsheet is a form of CRM.  13:04 Yeah, I had an index card box. So in 1995, when I got my first voiceover demo and my coach told me to cold call because that's back then pre-social media, pre-pay-to-play, free home recording that was pretty much the only thing you could do. I would use a CRM of index cards and I had those little you know with the little tabs that would separate them into production companies, recording studios, advertising agencies, so on and so forth. That was a CRM and then that evolved into spreadsheets. I do still use spreadsheets regularly, but I also use an actual software app CRM.  13:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Myself as well.  13:44 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Now, neither Anne nor I are getting paid to sponsor or affiliate or promote any particular CRM, so we are going to be talking to you about this purely through what our experience has been without hawking, and then we get a little kickback.  14:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So I'm going to tell you, my first CRM well before voiceover was a Rolodex, and then, ultimately, it turned into a spreadsheet so that I could keep track of my customers, and that was based off of. You know, I started doing all my accounting online right through my accounting software, and so it was my customer base, right, that was thrown into a spreadsheet and then I would track things that way. So, you guys, crms don't have to be expensive. They can be very simple and it can be whatever you're most comfortable with, and that's what I started with. And then it ended up being my Gmail, right? My Gmail, where I would separate things into folders for different clients and then keep track of them that way, and then a couple of plugins for the Chrome browser that worked within Gmail to help me keep top of mind with them, and then, tom, I'm sure we'll get into the other ones that we use. What?  14:48 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) about you.  14:49 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You started as a spreadsheet right.  14:50 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) My start is the index card box, which then turned into spreadsheets, and then 2003,. I started using Act. You remember Act by Sage? I used that one for almost 10 years, so yeah, around 2013. And I think it either got discontinued or something weird happened with it, or I didn't like the features, or they started charging too much. I don't remember what it was. Then I did move to Gmail as well.  15:17 I'd been using Gmail as an email account for a while, but then I started to use it as an actual CRM. One thing that's nice is that you can use what? Is it G-Sync or Google Sync? So I synchronize my Gmail with my Outlook folders, so I have Outlook which is how I manage all my email.  15:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, I have Gmail folders.  15:40 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Right, and this is the great thing about it. I have Gmail folders, but they automatically sync with Outlook every time. So if you look at Gmail, and you look at the Outlook folders. The folders are exactly the same. So if I move one to one thing in one, it moves it to the one thing in the other, which means if I'm at my desktop, on my laptop, on my tablet or on my phone.  16:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Outlook is amazing.  16:02 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Outlook is amazing. Anything I do with Gmail or Outlook, it automatically synchronizes with all of my devices.  16:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) In my defense, I would have Outlook as my most favorite email client ever and when I was working in the corporate world I had an Outlook account. And when I left the corporate world to go into voiceover full-time, I no longer had an Outlook server right to go to and Gmail at the time wasn't syncing up with Outlook nicely, or Outlook wasn't syncing up with Gmail nicely, so I literally got used to using just Gmail. Okay, but it's funny because my husband does use Gmail with Outlook and he just filters everything into his Outlook because Outlook is just wonderful visually, it's just a nice way to organize things in folders. But I've gotten so used to my Gmail in folders that I'm really used to and filtering. I have automatic filtering and that sort of thing, but I totally love Outlook.  16:51 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Right, I'm looking at the bottom of my desktop. For me it's Google Workplace Sync, because I have a paid Google Workspace account. And Google Workspace is great.  16:59 It does all kinds of fun things.  17:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I can do it now.  17:02 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yeah, and I never even thought about Gmail as a CRM that I'm using now because I have a folder for every client in Gmail, because every time I have any kind of correspondence with any client, once the correspondence is over, I drag that email into that client folder. Now do I use that specifically to market out of? No, but it is a robust, legit CRM because, like, for example I'll give you a perfect example 2019, a potential client reached out to me and said hey, I'm developing this app, I'm getting a grant, I've got the level one grant for it, so I've got enough money to pay you to do this with the app and then, once we get that done, then we're going to apply for a level two grant. So I did the work in 2019 and 2020. We had an email exchange in 2021. And then a few weeks ago, three years later, the client said hey.  17:53 I got the level two grant. We're ready to keep going.  17:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yep love that. And at first I'm like who?  17:57 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) the hell is this? Because it's been three years? But then I'm like. I looked at the email and then I'm like but you can go back. I went back and I looked in Gmail slash Outlook and I saw the folder with that client and all of our correspondences dating back to 2019 were there.  18:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I know it's wonderful. This is also really good, and files, yeah, and everything.  18:17 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) What's also good is often like I'll have a client and years will go by just like that and they'll say hey, I've got another explainer for you Charge same as last time. And I'll be like I don't remember, but my CRM does, because I look in, I see the email and last time we charged this, and then I can make a decision yeah, that's good.  18:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Or it's been a few years. So now I search engine and again, I'm an authority on that because I have a million and a half unread email messages. And, by the way, they're unread because what I do is I subscribe. Just for those people that are wondering, I subscribe to every corporate list, every corporate list, because I want to learn as much about how companies that I want to voice for market to their customers, and so I sign up for a lot of mailing lists and I just let it filter through so I can see how they market. And that's honestly how I learned marketing Tom really through just everybody else and looking at everybody else. So I don't have a problem with not having an empty inbox I know some people do but again, I must have probably, I want to say, a good 300 folders within my Gmail.  19:17 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Oh yeah, Me too I have hundreds.  19:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, at least, and I have rules that filter emails coming in.  19:24 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Absolutely. Looking at my inbox, right now I have 14 emails in my professional inbox the Tom and Tom Dheere inbox.  19:31 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I have more than that and that's cool.  19:32 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) But, like I said, when I'm done with the conversation I drag it into the client's folder and I've got this archive. For what did we do? How much did we charge, like all this stuff. But I think, anne, people want to know which app software-y type CRMs do we recommend. So what do you use these days?  19:49 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Okay. So in addition to my Gmail, I use multiple because it depends on what I'm working with. So right now I have a Wix website and I have the VO Peeps website. I have the VO Boss website. Obviously, I've got Anne Ganguzza.  20:00 So I've got three main brands where I have websites, and so for each of those I have the Wix CRM. So I have people who subscribe to Anne Ganguzza, people who subscribe to VO Peeps, people that subscribe to VO Boss. Each one of them on the Wix website has its CRM utilized by Wix. Because people subscribe, they get placed in the CRM there, which is great because then I can send emails to those lists. I can also check and see if I've sent an email out to a list, I can see how many people have opened it, who've clicked on it and who've actually purchased, and it really has a nice series of accounts for that. And also I can just work from my contact list to send emails and categorize them as clients, categorize them as, let's say, coaching students or however I want to do it. So Wix is my first.  20:48 I have three really for each domain and then I also use ActiveCampaign because I use the VO Boss Blast that I sell as well to direct market to companies. I have a list of over 90,000 creative companies, advertising agencies, rosters, production companies, and so that is part of that marketing package. And so I have ActiveCampaign that I use to house the contacts. Now, most software and you'll agree, tom will charge based on how many contacts you have in there. So, at least for ActiveCampaign, I have like 200,000 contacts in ActiveCampaign and so I pay a hefty price for that and they charge per contact. But I'm doing that because I've got a list of 90,000 and I've splitting that list up and doing marketing for other VO bosses and so I spend a lot of money on that product. So between the two Wix, well, three on that product. So between the two Wix, well three, gmail, wix and ActiveCampaign. I've got three CRMs that I'm utilizing for different needs Cool.  21:48 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Like we've already established, I use Gmail and I do use spreadsheets for very niche-y genres like political, because I like to see in one space who they are, what their contact is, when did I reach out? Did they open the email, did they reply, did I get on their roster, did I book? And then that stuff eventually makes its way into my CRM. Like Anne, tomdeercom and VOStrategistcom are both Wix-based sites, so I have two separate CRMs. The TomDeer CRM is obviously for voiceover clients, the VO Strategist CRM is for students and I have different tactics and strategies and I have different sales funnels and workflows for each of those and they both work great. For many years I also I remembered I used to use MailChimp and before that I used Vertical Response and they were both great they were both great.  22:41 But the one Vertical Response and they were both great. They were both great, but the one the CRM that I was using religiously before I fully migrated to Wix was Cloze. C-l-o-z-e.  22:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) This is a fantastic CRM. I know the name.  22:52 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Just vision this you wake up in the morning, you get an email in your inbox saying, hey, these are the people you haven't reached out to in three months, and then you can click on that name and then it takes you to cloze and it'll say oh, would you like to use one of the email templates that you created? You click on the template and you look at based on what genre of voiceover they cast, where they are in the sales funnel, and it already it populates it with their name. You can obviously do a little extra personalization as you see fit. Click send. Then you'll get a notification if they open the email. You'll get a notification if they clicked on any links in the email and it has a project manager. So if you, for example, narrate long-form e-learning or an audio book, you can set up benchmarks for like audio book record and deliver the first 15 minutes, get approval for the first 15 minutes, record chapter one, record chapter two, record chapter 20, send them an invoice, do corrections, market that this book is now on sale, and so on and so forth. It's fantastic. It's only like 200 something a month.  23:56 And and did not know this before I say it is I just realized that you can rent my video Clothes for Voice Actors at voestrategistcom. Right now it's a rentable video, so you can stream it for $5 for 72 hours. You can just rent it. Most of my videos are 20 bucks, but that's one of the videos that I'm promoting for five bucks and Ann didn't even know that and I didn't even think about that when we were like what are we going to talk about this month? So when we were like what are we going to talk about this month? So yeah, so if you go to veostrategistcom, go to the video section, you can rent it for $5.  24:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now one thing I just want to say, tom, is like, no matter what CRM you use, it does take some time to set up. I mean, there is some work involved in setting up a CRM and getting your contacts in there. I had tried Nimble for a while, but Nim based their pricing on the size of your mailbox and, of course, with over 1 million unread emails, it was prohibitively expensive. Now you said, tom, for the low price of only $200 a month, which may or may not be something that people have in their budget. But I will say that that's really nice. That Cloze will say hey, look, you haven't contacted these people in three months. I think that's wonderful.  24:57 Right now I have like a boomerang app that's on my Chrome browser and, I think, gmail. Now you can schedule emails and if you need to respond, you'll notice it'll come back, say, hey, you haven't responded to this person in five days. So there's kind of that built into it. But just know that a CRM, no matter what you do, if you get one, that you're going to pay a monthly fee. I think Nimble was like 20 bucks and then they're like no, with your blah, blah, blah, it's going to cost you a hundred and I'm like I'm not going to pay a hundred dollars, I've already got most of what I need anyways.  25:26 You really need to just assess what your needs are and then figure out what works for you, because you don't have to pay anything. I don't pay anything right now. Well, I do. I should say that I pay for Wix and I pay for ActiveCampaign, but depending on what is comfortable for you and what will help you to stay top of mind and keep yourself top of mind, because sometimes I'll forget. Oh gosh, I should have responded, or I should reach out to this client, because gosh knows you could be losing work if you forget to. I've got clients who say, yes, I'm going to buy this, or I want to come back to this, and then, if you follow up, sometimes it's just that little nudge that is top of mind, reminding that we'll get you that sale.  26:00 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yep, and one thing I will say clothes is about 200 something dollars a month, but if you think about it, if you use that CRM and you book one explainer video for $300, you made your money back and everything else after that is profit.  26:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, absolutely, absolutely Good conversation, guys. I don't know if we'll ever like get the question stopping about the CRMs, but you know what guys Do, what comes naturally to you, what's comfortable for you. As far as Tom and I making recommendations, I mean, we have a combination of CRMs that work for us and we've named a few of them. But really do your research, guys, and know that it will take you some work to set it up. But I think if you've got a CRM that's running, I mean I'll tell you what that CRM saves my butt every month, and more than that, by being able to communicate easily with people that are subscribed to me and people that I want to reach out to. So it's absolutely worthy investment for bosses. So thanks again, tom, for your words of wisdom.  26:59 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) You're amazing. Thank you, as always, for having me.  27:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, bosses. Big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect and network like bosses, like Tom and myself, real bosses. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Guys, have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Bye.  27:15 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast-to-coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

In this episode of the Transform Sales Podcast: Sales Software Review Series, Tony Dicks interviews Arnaud Belinga, CEO of Breakcold, a modern CRM platform designed for email and LinkedIn power users. Arnaud explains how Breakcold targets SMBs, agencies, and sales teams of 5 to 15 people, focusing on integrating social platforms like LinkedIn into traditional sales processes. He highlights Breakcold's unique ability to streamline LinkedIn and email prospecting through a unified inbox and real-time engagement features, helping sales teams close deals faster. The conversation covers Breakcold's differentiation from legacy CRMs like Pipedrive and Cloze, emphasizing its seamless social media integration and simple UI/UX, with pricing starting at $45/month. Arnaud also touches on the platform's collaborative team features, integrations with calling software, and tools for building and nurturing relationships with prospects. Try Breakcold Here: https://getcloudtask.com/breakcold #TransformSales #salessoftware #cloudtask

#596. En 2016 me obsesioné con los idiomas, llegando a aprender ruso, sueco y portugués hasta unos niveles que nunca hubiese imaginario. Esta es la estrategia que usé. La misma que he vuelto a retomar para ganar conocimiento general de los temas que me interesan. • Notas de este episodio: https://podcast.pau.ninja/596 • Comunidad + episodios exclusivos: https://sociedad.ninja/ (00:00) Introducción (5:09) Qué son las flashcards (7:09) Para qué sirven las flashcards (9:06) Por qué funcionan las flashcards (11:09) Aplicaciones para hacer flashcards gratis (13:45) Qué es el método Anki (15:09 Comparte o compra mazos de flashcards (18:14) Cómo crear flashcards online (19:59) Instala la app en el ordenador (23:35) Registra una cuenta de usuario (24:01) Organiza tus mazos por objetivos (25:24) Empieza creando tarjetas (26:06) Estudia tus tarjetas de memoria (27:54) Los mejores tipos de flashcards que puedes crear (28:00) Básica (28:31) Básica (+ invertida) (29:25) Cloze (32:00) Oclusión de imagen

How often do you think about content design? The answer, most likely, is: “not enough”. The work of a Content Designer involves fitting the right words in the right places, understanding the nuances of things log in vs. sign in, and knowing the right words to use to engage customers. Content Design is an important part of the user experience—and the ROI is high. Like, “millions of $s saved through content-testing” high. Erica Jorgensen is a Staff Content Designer at Chewy.com and the author of Strategic Content Design: Tools and Research Techniques for Better UX. She joined Erin and Carol on the podcast to discuss the ins and outs of content design, the importance of clarity for effective communication, and how to involve your audience in content design. Highlights from the episode: 00:02:03: What is content design in the context of UX research? 00:06:48: Gaining clarity by thinking about the words you use frequently  00:14:00: How Erica used simplified language to get customers to buy more insurance plans 00:26:42: Using cloze testing to ensure general content clarity 00:29:26: The importance of syllables and length  00:39:46: Resources and guides for better content design 00:42:56: How Microsoft saved $2 million through content testing   Sources and people mentioned BrainTraffic Chewy.com Cloze testing — “Cloze Test for Reading Comprehension,” NN/g. Curtis Kopf, Chief Experience Officer at REI Dylan Romero, Affiliate Instructor at University of Washington, UX at Microsoft Flesch–Kincaid – Wikipedia  Hemingway Editor Jorgensen, Erica. Strategic Content Design: Tools and Research Techniques for Better UX. (2023) — GET 15% OFF AT ROSENFELD MEDIA WITH CODE AS15 MeasuringU (Jeff Sauro) Merriam-Webster Dictionary Metts, Michael and Andy Wefle. Writing Is Designing: Words and the User Experience. (2020) Scott Kubie System Usability Scale Tracy Vandygam, Senior Content Designer at Mozilla Visual Thesaurus Winters, Sarah. Content Design. (2017) About our guest Erica Jorgensen is a staff content designer at Chewy.com and the author of Strategic Content Design: Tools and Research Techniques for Better UX, published in April 2023 by Rosenfeld Media.  She's a content designer, content strategist, and team leader determined to bring greater respect to the content field. To that end, Erica speaks frequently at conferences including UXDX USA, UX Lisbon, Microsoft Design Week, the Web Directions Summit, and Button: The Content Design Conference, and on podcasts like The Content Strategy Podcast with Kristina Halvorson and Content Insights podcast with Larry Swanson. In addition to working in content roles for companies of all sizes, she has taught at the University of Washington and Seattle's School of Visual Concepts.  Erica earned her B.A. from the University of Connecticut and M.A. from the University of Missouri's School of Journalism. In her free time, you can find her exploring Washington State's wineries or hiking with her husband and rescue dog, Rufus. Find her on LinkedIn or X (Twitter) @JorgensenErica --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/awkwardsilences/message

More info: www.alineaa.net/detoxelectronics

On today 201st episode of my Monday Morning Pep Talk, I'll take you through the steps of creating a Top 100 "nurture" campaign that will help you maintain momentum with your top clients throughout the year. There is many different ways that an nurture campaign can be created including through your CRM like Cloze, Follow Up Boss or Salesforce. If that is the case, you can use today's call as a guide to set up the internal programming and tasking needed to execute what I feel is an example of a thoughtful approach. You can also schedule your follow up tasks and reminders through your Microsoft Outlook or Google Suite or if you are more analog, a spreadsheet can be used as well. The key is that you maintain a constant drumbeat of activity with your clients throughout the year. We'll explore different ideas and strategies on today's episode.

Cloze Encounter is making his debut on Liberta with the Mamb EP. His sound encapsulates hypnotic textures and an addictive groove with hints of soul, the Portuguese producer is one to watch.

Cloze Encounter is making his debut on Liberta with the Mamb EP. His sound encapsulates hypnotic textures and an addictive groove with hints of soul, the Portuguese producer is one to watch.

Cloze Encounter is making his debut on Liberta with the Mamb EP. His sound encapsulates hypnotic textures and an addictive groove with hints of soul, the Portuguese producer is one to watch.

Cloze Encounter is making his debut on Liberta with the Mamb EP. His sound encapsulates hypnotic textures and an addictive groove with hints of soul, the Portuguese producer is one to watch.

What are the implications of Google's latest updates and announcements on the ESOL community? Join in as Ixchell & Brent explore the possibilities and predictions! Also, updated features allow for Cloze activities in Google Docs, but are they pedagogically sound? We jump into the research to find out.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: PaLM in "Extrapolating GPT-N performance", published by Lukas Finnveden on April 6, 2022 on The AI Alignment Forum. A bit more than a year ago, I wrote Extrapolating GPT-N performance, trying to predict how fast scaled-up models would improve on a few benchmarks. Google Research just released a paper reporting benchmark performance of PaLM: a 540B parameter model trained on 780B tokens. This post contains an updated version of one of the old graphs, where I've added PaLM's performance. You can read the original post for the full details, but as a quick explainer of how to read the graph: Each dot represents a particular model's performance on a particular benchmark (taken from the GPT-3 paper). Color represents benchmark; y-position represents benchmark performance (normalized between random and my guess of maximum possible performance); and the x-position represents loss on GPT-3's validation set. The x-axis is also annotated with the required size+data that you'd need to achieve that loss (if you trained to convergence) according to the original scaling laws paper. (After the point at which OpenAI's scaling-laws predicts that you'd only have to train on each data point once, it is also annotated with the amount of FLOP you'd need to train on each data point once.) The crosses represent Google's new language model, PaLM. Since they do not report loss, I infer what position it should have from the size and amount of data it was trained on. (The relationship between parameters and data is very similar to what OpenAI's scaling laws recommended.) The sigmoid lines are only fit to the GPT-3 dots, not the PaLM crosses. Some reflections: SuperGLUE is above trend (and happens to appear on the Cloze & completion trendline — this is totally accidental). ANLI sees impressive gains, though nothing too surprising given ~sigmoidal scaling. Common sense reasoning + Reading tasks are right on trend. Cloze & completion, Winograd, and Q&A are below trend. The average is amusingly right-on-trend, though I wouldn't put a lot of weight on that, given that the weighting of the different benchmarks is totally arbitrary. (The current set-up gives equal weight to everything — despite e.g. SuperGLUE being a much more robust benchmark than Winograd.) And a few caveats: The GPT-3 paper was published 2 years ago. I would've expected some algorithmic progress by now — and the PaLM authors claim to have made some improvements. Accounting for that, this looks more like it's below-trend. The graph relies a lot on the original scaling laws paper. This is pretty shaky, given that the Chinchilla paper now says that the old scaling laws are sub-optimal. The graph also relies on a number of other hunches, like what counts as maximum performance for each benchmark. And using sigmoids in particular was never that well-motivated. Since GPT-3 was developed, people have created much harder benchmarks, like MMLU and Big-bench. I expect these to be more informative than the ones in the graph above, since there's a limit on how much information you can get from benchmarks that are already almost solved. On the graph, it looks like the difference between GPT-3 (the rightmost dots) and PaLM is a lot bigger than the difference between GPT-3 and the previous dot. However, the log-distance in compute is actually bigger between the latter than between the former. The reason for this discrepancy is that GPT-3 slightly underperformed the scaling laws, and therefore appears relatively more towards the left than you would have expected from the compute invested in it. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Hi, Today's podcast is a short text. This it's called an open cloze exercise similar to Part 2 of the Reading and Use of English paper in the C1 Advanced exam- where you have to use your knowledge of grammatical structures, linking words, phrasal verbs etc. to fill in the blank. If you'd like to try the exercise first, go to the objectenglish blog. There's a downloadable pdf that you can use to complete the exercise and then listen to the audio to see if you got it right. Enjoy and let me know how you did!

This podcast is my review of the movie Don't Look Up. If you'd like to try the exam style exercise first, go to this Object English blog post and complete the exercise there. It's modelled on the multiple choice cloze exercise you will find in Part 1 of the Reading and Use of English Paper. Once you've completed the exercise, listen to the podcast to check your answers.

Jiggy b2b Cloze Encounter - Live @ Fuse Matiné: Secret Location 12.02.22 by Fusecast

Cloze Encounter: instagram.com/cloze_encounter/ @fuselx: fuse.pt/home

In 1871 a deserted ship is found drifting in the sea.... Ideal for classroom use with young learners and/or ESOL/EFL/ESL students.

More info: www.alineaa.net/clozeencounter/1015

Hi everyone, you're listening to Cambridge Exam Coach, a podcast for ambitious learners of English. This is the show where you can prepare for the Cambridge C2 Proficiency exam at the same time as improving your English.I'm Kristian, your host, and in this episode we're going to do another C2 exam exercise together. To be more specific, we're going to practice Reading and Use of English part 2 and part 3, open cloze and word formation.GET THE EXERCISE: https://www.cambridgeexamcoach.com/lets-practice-cambridge-c2-reading-and-use-of-english-part-2-open-cloze-and-part-3-word-formation/Need a little help when listening? Check out the transcript.Subscribe to the mailing list to get the latest info about all our free content!

Hi everyone, you're listening to Cambridge Exam Coach, a podcast for ambitious learners of English. This is the show where you can prepare for the Cambridge C2 Proficiency exam at the same time as improving your English.I'm Kristian, your host, and in this episode we're going to do another C2 exam exercise together. To be more specific, we're going to practice Reading and Use of English part 1, multiple-choice cloze.GET THE EXERCISE: https://www.cambridgeexamcoach.com/lets-practice-cambridge-c2-reading-and-use-of-english-part-1-multiple-choice-cloze/ Need a little help when listening? Check out the transcript.Subscribe to the mailing list to get the latest info about all our free content!

Hilmon’s 20-year track record of sales impact ranges from hundreds of startups to companies like Salesforce, Box, and SurveyMonkey.He is trusted by the fastest-growing companies in the world and is recognized worldwide as a bestselling author, as well as an award-winning speaker and trainer. He’s passionate about growing individuals, and teams to create successful companies.Learn More: www.clozeloop.comInfluential Influencers with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/hilmon-sorey-co-founder-and-managing-director-of-cloze-loop

Hilmon’s 20-year track record of sales impact ranges from hundreds of startups to companies like Salesforce, Box, and SurveyMonkey.He is trusted by the fastest-growing companies in the world and is recognized worldwide as a bestselling author, as well as an award-winning speaker and trainer. He’s passionate about growing individuals, and teams to create successful companies.Learn More: www.clozeloop.comInfluential Influencers with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/hilmon-sorey-co-founder-and-managing-director-of-cloze-loop

About the podcast and community  Welcome to the Remote Work Life Podcast, where real-world remote work CEOs and leaders talk about how they hire, network, collaborate and thrive. Join me and more than 5000 followers in customer success, marketing, product and engineering to learn skills you need to work online from anywhere. I am your Host, Alex Wilson-Campbell - I’m Interview Coach and Tech Recruiter on a mission to help you gain clarity and direction in your career AND uncover hidden jobs through one-to-one and group coaching.   And On Today’s Episode …  Should you adjust your approach to sales during the pandemic?  How can you present yourself to prospective clients so that you don't appear opportunistic and sleazy?  Never fear, we have the answers you need courtesy of Managing Director of ClozeLoop, Hilmon Sorey.  He also shares proven advice on how to hire the best work from anywhere sales professionals AND tells you what skills and qualities to look out for when hiring?   ClozeLoop is a revenue strategy firm. The business drives performance for Management, Sales, Customer Success and Sales Enablement in the fastest-growing companies on the planet.

Segui su http://interiorizzatedesco.blogspot.com (qui trovi anche il presente file da scaricarti in pdf)Entra nel gruppo facebook e ricevi nuovi materiali gratuiti per continuare a interiorizzare il tedesco con il metodo Birkenbihl https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/

http://interiorizzatedesco.blogspot.comGruppo fb https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/ per essere partecipi ai webinar gratuiti e ricevere altri materiali per interiorizzare il tedesco.

Prova se ricordi già tutti i verbi!Unisciti al gruppo fb https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/Segui su http://interiorizzatedesco.blogspot.com, da dove puoi anche scaricarti le trascrizioni dei brani.

Proseguiamo con l'interiorizzazione dei verbi e dei predicati nominali derivati dai verbi.Qui avevte ancora il suggerimento in Ital-Deutsch.Abbbonatevi a httos://interiorizzatedesco.blogspot.com dove trovate sulla pagina dedicata al Podcast anche la trascrizione di questo esercizio da scaricarvi.Seguitemi sul gruppo facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/

esercizio per la interiorizzazione dei sostantivi - se non riesce dovete ancora ascoltare in attivo e passivoAbbonatevi a http://interiorizzatedesco.blogspot.com dove trovate tutti gli episodi del podcast e i testi da scaricare.Segnatevi anche sul gruppo facebook per ricevere aggiornamenti degli eventi e partecipare agli ALLENA-WEBINAR in diretta https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/ o scrivete a christinazumfelde@yahoo.it se avete domande.

Esercizio sulla interiorizzazione dei sostantivi da fare dopo l'ascolto attivo e passivo del brano.Segui su https://inteiorizzatedesco.blogspot.com la pagina deidacata al podcast con i pdf da scaricare . Iscrivetevi al gruppo facebook per poter seguire i webinar gratuiti in diretta : https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/

Esercizio audio per interiorizzare preposizioni e altro in l'Abetiarrampacabambina 1 (da fare dopo la decodifica e le attività di ascolto attivo e passivo)Al seguente link trovate i testi degli esercizi https://we.tl/t-QzIrSzXyCeAl link seguente potete scaricare la versione decodificata integrale per i controlli https://we.tl/t-y1GYgXgTsePer i patiti https://interiorizzatedesco.blogspot.com/Per i fan sfegatati https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/about/

Esercizio audio per l'interiorizzazione dei verbi in L'Abetiarrampicabambina - parte 1 (da svolgersi dopo aver fatto la decodifica, ascolto attivo e passivo),Al seguente link trovate i testi degli esercizi https://we.tl/t-QzIrSzXyCeAl link seguente potete scaricare la versione decodificata integrale per i controlli https://we.tl/t-y1GYgXgTsePer i patiti https://interiorizzatedesco.blogspot.com/Per i fan sfegatati https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/about/

Esercizio audio di interiorizzazione dei sostantivi della prima parte de L'Abetiarrampicabambina - (Segue le attività di ascolto attivo e passivo)Al seguente link trovate i testi degli esercizi https://we.tl/t-QzIrSzXyCeAl link seguente potete scaricare la versione decodificata integrale per i controlli https://we.tl/t-y1GYgXgTsePer i patiti https://interiorizzatedesco.blogspot.com/Per i fan sfegatati https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/about/

Come si fanno gli esercizi cloze à la Birkenbihl costruendo la propria fluency.Al seguente link trovate i testi degli esercizi https://we.tl/t-QzIrSzXyCePer i patiti https://interiorizzatedesco.blogspot.com/Per i fan sfegatati https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/about/

Come possiamo efficacemente ampliare il nostro lessico interiorizzando anche quelle parole che ci scappano sempre di nuovo: introduzione alla tecnica dei Cloze 1 - 2- 3 (in tedesco Lückentexte) con Pasqualinoqui il link per scaricare gli esercizi riferiti alla prima parte della Abetiarrampicabambina https://we.tl/t-QzIrSzXyCeSegui anche il Blog https://interiorizzatedesco.blogspot.com/p/il-metodo-vera-f-birkenbihl.htmle iscriviti al gruppo Facebook Interiorizzare le lingue con il Metodo di Vera F. Brikenbihl per commentare o fare domande https://www.facebook.com/groups/3014761538610194/

Today’s guest is a dynamic speaker who inspires audiences to feel they can conquer the world and make tons of great new connections while doing it. For over 25 years, he has been a top sales performer, keynote speaker, and performance mentor. He is the CEO of Thrive, a company focused on helping businesses, leaders, and brands become even more amazing through the power of connection. He is the best-selling author of “Master the Art of Connecting” and host of the Thrive LOUD podcast, which is dedicated to inspiring people to reach their peak potential in every facet of their life. Please join me in welcoming Lou Diamond. Would you leave an honest rating and review on Apple Podcast? Or Stitcher? They are extremely helpful and I read each and every one of them. Thanks for the inspiration! In this episode we discuss: his thoughts on leadership: “Leaders are those who are able to connect people, ideas, technologies, and organizations together. Leadership is connecting and great leaders are master connectors.” how he views leadership and connecting as synonymous. various roles he has taken from consulting to sales and marketing, to coaching, and the thread that ties them all together. the power of “and.” a coaching lesson and what he learned about listening levels. Links Lou Diamond on LinkedIn and Twitter. www.thriveloud.com Thrive Loud podcast www.LouDiamond.net Books mentioned in this episode: “Master the Art of Connecting” by Lou Diamond “Accelerated Health Lessons” by Lou Diamond “Nice Guys Finish First” by Doug Sandler Other Resources: Learn more about Cloze. Learn more about Doug Sandler. Listen to my interview with Nicole Holland. About Robbie: Robbie Samuels is a keynote speaker, TEDx speaker, and relationship-based business strategist who has been recognized as a “networking expert” by Inc., Forbes, Harvard Business Review Ascend and Lifehacker. He works with event organizers and associations to create a better experience for “Year 2” participants, leading to increased member value and member retention. In light of COVID-19, he is assisting organizations with bringing this more engaging experience to virtual events as a Virtual Event Consultant and Emcee. He is the author of the best-selling business book Croissants vs. Bagels: Strategic, Effective, and Inclusive Networking at Conferences and has been profiled in the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company. He writes for Harvard Business Review Ascend. His clients include associations and corporations including Marriott, AmeriCorps, Hostelling International, and General Assembly. He has been featured in several books including Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It by Dorie Clark and The Connector’s Advantage: 7 Mindsets to Grow Your Influence and Impact by Michelle Tillis Lederman. He has guest lectured at many leading educational institutions including Harvard University, Brown University, Cornell University, Brandeis University, and Northeastern University. Robbie is the host of On the Schmooze podcast which features his networking strategies and talented professionals sharing untold stories of leadership and networking. READ his "9 Ways to Network in a Pandemic" - www.robbiesamuels.com/9ways Keynote Speaker Interested in booking Robbie to speak? At www.robbiesamuels.com/speaking you'll find video clips and a description of his signature session, Art of the Schmooze. Call 617-600-8240 to speak directly with Robbie. Watch his TEDx talk "Hate networking? Stop bageling and be the croissant!" at www.robbiesamuels.com/TEDx. Relationship-Based Business Strategist & Business Coach Are you ready to create a Relationship-Based Business Plan that will help you achieve greater impact (and income)? You want to have a greater impact and increased income. The problem is that there are so many options for how to build your...

this is the introduction and discussion about the Cloze Text.

In the spirit of keeping things super simple, I would do these 5 things over the next 82 days: 1. Identify your "TOP 100”. Your “Top 100” is defined as those clients that “know you”, “like you” and “trust you” as their real estate broker. You may not have 100 yet, that’s fine. 2. Based on your goals, Identify exactly how many clients you will need in your “Top 100”. I would rather have you consistently focus on 30 then be inconsistent with 75. 3. If you don’t have a database or spreadsheet, build it once and for all. (I am focused on CLOZE). 4. Once you’ve created the list, make it a point to meet or call each on the list in the next 82 days. They need to hear your voice. 5. Develop your 2020 Customer Service Plan and a system to execute on it.

On August 22, 2018, The Story Engine Podcast was born. It launched with seven interviews ranging from practical digital marketing like design hacking sales pages to the deep inner work that comes from mastering sales.    I've loved the blend of actionable and helpful business and marketing advice combined with the deep and moving stories that come from making an impact on the world in a way that's important to you.    Over one year and 70 episodes later, the podcast is a year old. It remains something that I look forward to every week. I've learned a great deal over the many conversations and reflections that make up this show. To celebrate the first year of the show, I'm going to share some of the best lessons I've learned from behind the scenes of the podcast.   Podcasting Lesson 1: Systems And Your Team Will Set You Free One of my big themes this year in general, not just in the podcast, has really been getting clear on what I love to do and what I'm great at doing and delegating everything else.    This can be a scary step to take, and I was not always committed to taking it. I can remember two years ago trying to start a podcast. I did everything myself, wrote the scripts, recorded them, and tried to edit them and manage all of the uploading myself. I remember blundering through the editing process on one of these episodes, trying desperately to cut out every um and breath noise from the recording.    This was tedious and frustrating at the time and left me feeling overwhelmed. All of a sudden, I'm startled by my phone ringing.   The Podcasting Guest That Changed Things It's Ree Perez, a friend of mine and a future guest on this show, wanting to talk about some ways we could collaborate and work together. The call had been scheduled, but I was so lost in the editing that I had forgot about it and had answered while my brain was still immersed in the craziness and overwhelm, "Uh. Hello? Ree? Hi. Um, hi. Um, sorry." "Hey, Kyle. How are you?" "Oh, not great. This podcast is driving me crazy." "Oh, are you still good to talk?" "Yeah, um."    What was intended to be some ice breaking conversation ended up with me asking “what is the secret sauce that makes your business so successful.” Though Ree did not reveal his secrets, he was gracious enough to offer another time to talk later. Needless to say, that podcast attempt that drove me crazy never really got off the ground.    Fast forward to now, and the podcast is a very different story.   Establishing A Podcasting Team I've got a team in place to help me with the production and editing parts of the podcast.    These days, all I need to do is record the interviews and leave them in a Dropbox folder, and the editing, show notes, uploading to the hosting platform is all handled. This can be much more affordable and accessible than you think, and it's very valuable. This allows me the free time to find more guests, ask better questions, and really hone my own craft and not be distracted by the details.    Freelance audio editors are available on Upwork, and amazing virtual assistants can be found in places like greatassistant.com or priorityva.com. I think it's important to understand the whole process and everything that goes into making a great podcast. But if it's the difference between you not making a show and making a show, I would rather have you just create exceptional content. Focusing on where you're great and having other people help you out with the rest. Lesson Number Two: Small Things Make The Difference Once you've got the big tasks delegated, you're free to further master the craft that you choose.    Get Intimate With Your Mic When Podcasting What makes a great podcast is a lot of little details. One good detail is getting intimate with the mic. One of the smallest changes that made a huge difference I learned from Harry Duran of FullCast.co.   Harry is a podcasting expert, and he invited me onto his show. He noticed on a Zoom call with a video that my microphone was set up maybe a foot or two away from my face. He encouraged me to get up close to the mic so I was only an inch or two from my mouth. The sound quality instantly transformed from barely better than a phone call to an intimate and full sound that really makes the most of the microphone I'm using.    Despite how simple this advice was, it had a big impact on the quality of content I was producing. It also helps on client calls and group coaching calls. Having better audio whenever you're communicating with people is a really big win.   Zoom Set-Up Is Crucial The next detail is to really know the settings of the platforms and tools you're using. Another great one I learned from Nicole Holland of Interviews That Convert was in Zoom, the tool I usually conduct my interviews through.    There's a setting in your preferences in the audio section called Automatically Adjust Audio Settings. If you have this turned on, it will raise and lower the volume of your voice, but you won't be able to hear it. Only the recording or the guest will possibly catch it. This can ruin the audio quality of an episode without you realizing it. You can usually only recognize it when it's too late. Make sure that you really have the details understood on the platforms you're using.   Mimic Your Guests Volume The third detail, which is something I'm still working on, is balance your voice and your guests.    It's been challenging for me. If you're doing interviews, you want to set up your guests to succeed. This means asking good questions and getting out of the way to let them shine as much as possible. But I've found my audience also likes hearing from me too. It's not just about asking good questions and getting out of the way but also sharing my thoughts, experiences, and ideas. Which makes the podcast more of a conversation than an interview.    It's possible to overdo this and step on your guests' toes though. I've experienced this as a guest myself. There's a careful art to hearing from your guests and sharing yourself, which I want to bring more of into my podcast in the future.   Lesson Number Three: Video Podcasts Are Awesome  Alongside the 70-ish audio episodes I've created, I've also created two high quality video podcasts. I have two more in production at the recording of this monologue.    These were interviews I did in person with thought leaders I admired and wanted to hear from. Though I have loved many of my interviews, the video podcasts were always my favorite. The process of preparing for them, recording, and the final product were all thrilling and something I've been proud of.    I'm not experienced in recording or editing video, so I invited an old friend from college named Jonathan Ramanujan to help me with the filming and audio. He would set up three to five cameras and bring a team with him, which made it feel like a full TV production set.   We would have one camera dedicated to my guest, one camera dedicated and zoomed in on my face, and then at least one other camera. This was sometimes on a gimbal. (A gimbal is a really cool tool that you can use to carry and move around with a camera, but it makes your motion really smooth and not jerky like you're walking around. It makes for a really great video.)    My two guests of the video podcasts are Dr. Chris Zaino, who overcame a chronic and challenging autoimmune condition, was a former Mr. Universe, and went on to build the most successful and the largest chiropractic agency ever.    Also, we have Garrett Gunderson, who is a financial expert and founder of Wealth Factory. He has an incredible and artistic perspective on how to create a vision that drives your business and drives your team. I will put links to both of the episodes in the show notes of this episode.   Lesson Number Four: Podcast Promotion is Hard One of the biggest challenges I've found with the podcast is promotion.    With guests, there's kind of a catch-22 being featured on podcasts, especially those that are doing a lot of interviews. As a guest, you usually have some tried and true talking points and common questions you get. This is great because you can very comfortably and reliably do a lot of interviews around a few core ideas. The downside here as a guest is that your interviews are often so similar that it feels like you're promoting the same conversation over and over if you share podcast features with your audience.    As a host, my goal is to find new questions that go deeper or in new directions that my guests have not spoken on before so they feel like they have something valuable and fresh to share with their audiences. It's also good to seek out guests who are brilliant in their own right but, for whatever reason, haven't been on as many podcast interviews.   Lesson Number Five: There Is More To Podcasting Than Monetization  A common question I get from people who know I'm a podcaster is, "How are you monetizing your show?"    Though making money from my podcast sounds awesome, it's not really my goal. The value of this show to me is the relationships I build with my audience and my guests. There's so much more value to me in a conversation with a listener who is impacted by something I said or something one of my guests said.    Plus the conversations I have with my guests are enlightening, inspiring, and actionable. In some ways, I feel like I'm getting free coaching from them because I'm often following my own interests in my questions. I've made many big decisions and overcome challenges based on what I've learned from my guests. I'm getting plenty of value from this podcast just not worrying about monetization, so it's not a goal in the near term for me.   Lesson Number Six: Keep Up With The Friends You Make By far, my favorite thing about podcasting is being able to connect with brilliant and inspiring guests.    I learn a lot from my guests and discover new ways to improve my own business, health, and life. For many of my guests, I see being interviewed on my show as a first step in growing a relationship.    But keeping up with past guests and hosts of other shows I've been on takes deliberate and consistent work. Even for extroverts, it's not always something that comes naturally. These days, it requires systems and tools to keep track of everything.    One of the tools I've really enjoyed for this kind of work has been Cloze, C-L-O-Z-E.com. It's a tool meant for relationship management that syncs up with your Gmail account quite naturally. Where you can create workflows for your relationships and have sets of pre-written emails ready to personalize and reconnect with your past guests. It's also good to have more ways to create opportunities for your guests.    For a select few, I'll allow them to present to my audience on a webinar and do a joint venture or find another way to co-create content together that leads to wins for both of us.    Number Seven: I Have Not been Giving It My Best I feel a disconnect in my business. There's my digital presence, where I have my podcasts, my books, and my content, where I'm reaching a lot of people online. But, I'm feeling a slow burn inside of me over the last few months.   Despite this being the most successful year ever for me in terms of building a team, helping incredible people, and increasing my revenue, there's one area of my business and passions that has not been experiencing the same growth. It's creating content, attracting new visitors to my website, and promoting my new book.   I've been working with new clients, speaking at events, and bringing on three new team members this year: a designer, a writer, and a project manager.    It's been challenging to give the podcast and, moreover, my blog the time and energy it needs to thrive. I've not posted an article on my site since starting the podcast. While I think the podcast has been a great move, I really miss the feeling of getting into the creative flow with writing.    There are few feelings more satisfying and exciting than sitting down in the morning with a fresh cup of coffee or tea in one hand and the outline of an article that I want to create in front of me.   How To Coach Yourself In this case, here's how I would coach myself.    Number One: Schedule Time For Inspiration And Strategy One of the biggest snags I've been experiencing is a lack of inspiration.    I've not been having ideas for content that excites me and are useful to my audience. Nobody who knows me would believe me if I told them I don't have anything interesting to say or create. It's a cheap excuse not to invest the time and to bring these ideas forward, to hone and refine them into something useful, interesting, and inspiring.    Great content does not just appear in your mind and then fall out onto a piece of paper or whatever medium it may be. It's important not only to have time to create but time to be creative, to come up with the ideas and develop a clear strategy for how you want what you create to serve you. It's not just a single brainstorming session but a habit to think about and explore your ideas over months and years. Number Two: Connect Your Brand Like I mentioned earlier, there's a disconnect with my agency work and my brand work online.    Over the next year, I plan to unite these two branches of my business. First by sharing more of what's going on behind the scenes in my work and with my team. And to make it easier for people to work with me. Currently, I'm refining and developing more productized services and offerings like presentation coaching, sales funnel development, and book ghostwriting.  Over this coming year, you'll learn more about my processes for each of these and get some key insights for sharing your own story through these three mediums.   Number Three: Be Held Accountable  Different people commit to things in different ways.    Some of us can just decide to go and do something and do it. Some need something external like a reward or a consequence. For me, I do better in my commitments if I have external accountability.    To draw closer to all of you listening now, I promise you I'll be creating more great content and upping my game even more in this coming year. Expect more solo podcasts and articles where I share more of what's going on inside my business.    That is my seven lessons learned from my first year in podcasting. Thanks again to everyone who has made this show possible and contributed to its growth. Thank you to everyone who's been listening and sharing their thoughts and feedback with me.   Thanks for listening to the Story Engine Podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes and resources mentioned on this episode and every other episode at thestoryengine.co. If you're looking to learn more about how to use storytelling to grow your business, then check out my new book, Selling With Story: How to Use Storytelling to Become an Authority, Boost Sales, and Win the Hearts and Minds of Your Audience. This book will equip you with actionable strategies and templates to help you share your unique value and build trust in presentations, sales, and conversations, both online and offline. Learn more at sellingwithstory.co. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.   Links Dropbox Upwork Greatassistant.com Priorityva.com Harry Duran Interview  FullCast.co Zoom Nicole Holland Interview Jonathan Ramanujan Cloze

We are true believers that having close friends is always better than having more friends. Find a group of people with similar interests, whether it is music, religion, politics, fitness, or another hobby you enjoy. Start by finding people in a nearby city on Facebook or a meetup group and then physically go meet with these people and stay in contact. Having specific people in areas of your life will help you to succeed in the areas you wish to succeed.Hosts: Ryan Gardner and Nik HallResources:-“Harvard study, almost 80 years old, has proved that embracing community helps us live longer, and be happier” [article]-Cloze [app]Connect & Subscribe:Website: earnedeffort.comInstagram: instagram.com/earnedeffortFacebook: facebook.com/EarnedEffortTwitter: twitter.com/EarnedEffortEmail: hello@earnedeffort.comSubscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Overcast, Google Play, Spotify, or YouTubeLeave a review on Apple PodcastsFollow Your Hosts:Nik’s Instagram: instagram.com/nikolashallRyan’s Instagram: instagram.com/RyanGardnerCRyan's Goodreads: goodreads.com/RyanGardnerC

Growing your relationships with those that you are close to will add much more than a conversation to your life. The close relationships will add support and encouragement to help you excel in all areas of life.While social media makes us think that we are growing closer together with all of our friends, it can actually keep you further from them. Check in with those you want to grow closer to. Ask them how their week is or what is going on - and genuinely listen to them. Caring about others will naturally bring you closer to them, so start by reaching out, then listen to them.Hosts: Ryan Gardner and Nik HallResources:-Joe Rogan Experience #975 - Sebastian Junger [podcast]-Joe Rogan Experience #1034 - Sebastian Junger [podcast]-Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging - Sebastian Junger [book]-Road to the Games Ep. 18.05: Mat Fraser Vs. The World [video]-WebMD: “Loneliness Rivals Obesity, Smoking as Health Risk” [article]-New York Times: “The Surprising Effects of Loneliness on Health” [article]-University of Buffalo: “Developing Your Support System” [article]-Cloze [app]Connect & Subscribe: Website: earnedeffort.comInstagram: instagram.com/earnedeffortFacebook: facebook.com/EarnedEffortTwitter: twitter.com/EarnedEffortEmail: hello@earnedeffort.comSubscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Overcast, Google Play, or YouTubeLeave a review on Apple PodcastsFollow Your Hosts: Nik’s Instagram: instagram.com/nikolashallRyan’s Instagram: instagram.com/RyanGardnerCRyan’s Twitter: twitter.com/RyanGardnerCRyan's Goodreads: goodreads.com/RyanGardnerC

Today we’re joined by Nasrin Mostafazadeh, Senior AI Research Scientist at New York-based Elemental Cognition. Our conversation focuses on Nasrin’s work in event-centric contextual modeling in language and vision, which she sees as a means of giving AI systems a bit of “common sense.” We discuss Nasrin’s work on the Story Cloze Test, which is a reasoning framework for evaluating story understanding and generation. We explore the details of this task--including what constitutes a “story”--and some of the challenges it presents and approaches for solving it. We also discuss how you model what a computer understands, building semantic representation algorithms, different ways to approach “explainability,” and multimodal extensions to her contextual modeling work. The notes for this episode can be found at https://twimlai.com/talk/174.

Remember all those hilarious predictions about what the future would be like in the 1950s that are glaringly wrong, picturing flying cars and personal robots? WE ARE IN THAT DISTANT FUTURE.Technology has opened doors for us we never imagined, especially as a creative entrepreneur. Now, all we have to do is take advantage of them! Cody and Rachel talk in this episode about how to use technology to update you to Networker 2.0.1 (bug fixed where instead of waving, you’d just do an awkward salute). We talk about CRMs, what they are and how to use them (with specific unpaid mentions of Cloze and Gmelius, both fantastic pieces of software), as well as how your contacts can benefit you, regardless of what field they’re in! You won’t want to miss this one!We want to hear from you! Send us a message on Facebook or send us an email at podcast@createloud.org. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter or visit createloud.org. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/createloud/message

Podcast 117 of atomar audio, featuring cutting edge techno artists. This week we present you Stndrd & Cloze Encounter from Porto, Portugal. Enjoy! Stndrd: https://soundcloud.com/stndrd3333 Cloze Encounter: https://soundcloud.com/cloze_encounter Visit atomar audio on Facebook: www.facebook.com/atomar.audio

Dan Foody is CLOZING in on something great.  His incredible company CLOZE is changing the way we think and use CRM systems. Dan brings a unique mix of technology, marketing, and business skills to the Cloze team. Foody previously managed a $500 million software product portfolio at Progress Software, driving both product strategy and management. He is adept at growing both small and large product lines; yielding triple-digit revenue increases in new businesses and transforming existing businesses. As CTO of Actional Corporation (Acquired: PRGS), Foody created a leader in the SOA Management space, and earned recognition as a Top 25 CTO by InfoWorld. Foody has consistently demonstrated thought leadership and drove product initiatives that achieved high growth and recognition in the leadership quadrants of both Forrester and Gartner. Foody holds multiple patents and has a Bachelor and Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. Listen to Dan and Lou discuss how CLOZE is changing the landscape of how CRM apps  are used and how they can better help us better connect and grow relationships.  

In today's episode of The Art of Passive Income, Mark and Scott talk with Doug Sandler—DougSandler.com. Doug is a nationally recognized speaker and writer with extensive business experience as an entrepreneur and leader. His book, Nice Guys Finish First is a #1 ranked Amazon Best Seller.    As a podcaster, Doug has interviewed guests like, Gary Vaynerchuk, Arianna Huffington, and even White House Chief of Staff, Ron Klain. He specializes in teaching others the "how-tos" of building relationships and strengthening connections.  Today, Doug talks with us about what it takes to build good strong relationships, on both sides of business. Whether you're the customer or customer relations representative, the key is to be human! And by doing so you can:  Put down the script and talk to them as a human being. Be encouraging, not critical. Be more mindful of your activities.   We also talk about the power of podcasts and how effective they are in reaching out to others and the impact they have on our lives. Listen in now to see how you can improve your relationships today! TIPS OF THE WEEK Mark: Check out the app Cloze. It looks at your contacts and reminds you to touch base with someone if you haven't talked to that person in 30 days. Also, Learn more about Doug by going to his website at DougSandler.com. Scott: Check out Median.tech. It's a data analysis tool where you can link in web services like Google Analytics, MixPanel, App Stores, and others, and it allows you to bring in metrics of your data very quickly and easily. Doug: For the next 30 days, do the following things:  1. Return all your phone calls.  2. Return all your emails.  3. Be on time every time.  4. Stop overpromising and underdelivering. Exceed expectations.  5. Reach out twice a day to people you haven't communicated with in the last 30 days.  Isn't it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

Podcast 541: Cloze Cloud Based CRM System by Greg Voisen

This month an interview with well known UK-based Moodle enthusiast Marcus Green, discussing his amazing Cloze (fill the gaps) question type plugin.

  On this episode I am  joined by Alex Coté, the founder of Cloze.com for a fireside chat about the role employees take in building your company brand on social media. After 10 years of social media, businesses are finally realising that the collective voice of their employees is more powerful and authentic than their own. […]

Every routine on the Lextutor website started life as a reverse-engineering of the language software used in a research study, but then developed in line with its many users' suggestions, for research or teaching purposes or both. This presentation will trace the evolution of some of Lextutor's most heavily used routines, from the origins of each in a research paper to its modification for many unexpected purposes. Concordancing, Vocabprofiling, Reaction Time research, and Cloze passage building are the main software stories. Behind the stories, the presentation will question the supposed gap between research and practice in applied linguistics

Here is a Voting Cloze Essay