Podcasts about content marketing academy

Scarica tutte le mappe del podcast qui → https://www.ascoltobeltrami.com/BONUS*** ***In questa puntata analizzo il lavoro che ho svolto negli ultimi 7 anni per vendere Content Marketing Academy. Lo faccio spiegando i contenuti e le strategie utilizzate. Ma soprattutto realizzo all'interno dei 34 minuti di puntata un contenuto verticale che rispetta in ogni suo aspetto le regole da seguire per promuovere anche i tuoi prodotti e i tuoi servizi.Visita https://www.ascoltobeltrami.com/La voce di Alessio Beltrami viene utilizzata per gentile concessione della Fondazione Alessio Beltrami.

I contenuti sono il vero sistema operativo del marketing, ti spiego il perché in questa puntata.il 26 Settembre riparte Content Marketing Academy.Qui tutte le info → https://www.contentmarketingacademy.it

Che cos'è il Content Marketing? In questa puntata intervisto Alessio Beltrami, docente universitario e fondatore di Content Marketing Academy.

Che cos'è il Content Marketing? In questa puntata intervisto Alessio Beltrami, docente universitario e fondatore di Content Marketing Academy.

Cosa permette a un business di trasformarsi in media company? La capacità di vendere i propri contenuti esattamente come fa un qualsiasi editore. Questo oggi è possibile anche per piccole aziende e professionisti e sarà la salvezza per molte attività che finalmente potranno valorizzare esperienza e competenze.Io spiego come ho applicato questo approccio a Content Marketing Academy e come sia applicabile in qualsiasi settore.Puoi vedere anche la versione video di questa puntata sul Canale YouTube di Content Marketing Italia https://www.youtube.com/c/contentmarketingitalia?sub_confirmation=1

Cosa permette a un business di trasformarsi in media company? La capacità di vendere i propri contenuti esattamente come fa un qualsiasi editore. Questo oggi è possibile anche per piccole aziende e professionisti e sarà la salvezza per molte attività che finalmente potranno valorizzare esperienza e competenze.Io spiego come ho applicato questo approccio a Content Marketing Academy e come sia applicabile in qualsiasi settore.Puoi vedere anche la versione video di questa puntata sul Canale YouTube di Content Marketing Italia https://www.youtube.com/c/contentmarketingitalia?sub_confirmation=1

How can eCommerce businesses reduce their time to first purchase by 10X? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, WordPress developer and eCommerce expert Jason Resnick shares the process he uses to help eCommerce businesses dramatically reduce the time from first touch to first purchase. And while Jason works primarily with eCommerce businesses, the advice he shares is equally applicable to businesses in other verticals. From visitor segmentation, to behavioral analytics and content personalization, Jason goes into detail on the process he has used to help one client reduce time to first purchase from 40 days to 8, and for another client from 9 days to 1.  Some highlights from my conversation with Jason include: Jason is a WordPress developer and eCommerce marketing expert. According to Jason, one of the keys to reducing the time to first purchase is to capitalize on the positive emotion that a visitor feels when they discover your site for the first time and get them to explore further. One way to do this is by adding a widget to your site with related blog articles. Asking your visitors a qualifying question is a good way to learn a bit more about them and then use that information to tailor what you show them. With these types of questions, and then behavioral information like the articles and pages your visitors are looking at, you can create a lead scoring model. Based on the topics that a visitor is consuming content on, you can use that information to change the copy on your CTAs to make them more relevant to your visitors' interests. In eCommerce, the first 90 days are crucial. If you can't convince a new contact to purchase something with the first 90 days, the odds of ever selling to them drop dramatically. When Jason works with new clients, he begins by taking baseline measurements of how long it takes for a new contact to go from first touch to first purchase. By using segmentation, intent awareness, and personalized copy, Jason has been able to reduce time to first purchase for one client from 40 days to 8, and for another client from 9 days to 1.  When it comes to converting new leads into customers, Jason says it all comes down to trust, and you need to build trust into every interaction you have, from your website copy to your email marketing. Resources from this episode: Save 10% off the price of tickets to IMPACT Live with promo code "SUCCESS" Visit the Rezzz website Follow Jason on Twitter Connect with Jason on LinkedIn Listen to the podcast to learn exactly how Jason helps his client shorten their sales cycles - and how you can too. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth, and today my guest is Jason Resnick, who is the founder of Rezzz. Welcome Jason. Jason Resnick (Guest): Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Jason and Kathleen recording this episode together . Kathleen: Tell my audience a little bit about what Rezzz is, and your background, and how you came to be doing what you're doing now. About Rezzz Jason: Sure. Rezzz is my business, it's what I've been doing for, this August will be nine full years, full time for myself. I am a solopreneur. I don't have a team behind me, but it's a web development business. I've always loved the eCommerce space, and the human behavior behind all of eCommerce. Where most developers and designers shy away from eCommerce so early on when eCommerce was ramping up in the early 2000s, I flocked to it, I was attracted to it. I built my business around helping online businesses, and I call them eCommerce, it could be anybody taking a transaction. I have nonprofit clients. I have online coaches. I have clients that sell physical products. Basically anybody taking a transaction, to help them get anonymous visitors into being customers, and then customers into repeat customers, and then repeat customers into raving fans. I do that through a number of different strategies and tactics, which most of them revolve around what's called behavioral marketing, or email automation, but also a mix of onsite personalization, that's where my skillset as a web developer come into play. Kathleen: Yeah. You know, it's funny that you say that about marketers shying away from eCommerce, because I've worked with a lot of marketers in my time. I was an agency owner for 11 years, and of course now I'm at Impact. It's true, I know a lot of marketers, and a lot of them say, "I don't touch eCommerce." It's almost like they're afraid to. I know one or two who do it, and the ones I know who do it have like gone deep, I think because there's such an opportunity, or a vacuum left by everybody else. Why do you think it is that marketers shy away from it so much? Jason: I think it really stems from there's so much tech involved with it, and it's so close to the bottom line that it's easy, I mean, and this is going to come out bad, but because there is a direct correlation that business owners see X dollars coming in per month, per day, or whatever it is from the site, when you say that you can affect that, they're going to see that result immediately. Most marketers, and obviously when we build campaigns sometimes those things take some time to build up, and sometimes you have to have those difficult conversations with clients a little bit earlier on in the eCommerce space than, let's say nonprofits, or standard brochure type websites, those things. I think that because of not just that, those difficult conversations that you might have to have, but also the tech side of things, if something goes wrong, if you're the point of contact and you don't necessarily know at a deep level what those technical bells and switches are, then you're going to be like, "Uh." With your hands raised and saying, "I'm not sure. Let's go see what we can find out from the tech team." I think at least from my experience, that's what customers tell me when they come into my ecosystem. They want somebody that, they may not know all the technical aspects of things, but they do understand that some things do take time, and they just want somebody that can take care of all of it for them. They don't want that ping pong match like, oh this is the host, and this is the developer, and this is the marketing side of things. They don't want that ping pong match, and they kind of just want that holistic point of contact person to be able to say, "Yes, there's a problem." Or, "Yes, this is what we need to do." At least from my experience I think that that's the reason why a lot of people shy away from it. Kathleen: Yeah. It's interesting because web design, development, et cetera, in general comes with a lot of high stakes, especially in this day and age when so many people find your business by your website. With eCommerce, as you rightfully pointed out, it's like way, way, way higher stakes, because your business is your website. Jason: Right. Kathleen: Your website is your business. Either way you look at it, if you break something, you're breaking the entire revenue stream of the business, not just like, oh our customers couldn't see our website today, or we didn't get another form fill. Jason: Right. Kathleen: Yeah, it's not an inconvenience, it's a major, major risk. I can totally see that. Now, and I should say, you came with very high marks, because I met you through one of my past podcast guests. This is one of my favorite ways to get new guests, is when former guests reach out and say, "Hey, I have somebody you should talk to." That actually happened in your case when Val Geisler, who I interviewed a few months ago, wrote to me unsolicited and said, "I really think you should talk to this guy." Val, for those who either didn't hear her episode or don't know, is an amazing email conversion copywriter, mostly for B2B SaaS companies. I have a tremendous amount of respect for her, and as soon as she wrote to me I said, "I'll talk to anybody that you think I should talk to." Jason: Thank you very much. Kathleen: Yeah. No, that was a good introduction. You do a lot of work, because you're in eCommerce, and what is interesting to me about you is that you're not just a web developer/designer. You work on some of the other aspects of eCommerce businesses, personalization, conversion optimization. How did you get from web design and development into these other areas? Jason: I think actually it, well my career took me in that path, but I think as a person it was the other way around. I've always been interested in human behavior. I got a minor in psychology in college. For me, and I went to college in the late '90s, and that was the advent of the internet. I mean, I remember going to the computer lab and building my first webpage. That was in like '96. Kathleen: I remember learning Basic. Jason: Right. Yes. Me too. Kathleen: I'm not going to say any more, because then that'll really date me. Jason: For me, when the advent of the internet came along, that was intriguing enough, because I was actually going for computer science at the time. At that time it was a lot of compiling code, and waiting for things to happen. Yet the web was like, I put code on a screen and I hit save, and I refresh and boom it's there. Hey, that's pretty cool. That intrigued me, but also my human nature side of things, just being perceptive of the world around me and kind of how people interact with certain things, and why they do what they do, and why they don't do what they don't do, always intrigued me. When the eCommerce world hit, pre Amazon, all the rest of it, people were afraid to put their credit cards in. Even online, let alone cellphones weren't even really a thing at that point in time. I was working for a consulting firm at that time, and we dealt with a lot of startups, and all of them wanted some sort of eCommerce in some sort of fashion. For me, it was always interesting to say, okay, if we use certain buttons in a certain way, and certain text in certain colors, we could create this, I don't want to say an artificial, but a perceptive environment of being safe. Where they can submit their credit card and not feel that they are sending it over and somebody's copying that down and running away with their identity. For me, that was the genesis of where I am today. I've always just kind of had that snowball effect, and really focus in on that specific part of my development skills. Because as you said, a lot of people were shying away from it, and I always knew that I wanted to work for myself. I had to find that niche, if you will, that sweet spot to really plant my flag in, and fit into a market that I could become known for. That was how I started all that. Just as the web evolved, now with email marketing, and how much data you can collect on somebody just by asking them a few questions, you can segment, you can promote certain things based around where a person is in their journey and their awareness. You can do all these things and marry things like your email marketing platform with your website with a little bit of code. Now there are services out there that can do this too, that your website can look completely different with two different people. It's all based around what you know about that person, where they came from, demographics, or even just what you know they clicked on in your last email. That's always been interesting to me because that's like the mom and pop of like the early 1900s, where somebody would walk into the store and you would have all your stuff ready because they knew you came in every Thursday. They knew who you were. For me, having that personalization and segmentation is what allows you, as the business owner, to know where your potential customers are, where your customers are, where your repeat customers are, and know how to cater to them in the best way possible. Kathleen: You know, it's fascinating that you just brought that up, because I literally just, as we're recording this, this morning published my latest episode, which was a conversation with Shai Schechter, who's the founder of a company called Right Message. That's exactly what he talked about, was his platform that he's built lets you ask your visitor a simple question like, what brings you here today? He actually equated it to the conversation you have when you walk into a shop. Like nobody is saying, "What industry are you in?" It's, "What brings you here today?" Jason: Right. Kathleen: Based on the answer to that, you can dynamically then update the copy on the page. He was seeing like 10x improvements in landing page and CTA conversion rates from that kind of like small amount of personalization. I definitely think there's something to it. Jason: Yeah, absolutely. I know Shai, I've known him for a couple of years. We've met at some events and things of that nature. Yeah, he's built a great platform. His platform's called Right Message, and I use Right Message as well for some assets of my business. Yeah, I mean it's that idea of, we've gotten away from that broadcast everything to everybody. Now we want to really cater to the one on one. That is what's going to increase conversions, and that's what's going to help you convert non customers to customers as quickly as possible. The more you know about them, the more that you can speak their language, the more that you're serving up the thing that they want at the right time, that's going to help you with your conversions. Reducing The Time to First Purchase Kathleen: Yeah. Now you, as you said, you do a lot of work in eCommerce, and one of the biggest areas of opportunity for optimization in eCommerce is how long it takes from first touch, if you will, with a lead or a prospect, to getting them to purchase. Time to first purchase. You've done some interesting work on shortening that time period, can you talk a little bit about that? Jason: Sure. Yeah. As you said, any time somebody sees you for the very first time, there's this innate human factor inside of us that, hey, we like this thing. This is awesome. There's this emotion, this euphoria that you get on the human side. What you want to do is, from a technical perspective, is to be able to capitalize on that euphoria, that feeling of good that somebody sees in you. What you can do nowadays is just ask them a couple of questions, or in the behavioral marketing side of things, see what they click on, what is interesting to them, what do they not click on? Those kind of things, prior to them even being in your email list. When they're in your email list obviously there's more details that you can get to, but with code snippets and things of that nature you can actually change your website around what they're reading on your blog. What you can do with your own blog, if you will, and I'm sure many of you have seen it, is that you have this "widget" that says, "You may also like ..." Or, "Here's other content that might be interesting to you." Because what you're on, the article that you're reading at this point in time, there is related articles in that same category on that same website. What they want you to do is, hey, if you're interested in this, then go check out this as well. They're trying to move you along in that journey to know that if you have a specific problem, well we have some resources and we know how to solve your problem. What you can do in the background of things is you can do "lead scoring". If somebody, let's just say on your website you have a bunch of articles around pricing or things of that nature, pricing, let's say you also have things on sales, or marketing. If somebody hits a couple of articles on your marketing side of things but they never look at pricing, then you could potentially change your website around that a little bit more. Make your calls to action to talk about marketing versus pricing. I do this on my website plenty of times. If somebody comes to me from, because I specialize in convert kit and drip, if somebody comes to me from the convert kit consultation, or convert kit experts they call them, if that webpage, then my services page gets reflected on that. I don't even mention drip, I just mention convert kit, because that's where they came from, so I'm assuming, based on their behavior, that that's what they're interested in. They're not interested in anything else that I do. You can be mindful of these sort of things, and just talking their language allows you to then get them to the next stage faster. Because if I can echo what they're saying to me, based on their actions what they're saying to me, then just us as humans we're going to say, "Hey, that's what I'm looking for. You know what I'm talking about." What I'll try to do in that respect is to be able to then grab their email address, and then market to them in that end. Talk to them about convert kit. Talk to them about potentially segmentation and those kind of things, or automated workflows if that's what they're looking for. All of this data really just gets passed over into my email marketing platform and my welcome sequence tailors to that. What that does is, like for my clients, is to be able to then baseline how long it takes for someone to first opt into your email list and then buy from you, because that window of opportunity is finite. Once you go past about 90 days, and obviously this depends on the type of product or service that you're selling, but on average 90 days, then you're not going to convert, or you're a lot less likely to convert. You want to be able to then, especially if you're selling multiple things, sell quickly. You want them to get that first purchase because that's always the hardest, and then get them to repeat buy after that. With just some small tweaks, and some small segmentation, and intent awareness, because we can dive into that a little bit more. Just based around some of those things you can then shorten that time frame greatly. I have some results where I've done for my clients, take their baseline of 40 days to the first purchase, and gone down to eight. I've had another client where it was nine days down to less than a day. Kathleen: Wow. Jason: It's just a matter of knowing and understanding the actions that somebody's taking, and then putting the right promotion, if you will. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be a buy, it could be an email opt in or whatever. Putting the right promotion in front of them. How To Measure Time To First Purchase Kathleen: Let's wind back a little bit. Let's say I come to you and I'm an eCommerce company, and I'm interested in focusing on this time to first purchase kind of metric. You talked about how the first thing you have to do is establish a baseline of how long is it actually already taking people to get from first touch to first purchase? Walk me through exactly what you're doing to measure that. Are there certain tools that you put in place? Tracking tools, what is it you're looking at in order to determine that? Jason: Sure. I think only one person was tracking this that came to me, which makes my life easier. Most times what I look for is really I look for obviously their customer list, and I take their email addresses. Then unfortunately there's no tool to marry this stuff. I basically take a spreadsheet, an export of that, of all their customers, and then I go to their email service provider and I see when they opted in. Then I try to figure out, based on the dates around them becoming a customer and when they first opted in, and I kind of take a baseline, if you will, "baseline", on what their metric is. Then I have a conversation with the business owner to kind of gauge what their sales team sees, if they have that data, and try to come up with the best possible estimation that they have for this. A lot of times, I mean there's obviously a percentage plus or minus, but a lot of times it's pretty accurate if you know the data that's there. Because we all know when they purchased their first thing, we all know when they came onto the email list. If it happened to be that ... I try to discount those that have zero day initially, because a lot of times people in the email marketing world, and I'm sure a lot of your audience knows this, a lot of times people will opt in with a different email than they'll actually pay with. Kathleen: Yeah. Jason: If they opted in on the same day they purchased, for the baseline I take that away. Kathleen: Yeah, there's a lot of XYZ@123.com. Jason: Right. Kathleen: Don'temailme@pleasestop.com. It's amazing how creative people get with those fake email addresses. Jason: Absolutely. Obviously there's some experience factor in there for where I try to come up with that baseline. Then what I do once I have that, then I go into their email marketing platform and I essentially create rules that store when they become an opt in, but also when they actually purchase. Which is just a custom field that really just does some math to say, okay, they subscribed on this date, they became a customer today, let's minus the two, how many days are there? Over the first month or two of doing that, I kind of gauge whether that baseline estimation that we first did is accurate enough to go off of. Then we move from there more into the optimization, asking certain questions, things of that nature to try to shorten that time. Jason's Process For Shortening Time To First Purchase Kathleen: Let's talk about that stage next. I've come to you, I say, "I need help with this." You calculate those initial baseline metrics. Then what? It sounds like you're using personalization and targeted offers in order to pull people through that customer buying journey. Is there any kind of like discovery process or research that you're using in order to determine what the right offer is, or the right way to persuade them? Jason: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of it is, in my own research anyway, is looking at their analytics first. Seeing what people are actually looking at on the website, because a lot of times it's not what the owner thinks. I want to make sure that I have the data, because for me, I'm a data geek and the numbers don't lie. If the business owner tells me one thing and the data tells me another thing, then we have a conversation to try to reconcile it in some way. That's first things first, is really looking at Google Analytics, or any other metrics that they could possibly have. A lot of people use Hotjar and some of these other tools out there that help you with the customer interaction on your website. I start there. Then I have conversations with the business owner as well as certain key members on their team, if they have those kind of people. People like marketing, sales, people that are closer to the customer, if you will. Support teams, those sort of things, to really start to get an understanding of, and it's not even technical, it's just what kind of words do you hear all the time? What pain points people are struggling with. What opt ins do you have on your site that actually can map to a product? Because a lot of people, especially in the eCommerce space, they say, "Hey, we had a discount for this. Sign up on your first purchase." Is that working for you, or is something else working for you when you run a holiday sale instead? I try to gauge what that customer is thinking. Because we can assume that we're putting the best foot forward, but if the customer is coming to you depending on the product or service obviously, they're coming to you with two things in mind. One is their intent, they're intent on solving the problem. Is the page that they're on, or your product, or service, actually going to solve their problem that they have right now? Two, what's their motivation behind solving that problem? I really want to get down to those two things. It's not scientific in the way where there's actual numbers, at least initially. I want to make assumptions on that, and put campaigns out, look at welcome sequences. Look at all of these kind of things that they're already doing that we can inject some questions, or inject some relative links to blog posts, or products, or whatever, os that we can get a better gauge on what their intent is and what their motivation is without actually asking them. Kathleen: Now you talked about nurturing sequences, and onboarding workflows, and things like that. I do find it's very easy in this day and age to overwhelm audiences with email particularly. Do you have any rules of thumb that you use as far as like, how soon do we email them and how frequently do we email them? Anything as far as even style of email, because I know there's a lot of different opinions on very designed emails versus plain text. I'd love just on the topic of email to hear your thoughts. Jason: Yeah. I mean, that's a whole nother episode. Kathleen: I know. Jason: Yeah. To answer the first part of the question about how often, frequency, those kind of things. First I have to know what they're doing already. If you came to me and said, "Look, I do a once a month promotion." If you just switch that up to a daily, then your list is going to be obliterated and they're going to be like, "I don't even know who this person is." They're going to get high on subscribe rates. If you have a pretty regular cadence, say once a week or something of that nature, it's really just throw it out, if you want to add another email. Because for me, my business when I send emails, I get paid. I will always try to mix in emails where I can. For how I like to do it, I try to do it in a human way, not just like let's just keep sending links to podcasts and blog articles, or products, or services, or stuff. I try to have the subscriber opt into those things. You can do that in a way where if you had, let's just say you had a cadence of every single week on Tuesday you send out an email to your list. You could just send out an email on Tuesday saying, "Hey look, we're going to add another email, or two emails, we're going to have it on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday now, and we're going to talk about this. And if you're interested in that, just click this button." They're automatically opted in. You could do things in a more human way, and it goes back to that whole mom-and-pop philosophy is, I want the subscriber to tell me. All of this stuff allows you insight into them, into the subscriber at an individual subscriber level. If they're excited to hear more from you, then you know that, hey, well they may be interested in a product or service that I have that's outside of the free level. You could do those kind of things. You can surely incentivize people with discounts and all of those other things. While that stuff does have its place and works, for the long term, creating those raving fans and repeat buyers, it's all based on trust. The trust factor comes in where you're actually genuine with them and, "Hey, I have an offer, I'm going to do this. If you're interested, all you have to do is let me know." Kathleen: You talked earlier about some examples of results in terms of shortening that time span. I would love to hear a little bit more about that. Do you have a couple of maybe specific examples of it started out at this long, went to that long, and like what led to those key changes? Jason: Yeah. I mean, specifically with some of those results, the one that's interesting is that one that was almost two weeks and I shortened it to a day, inside a day. That was really based around, it is a digital product company, but they also had a service on the back end of it too. What it was, was the funnel was very linear. It was somebody opts in and we promote this product to you, and it was a flash sale. It was like within 24 hours you can buy this for 99% off. That kind of thing. If they didn't take you up on that, then you go into this long term nurture sequence, which was basically two emails a week. Out of that it was pitching that same product over and over again, but at full price. It was, I call it a soft pitch. It's more like, hey, you've seen them in the bottom of your emails I'm sure, like in the P.S., like hey, we also if you're interested in this, we have this product. Which worked fairly well, I mean, nine days to opt in to convert to a customer is good. What they wanted to do was they had a lot of different products that served a couple of different audiences. Immediately when they opted in, unless they opted in via a specific opt in, they didn't know which audience they were. What I wanted to do was I wanted to basically put that front center. I mentioned it a little bit earlier on beforehand, is we can know before they opt in what they've already looked at, through JavaScript and cookies and local storage on their browsers, and that's all in the tech world. If we know what they looked at, then we kind of know what audience they're in. Instead of just pitching them that one thing on the back end of the opt in, let's pitch them the product that makes sense to them. That was the first step, was to really try to put that in place, which made a huge impact. I mean, that was just, that initial just, hey, let's look at the blog posts that they're looking at, and store that data. How many did they look at? How frequently did they look at? Based on that, let's position that product offering that's that tripwire product, if you will, for the next 24 hours at that discount, that's the product that makes sense for that audience. That shortened it almost to three days immediately, because people were more receptive to that offer because it made sense to them. Then there were some tweaks we made to the landing page, to the copy, based on some feedback that we got from those people that actually bought the product during that time. We made some optimizations, and that even shortened the time to first purchase. Kathleen: It's interesting to listen to you talk about this, because obviously the examples are eCommerce, but in my head I keep asking myself, is there anything here that doesn't apply to another type of sale? For example, like a complex B2B sale. I'm not hearing anything that's so specific to eCommerce. It's really just, if I'm understanding you correctly, it's really just about looking more closely at their behavior, and using that behavioral information and those patterns that are created to serve up information that's more directly relevant to their interests. Is that right? Jason: Absolutely. I mean, it just goes back to business in general. If you go to a conference, let's say you go to a conference with all colleagues of yours, they're in a similar business or industry than you are. You're going to talk to them in a different way than if you're going to a higher level conference where your customers might be. It's also a matter of awareness of the person that's viewing your online store or your website. Have they never seen you before, or are they intimately familiar with you and they know your name, they know your services? It's that buyer journey that happens with everybody, whether they're buying a pack of gum or they're buying some service that's going to cost them $10,000 a month. Obviously there's sales cycles, and that all comes into play, but it's the same business. You want to earn that trust. You want to speak their language. If you know the problem that you're proposing a solution for, then that person's going to be more receptive to hearing you. When you hear, that's where the conversion is. It's a matter of just taking them along that journey in a proper way, whether it is a complex B2B or whether it's a transaction where you just pull out your credit card and put it in. How Difficult Is It To Implement? Kathleen: This sounds straightforward on the one hand, the concept is straightforward. Then on the other hand it sounds really intimidating in terms of being able to execute it. Can you talk through how complex this is, and is this something that the typical business needs to hire a developer to do for them, or are there tools out there that make it really easy to do this? Jason: Yeah. I mean, it's as complex as you want to make it really. I like to try to keep things as simple as possible. I mean, I even, I have a thing on my white board, what would this look like if it was simple? Because we can over engineer everything. Once you start thinking one thing, it leads you to another thing, and you're going down this long rabbit hole, and you're like, "Oh my god, I don't know how I'm going to even do this thing." What I try to do is, if you come to me and you have decent enough traffic, you have decent enough sales, and we can have a conversation that's around potentially segmenting your audience better, if you don't do all that already. By segment I mean more so than customers versus non customers. If you're actually doing anything in regards to helping your customers move along the journey, meaning are you doing regular email sequences? Are you blogging? Are you doing these other things? If you are, then it's as simple as starting to think about what problems or what products are related? Let's just say you have a product that solves a problem that, let's say a developer has. As a developer I might have a problem where I need more RAM, or more compute power. If I go to a website and it just says, "Hey, buy this hard drive, or buy this RAM, or buy this monitor." Okay, but if I clicked on a blog post of theirs that talked more about compute power for my computer, and then I went to their product page and then it gave me three products that could help me there, I'm more likely to buy from there because they've already positioned a couple of things based around what I know, and I didn't sign up or anything. You can just start thinking about the product that you have and what problems that solves. That will help you start to build these things out. Keep it simple. Write it down in a notebook, or write it down in a document. You don't need a overbuilt tool to do all this stuff, at least initially. We mentioned Shai before. Right Message is a tool that you can build these. You don't need code. They give you a piece of code to put on your website, but you can build these in a visual editor. There's other tools out there as well. Initially it's really just even that widget we talked about earlier about, hey, you might like this content. On a lot of WordPress websites you can build that. There's plugins out there that would help you do that stuff. You don't necessarily need the code for that either. Keep it simple if you haven't done it yet, and see what sort of results you get. I mean, if you come to me, and usually people that do come to me, they already have this idea, they have the traction. That's why I said it earlier on, it's an established online business that I help, because they have the traction, but they want to increase more sales, they want to increase better brand relationships with their customers. They kind of have an idea that they can do this, they're just not sure what the strategies and the methods to go about doing it. What Kinds Of Results Can You Expect? Kathleen: Yeah. Are there any rule of thumbs that you use for like what kind of improvements that, on average, you think businesses can expect to experience if they go from not being contextual or using personalization to once they've done it? Jason: Yeah. It's hard, it's really based around what the price point is, to be honest with you. I feel like if it's a sub $100 product and/or service, people are more impulsive and you could probably see a quicker uptick in the percentage based around that. If it's north of $100 thing, then it's going to be a slower growth. You kind of need a little bit more time and data to see what's actually going to work and pull the triggers. On the other side of that is that those that are north of $100, you could ask existing customers certain things, which I would suggest things like, where were you when you bought this? What problem did it solve? How has it been since? By asking those questions of existing customers, you can help shorten that on the front end of it. I mean for me it's such a general rule, but I always say you could get 3% to 5% of anybody you talk to, to buy something. Obviously that's a very general rule. I always want to push that a lot higher than the 5%. What I try to do is I try to get the pages in which people are landing on for the purchase like 30% or more. Trying to get the messaging right, trying to get the distractions away from the page, because that's what a lot of eCommerce sites do. Just case in point, look at Amazon, they don't do a lot of that. Once you start going into their checkout process, the closer to your wallet that you get with Amazon, they remove everything. A lot of people don't even realize it. A lot of customers anyway, don't realize that the navigation goes away, continue to shop goes away, contact us goes away. All of these things go away as you start moving closer and closer to actually paying. Who better than Amazon to follow? Because they have the traffic, they have the data, and they publish a lot of these experiments for people to look at. I always try to, obviously depending on the price, I try to figure out what their baseline is. I want to always try to 10x the ROI that they put into me for their business. Kathleen: That makes sense, yeah. I kind of figured the answer when I asked that question might be some form of, it depends, so thank you for humoring me and answering that. Kathleen's Two Questions Kathleen: Well I'm curious to hear your answers to the two questions I usually ask my guests. When it comes to inbound marketing specifically, who do you think is doing it really well right now? It could be a company or it could be a person. Jason: Yeah, I mean, as far as inbound marketing, I'd have to say somebody that does it really well is Chris Marr. He runs the Content Marketing Academy, and he's a marketer that obviously he runs workshops for larger companies. What he does well and how he talks about what he does, it's always it's like the softest sell possible, and then you're just like, "Hey, yeah, I want to go to Chris, because he knows what he's talking about and he gets great results." His methodology and everything he talks about, it makes perfect sense. For me, I've known Chris a few years now. I've had him on my own podcast. It's just, I don't know, it's simple but yet so highly effective that it's sometimes like, hey, this is easy. Kathleen: How did I wind up buying from him? Jason: Yeah. You wonder what's going on. Yeah, if it's somebody, I would recommend checking out Chris Marr if you haven't already. Kathleen: That's a good one. I'll put that link in the show notes. Then with digital marketing changing so quickly, and especially the field that you're in, it can be very hard to stay up to date on all the new developments. How do you personally stay educated? Jason: That's a tough one. I try to, because I toe the line between tech and marketing, there's a lot of noise. What I try to do is I try to curate a lot of what I see. For me, Twitter is my home away from home, if you will. I get educated through Twitter, and who I follow there, and really put together lists on my profile that are really targeted to specific people that are knowledgeable in the space. I'll go to Twitter first to just see what people are talking about, and things of that nature. If it comes up one, two, three times more than the first time that I see it, then I'm like, okay, let me see if this is something of interest. Then what I'll do is I'll sign up to specific newsletters. Some of the newsletters that I sign up to, I may only sign up to it for a month or two and the unsubscribe, but it'll get me the information that I really need at that given point in time. I really try to reduce the amount of noise and distraction, and so I kind of use that just in time learning strategy where, okay, Facebook's changing something in their ad algorithm or whatever, now while I don't do that, my clients do, so I want to be up to date on what they're doing, at least knowledgeable to have some sort of conversation if they ask me a question. I'll go check out that for a little while. I'll talk to some people that I know in the industry, say, "Hey, what's going on over here? Is this something I should pay attention to, or is this just noise?" It's really curated, and it's more outreach for me than letting it all come to me in a flood. Otherwise, I would never get any work done. Kathleen: Yeah. I hear that. Who are your top, let's say three favorite people to follow on Twitter? Jason: Well, that's tough. For business and products, I would say Justin Jackson is probably, he's always interesting to follow because he learns out loud. He tries things. He owns a product business himself, and he's been in the product game for a long, long time, and he knows about that space. In the online world for me, business wise, as far as product goes, Justin Jackson. Chris Marr I follow. He shares a lot of interesting content, marketing links, and strategies, and that sort of thing. I follow him. Then one that I've always followed for a long, long time, probably since day one of me signing up to Twitter, is Paul Jarvis. I've tried to model my business after what he does, which is I'm small potatoes compared to what he's able to do at this point. He's always remained small, and he's built his business designed around him and his lifestyle. That's how I've built my business over the past nine years, is around the life that I want to live, and so if I start going down the rabbit hole of thinking of scaling up, and hiring, and agencies, and growing in that world, while it's attractive, it's not actually what my long term game is. Seeing Paul saying, "Hey, I'm going offline for a couple of months. I'll see you in December." Whatever it is that he does, it's like, oh yeah, that's why I do what I do. He's kind of almost like a grounding rod for me. Kathleen: That's interesting. I'll have to check him out. Any particular newsletters? You mentioned that you subscribe to a few newsletters. Are there any that have stood the test of time, that you haven't unsubscribed from, that you really love? Jason: Val's is one. Kathleen: Yeah, Val's great. Jason: Yeah. She's one. Another one that I really like is Margot, what's her last name? (Margot Aaron) She's a straight shooter. She kind of pokes, she's a marketer herself, she's a copywriter, but she pokes fun at marketing. She's one that I follow because it's like, hey, here's a headline that you're supposed to read, and here's a button that you're supposed to click, but if you don't really want to, you don't have to. It's kind of like allows me to inject my own personal brand into what I do. Because as a business owner, I know that my customers come to me, they could get what I do by going to anybody that does a similar thing, but they come to me and they become a customer of mine because there's something that I'm putting out there that they jibe with. My personality comes through in a lot of what I do, my website and all that. I wear being a New Yorker on my sleeve. I'm a pretty straight shooter too. I try to over communicate in some respects with my clients. They sort of appreciate that, and so I call my clients on certain things, I wrangle them in when they need to be wrangled in, and I challenge them. That is what most of my clients have said that that's why they stay on with me, is because I don't just do what they ask me to do. I help them along the way. Kathleen: Yeah. That's great. If you remember Margot's last name, let me know, because I'll put that link in the show notes as well. Jason: Will do. Definitely. You Know What To Do Next Kathleen: Sounds like a really good one. Well if you're listening and you like what you heard or learned something new, of course I always love it when you leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. If you know somebody else doing kick-ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @workmommywork, because they could be my next interview. Thank you so much Jason. This was really interesting. Jason: Yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.  

Chris Marr is the founder the Content Marketing Academy. I’ve been a follower of Chris and a consumer of his content for years so I was really pleased to spend some time getting to know him, his business and most strikingly his, philosophy for life and work. About Chris Multi award winning Entrepreneur Chris Marr believes content marketing is the only way to set business leaders free from the world of mediocre interruption marketing. Chris is the Founder and driving force behind CMA, the UK’s largest membership organisation of its time. He is raising the bar on talent curation, leadership, personal development, and community building. His pioneering work has changed the lives of hundreds of businesses, all through the power of Content Marketing. Links and mentions : Chris’s website : https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk (https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk) Visit the show website at www.bobgentle.com (http://www.bobgentle.com) Download > 7 Keys to unlock success in your digital agency : Free download @ www.bobgentle.com (http://www.bobgentle.com) Follow on Instagram and Twitter @bobgentle Join the Gravity Agency Facebook Community : https://www.facebook.com/groups/533887233740170/ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/533887233740170/) Please take a second to rate this show in iTunes. ❤ It will mean a lot to me.

Chris Marr from the Content Marketing Academy (also known as CMA) joins Callie Willows for this episode of Behind the Membership. Chris launched his membership in 2015 after running a six month in person masterclass and it's now a major focus of his business. Here, he talks about the importance of customer experience in creating a community culture, using free in-person workshops as a way to attract new members and how he has recently launched a very low cost price tier to help those who can't afford his full membership fee yet. We also talk marketing challenges, how Chris is successfully using Slack for his members community and how the membership has enabled Chris to create the lifestyle that he wants, as he's undergone the transition from flying solo to being a father of four and family man.

You've heard that content marketing is an essential part of business, but you might still be wondering how to use content marketing to get you actual customers. Chris Marr is a content marketing expert and founder of CMA (https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/) (The Content Marketing Academy) – pretty impressive stuff! In this episode Chris talks us through how to map out your content marketing journey, and the critical steps to making killer content…

Alcuni giorni fa ho presentato il mio nuovo libro, "Parlare in pubblico con la mindfulness", alla Content Marketing Academy di Alessio Beltrami. Al termine del mio intervento Alessio ha dato la parola al pubblico per eventuali domande, ed è successa una cosa molto particolare che voglio riproporvi in questa puntata di un minuto.**************************************Se vuoi sapere chi sono, qui trovi la mia bio completa:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/patrickfacciolo► Se vuoi scoprire i miei libri, li trovi qui:https://www.amazon.it/Patrick-Facciolo/e/B075HH6R4G/Se ti appassionano i temi del Public Speaking, puoi iscriverti alla mia newsletter settimanale: ► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/newsletterSe vuoi ricevere gratuitamente tutti i giorni una mia nota vocale sui temi della comunicazione, ti aspetto sul mio canale Telegram:► https://t.me/PublicSpeakingProfessionaleSe vuoi vedere i miei video, li trovi sul mio canale YouTube:► https://www.youtube.com/user/ParlarealmicrofonoSe vuoi ascoltare la mia web radio tematica in cui parlo di comunicazione assieme a tanti ospiti, puoi seguire Radio Linguaggio, in onda 24h/24:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/radioSe vuoi portare un mio corso nella tua azienda o pianificare una formazione individuale a Milano e in tutta Italia, qui trovi tutte le informazioni:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/corso-public-speaking-milanoPuoi anche contattarmi direttamente via email all’indirizzo patrick@parlarealmicrofono.it

Alcuni giorni fa ho presentato il mio nuovo libro, "Parlare in pubblico con la mindfulness", alla Content Marketing Academy di Alessio Beltrami. Al termine del mio intervento Alessio ha dato la parola al pubblico per eventuali domande, ed è successa una cosa molto particolare che voglio riproporvi in questa puntata di un minuto.**************************************Se vuoi sapere chi sono, qui trovi la mia bio completa:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/patrickfacciolo► Se vuoi scoprire i miei libri, li trovi qui:https://www.amazon.it/Patrick-Facciolo/e/B075HH6R4G/Se ti appassionano i temi del Public Speaking, puoi iscriverti alla mia newsletter settimanale: ► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/newsletterSe vuoi ricevere gratuitamente tutti i giorni una mia nota vocale sui temi della comunicazione, ti aspetto sul mio canale Telegram:► https://t.me/PublicSpeakingProfessionaleSe vuoi vedere i miei video, li trovi sul mio canale YouTube:► https://www.youtube.com/user/ParlarealmicrofonoSe vuoi ascoltare la mia web radio tematica in cui parlo di comunicazione assieme a tanti ospiti, puoi seguire Radio Linguaggio, in onda 24h/24:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/radioSe vuoi portare un mio corso nella tua azienda o pianificare una formazione individuale a Milano e in tutta Italia, qui trovi tutte le informazioni:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/corso-public-speaking-milanoPuoi anche contattarmi direttamente via email all’indirizzo patrick@parlarealmicrofono.it

“Se dovessi descrivere questo libro lo descriverei come una carezza”: è con queste parole che ho raccontato alcuni giorni fa alla Content Marketing Academy di Alessio Beltrami il mio nuovo libro, “Parlare in pubblico con la mindfulness”.In un mondo che ci chiede ogni giorno di “superare i nostri limiti”, di “metterci la faccia” sempre e comunque, di comunicare, comunicare, comunicare, cerco di lanciare un messaggio un po’ più morbido: se comunicare in prima persona sui social spesso è più efficace, non è detto che tutti vogliano farlo con la stessa intensità.Penso sia importante che ciascuno comunichi con la gradualità che gli è propria, senza per forza obbedire agli imperativi che ci arrivano dagli aforismi motivazionali che troviamo in rete, o dall’idea che comunque dobbiamo fare tutti le stesse cose.P.S.: venerdì vi aspetto a Milano alle 19.15 alla Casa della Psicologia per parlare di questi temi alla presentazione del mio libro: c’è ancora qualche posto disponibile. Richiedi l’iscrizione gratuita all'evento su https://patrickfacciolo.eventbrite.it**************************************Se vuoi sapere chi sono, qui trovi la mia bio completa:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/patrickfacciolo► Se vuoi scoprire i miei libri, li trovi qui:https://www.amazon.it/Patrick-Facciolo/e/B075HH6R4G/Se ti appassionano i temi del Public Speaking, puoi iscriverti alla mia newsletter settimanale: ► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/newsletterSe vuoi ricevere gratuitamente tutti i giorni una mia nota vocale sui temi della comunicazione, ti aspetto sul mio canale Telegram:► https://t.me/PublicSpeakingProfessionaleSe vuoi vedere i miei video, li trovi sul mio canale YouTube:► https://www.youtube.com/user/ParlarealmicrofonoSe vuoi ascoltare la mia web radio tematica in cui parlo di comunicazione assieme a tanti ospiti, puoi seguire Radio Linguaggio, in onda 24h/24:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/radioSe vuoi portare un mio corso nella tua azienda o pianificare una formazione individuale a Milano e in tutta Italia, qui trovi tutte le informazioni:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/corso-public-speaking-milanoPuoi anche contattarmi direttamente via email all’indirizzo patrick@parlarealmicrofono.it

“Se dovessi descrivere questo libro lo descriverei come una carezza”: è con queste parole che ho raccontato alcuni giorni fa alla Content Marketing Academy di Alessio Beltrami il mio nuovo libro, “Parlare in pubblico con la mindfulness”.In un mondo che ci chiede ogni giorno di “superare i nostri limiti”, di “metterci la faccia” sempre e comunque, di comunicare, comunicare, comunicare, cerco di lanciare un messaggio un po’ più morbido: se comunicare in prima persona sui social spesso è più efficace, non è detto che tutti vogliano farlo con la stessa intensità.Penso sia importante che ciascuno comunichi con la gradualità che gli è propria, senza per forza obbedire agli imperativi che ci arrivano dagli aforismi motivazionali che troviamo in rete, o dall’idea che comunque dobbiamo fare tutti le stesse cose.P.S.: venerdì vi aspetto a Milano alle 19.15 alla Casa della Psicologia per parlare di questi temi alla presentazione del mio libro: c’è ancora qualche posto disponibile. Richiedi l’iscrizione gratuita all'evento su https://patrickfacciolo.eventbrite.it**************************************Se vuoi sapere chi sono, qui trovi la mia bio completa:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/patrickfacciolo► Se vuoi scoprire i miei libri, li trovi qui:https://www.amazon.it/Patrick-Facciolo/e/B075HH6R4G/Se ti appassionano i temi del Public Speaking, puoi iscriverti alla mia newsletter settimanale: ► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/newsletterSe vuoi ricevere gratuitamente tutti i giorni una mia nota vocale sui temi della comunicazione, ti aspetto sul mio canale Telegram:► https://t.me/PublicSpeakingProfessionaleSe vuoi vedere i miei video, li trovi sul mio canale YouTube:► https://www.youtube.com/user/ParlarealmicrofonoSe vuoi ascoltare la mia web radio tematica in cui parlo di comunicazione assieme a tanti ospiti, puoi seguire Radio Linguaggio, in onda 24h/24:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/radioSe vuoi portare un mio corso nella tua azienda o pianificare una formazione individuale a Milano e in tutta Italia, qui trovi tutte le informazioni:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/corso-public-speaking-milanoPuoi anche contattarmi direttamente via email all’indirizzo patrick@parlarealmicrofono.it

Ieri pomeriggio sono stato ospite della Content Marketing Academy di Milano per presentare il mio ultimo libro, “Parlare in pubblico con la mindfulness”. A un certo punto Alessio Beltrami, moderatore dell’evento, ha parlato delle volte in cui registriamo un contenuto per il nostro pubblico (un video, un podcast), e finiamo per ricominciare a registrarlo nuovamente, perché non siamo convinti che vada bene. Ho risposto ricordando l’importanza di coltivare la capacità di perdonarci, visto e considerato che la creazione di contenuti per il web è una sfida totalmente inedita per gli esseri umani. Si tratta di una possibilità che in tutta la storia dell’umanità ci è possibile soltanto da vent’anni a questa parte, e per questo non è affatto scontato che di fronte a un microfono sia sempre “buona la prima”. Un’occasione in più per accettare i nostri limiti, e l’idea che pubblicare sul web qualcosa che resterà accessibile e condivisibile per sempre, per chiunque, da dovunque nel mondo, in tempo reale e in differita, è una sfida totalmente inedita per il cervello umano nella storia dell’evoluzione.**************************************Se vuoi sapere chi sono, qui trovi la mia bio completa:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/patrickfacciolo► Se vuoi scoprire i miei libri, li trovi qui:https://www.amazon.it/Patrick-Facciolo/e/B075HH6R4G/Se ti appassionano i temi del Public Speaking, puoi iscriverti alla mia newsletter settimanale: ► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/newsletterSe vuoi ricevere gratuitamente tutti i giorni una mia nota vocale sui temi della comunicazione, ti aspetto sul mio canale Telegram:► https://t.me/PublicSpeakingProfessionaleSe vuoi vedere i miei video, li trovi sul mio canale YouTube:► https://www.youtube.com/user/ParlarealmicrofonoSe vuoi ascoltare la mia web radio tematica in cui parlo di comunicazione assieme a tanti ospiti, puoi seguire Radio Linguaggio, in onda 24h/24:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/radioSe vuoi portare un mio corso nella tua azienda o pianificare una formazione individuale a Milano e in tutta Italia, qui trovi tutte le informazioni:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/corso-public-speaking-milanoPuoi anche contattarmi direttamente via email all’indirizzo patrick@parlarealmicrofono.it

Ieri pomeriggio sono stato ospite della Content Marketing Academy di Milano per presentare il mio ultimo libro, “Parlare in pubblico con la mindfulness”. A un certo punto Alessio Beltrami, moderatore dell’evento, ha parlato delle volte in cui registriamo un contenuto per il nostro pubblico (un video, un podcast), e finiamo per ricominciare a registrarlo nuovamente, perché non siamo convinti che vada bene. Ho risposto ricordando l’importanza di coltivare la capacità di perdonarci, visto e considerato che la creazione di contenuti per il web è una sfida totalmente inedita per gli esseri umani. Si tratta di una possibilità che in tutta la storia dell’umanità ci è possibile soltanto da vent’anni a questa parte, e per questo non è affatto scontato che di fronte a un microfono sia sempre “buona la prima”. Un’occasione in più per accettare i nostri limiti, e l’idea che pubblicare sul web qualcosa che resterà accessibile e condivisibile per sempre, per chiunque, da dovunque nel mondo, in tempo reale e in differita, è una sfida totalmente inedita per il cervello umano nella storia dell’evoluzione.**************************************Se vuoi sapere chi sono, qui trovi la mia bio completa:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/patrickfacciolo► Se vuoi scoprire i miei libri, li trovi qui:https://www.amazon.it/Patrick-Facciolo/e/B075HH6R4G/Se ti appassionano i temi del Public Speaking, puoi iscriverti alla mia newsletter settimanale: ► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/newsletterSe vuoi ricevere gratuitamente tutti i giorni una mia nota vocale sui temi della comunicazione, ti aspetto sul mio canale Telegram:► https://t.me/PublicSpeakingProfessionaleSe vuoi vedere i miei video, li trovi sul mio canale YouTube:► https://www.youtube.com/user/ParlarealmicrofonoSe vuoi ascoltare la mia web radio tematica in cui parlo di comunicazione assieme a tanti ospiti, puoi seguire Radio Linguaggio, in onda 24h/24:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/radioSe vuoi portare un mio corso nella tua azienda o pianificare una formazione individuale a Milano e in tutta Italia, qui trovi tutte le informazioni:► http://www.parlarealmicrofono.it/corso-public-speaking-milanoPuoi anche contattarmi direttamente via email all’indirizzo patrick@parlarealmicrofono.it

In this episode, the final episode of 2018 I'm bringing back one of the most popular interviews since the start of the Engage Video Marketing Podcast. Chris Marr is the founder of the Content Marketing Academy in the UK and is a leading voice in the world of Content Marketing and Video Marketing. In this replay episode (first published in Episode 52), we chat all about what's working now and what's next in the world of content marketing for business and dive deep into the role that video should be playing in a content marketing strategy. Support this podcast

Today I'm delighted to reintroduce you to my friend Chris Marr from The Content Marketing Academy, one of my favourite people on the planet. Chris has built sustainable, recurring revenue business over the past six years after being made redundant from his job. It's a belter.

ECCO COSA SCOPRIRAI IN QUESTO EPISODIO Leadership tra Marketing e VenditeIl video marketing per creare autorevolezza Sopravvalutare il potere della rete e di alcune lettureCITAZIONI DELL’EPISODIODalla mancanza di collegamento tra Marketing e Vendite nascono problemiIl marketing deve avere un ruolo preponderante sulle vendite perché dovrebbe avere una visione più lungaPiù sei te stesso, più sei naturale, più riconosci la tua imperfezione e i tuoi limiti, più ottieni interesse, simpatia e coinvolgimentoVideo Marketing come aiuto per se stessi LINK MENZIONATI NELL’EPISODIO- Il metodo AIUTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgZhUlHM0fs&list=PLZrhrPd9eMVzXm0hEKRChXyTxmaftcVA1- Il digital mastermind di Giulio Gaudiano https://www.youmediaweb.com/digitalmastermind/- Content Marketing Academy di Alessio Beltrami https://contentmarketingitalia.com/academy/ - La video animazione usata da Paolo Pugni https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGYB5pGEyNs- OEFFE Orientamento Familiare https://www.oeffe.it - Libro Tutto esaurito. Come avere la coda di clienti fuori dalla porta https://amzn.to/2y3P3Fp - Libro Pre-suasione. Creare le condizioni per il successo dei persuasori di Robert Cialdini - https://amzn.to/2OK9oJq- Podcast Diario di Due Imprenditori Digitali - www.digimprenditori.it - Video Recensioni Animate di libri - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRF5fhJ8Z8&list=PLQ6tq-0XtldeMgEvEFQyIM637lcj-VDR_ SPONSORPresentazioneAnimata.it - www.presentazioneanimata.it L’OSPITE: PAOLO PUGNIPodcast Vendere Valore - https://www.spreaker.com/show/venderevalorePodcast Imprenditori di Successo - https://www.spreaker.com/show/imprenditori-di-successoCanale Youtube Un caffè con Paolo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilqv1FrR-0M&list=PLZrhrPd9eMVz1vFe5FXJiAefdlmP_EQBCSito: http://pugnimalago.it/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paolopugni/Telegram: http://telegram.me/paolopugni CONTATTI:WEB → https://www.videomarketingpodcast.itINVIA UNA DOMANDA → https://t.me/gattimarcoLINKEDIN → https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcogattilink/EMAIL → info@videomarketingpodcast.itREGISTRATI AL CANALE TELEGRAM → https://t.me/videomarketingitalia LISTA BROADCAST WHATSAPP → manda una richiesta a whatsapp@videomarketingpodcast.it

Listen, read, watch, learn. Review, listen again and learn. Again. Chris Marr isn't a perfectionist, but is certainly an advocate of self-improvement. As a teacher of content marketing, Chris' approach is one of support, assistance and inspiration. As the founder of the Content Marketing Academy, he's spent most of his professional career teaching others how to improve their content. The feedback from his community is incredible - membership numbers and attendees at CMA's events are testament to that. Fortunately, Chris is also a humble guy and willing to share his own experiences with others and offer foresight into what's coming next. In this episode, we talk to Chris about what content actually means, what purpose it serves and how you can improve your content just by watching this video. MARKETED.LIVE 2018 TICKETS: www.marketed.live Information on the speakers, agenda and discounts available for hotel accommodation and travel available on the website.

"Content is key" but without actually marketing what you have created, how do you even get eyeballs on it in the first place? Meet Chris Marr of the Content Marketing Academy. He shares with us common misunderstandings about and how we can create an effective content marketing strategy. If you are creating content but are not entirely sure how it is helping you grow your business... you need to listen to this episode. Full show notes: https://agencytrailblazer.com/podcast/how-to-market-your-content/ --- OUR EVENT: Do you want to make real change in your business? Join us at our in-person event Agency Transformation Live Meet Troy Dean; Lee Jackson, Chris Ducker, Kelly Baader, Amy Woods, Paul Lacey, Dave Foy and other legends in this fantastic conference focused on actionable steps that you can use to transform your agency. --- See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In today's episode, we are talking all things content marketing with Chris Marr from Content Marketing Academy. We also dive into the world of video in this conversation. We talk about the idea of getting over the fear of video and using video strategically in order to drive sales. Chris is the leading voice of the growing Content Marketing movement in the UK. His pioneering work has helped countless organisations grow through content marketing. His drive comes from a desire to help people break free from the world of interruptive marketing. In this episode What led Chris to content marketing The definition of content marketing What makes for good content marketing How content lead to sales What’s changed in content marketing over the last year Where Chris sees most businesses struggling Return on investment What Chris thinks is next in content marketing. Links mentioned in the show Content Marketing Academy (https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/) CMA Live (https://www.cmalive.co.uk/) Chris on Twitter (https://twitter.com/chrismarr101) Episode Sponsors Convertkit - Get your 30 day free trial of the world's best email marketing provider and support the podcast here. # Please note, episode sponsors are affiliate links. If you happen to purchase any product sponsoring the show, I may receive an affiliate commission at no cost to you. I only accept sponsorship from tools, programs and services that I have used and truly believe in - I want you to be in good hands! Support this podcast

Più info su https://contentmarketingitalia.com/academy/

Content marketing is a strategic and commercial activity in businesses, not just something reserved for marketers. It is potentially the thing that can light the fire under sales. On this episode, Chris Marr, the founder of Content Marketing Academy, a membership organization for marketing pros and entrepreneurs who want to better understand and utilize content marketing, breaks down some content marketing key components and misconceptions. Content marketing plays an ever increasing role in the way people make educated buying decisions.

Are you truly creating content that’s helpful to your potential clients? Does the content you publish bring new customers to your door?Chris Marr of the Content Marketing Academy joins us this week to talk about the importance of content marketing, creating relevant content for your potential clients, how it affects clients’ buying/booking decisions, and how it’s not just a strategy -- it’s actually a philosophy.Here is a rich episode all about content marketing and how it has helped many people, including our business, get more clients and bookings. We hope it helps yours.QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE“Marketing for today’s environment that we live in - the culture, the way that consumers make decisions to buy now is truly through the internet and information they find and educate themselves on.”“Content marketing is who you are as a company. It’s how we communicate.”“75% of the buying decision is made online before someone contacts the business for the first time.”“Content can play a big role in helping - it plays a huge role - in increasing confidence and trust, and helping people make a buying decision.”“It’s not about what your competition thinks about you… at the end of the day, this is about your business, your customers, and your prospects feeling confident about buying from you.”“We don’t need more information; what we need is better information, better quality information.”“There are thousands and thousands of blog articles getting published everyday; the challenge for everybody now is to create the best version of that article that exists online today.”“In most cases, it’s not just that they want an answer to a question - they want a solution for a problem.”“When it comes to content marketing, ideas is the currency.”“This isn’t about who’s the smartest; this is about who can be the most helpful.”MENTIONSGrow My Clinic online courseChris MarrThe Content Marketing Academy“The Zero Moment of Truth”They Ask, You Answer (book) by Marcus SheridanBLOG ARTICLES RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE:How to measure the return on content marketingHow does content marketing lead to salesHow to improve your blogSHOW NOTES[0:00:16.8] Introducing Chris Marr of the Content Marketing Academy[0:00:56.3] About the Content Marketing Academy and how Chris got into content marketing[0:03:27.5] What is content marketing (according to Chris)?[0:05:38.9] What differentiates content marketing from other tactics such as Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, etc.[0:06:09.3] Content marketing as a philosophy[0:07:36.3] Does content marketing work for brick and mortar type businesses, or is it only exclusive for online marketers?[0:09:04.6] Chris explains “The Zero Moment of Truth”[0:14:28.6] What if you’re afraid of creating content because you’re afraid of criticism?[0:18:44.2] Advice for creating better content[0:19:35

Quando i contenuti di un'azienda diventano un'abitudine quotidiana per i clienti, si smette di essere visti come una proposta commerciale e si inizia ad essere visti come una risorsa. In puntata Alessio Beltrami approfondisce questo concetto con esempi pratici e suggerimenti adatti anche a chi parte da zero.Più info su http://contentmarketingitalia.com/Content Marketing ACADEMY http://contentmarketingitalia.com/academy/

Being Creative and Creating Content for Future Generations!What does being creative and creating content have to do with living a life of abundance? More than even I considered to be honest. But Chris Marr brings up some great points and shares a few powerful ideas with you in this conversation. Meet our Feature GuestChris Marr - Founder & Director, Content Marketing Academy Ltd Chris Marr is a teacher and student of content marketing. He’s the founder and driving force behind the Content Marketing Academy. Dad to Spencer. Connect with our Feature Guest https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/ (TheContentMarketingAcademy.co.uk) https://twitter.com/chrismarr101 (Twitter) Wally's Take Away:Creating content and being creative is not just for marketers. By creating some sort of content, you're leaving a part of you behind for future generations to learn from. Create a journal, blog, music or what ever your creative mind can conjure up. Your great grandkids will share it some day at show and tell. How amazing would that be? Do you feel you're ready to finally start living your life of abundance in family, faith, finances and fitness?Do you feel there's so much more untapped potential in you? Do you feel like you're always struggling? Do you want an amazing relationship with your wife again? Are you ready to start actually enjoying your life before it's much too late? Then I invite you to request a 30 minute coaching call with me. We are simply going to have a conversation to work out a few things. At the end of the call, we may discover you and I can work together. We may even get you a path you've been looking for. https://menofabundance.com/coaching/ (Request your 30 Minute Call with Wally.) Support this podcast

Chris Marr is the Founder of the Content Marketing Academy. Chris is a ‘no bullshit’ kind of guy and through CMA he wants to help you to understand how the dramatic shift in consumer behaviour impacts how you communicate, get new customers and grow a profitable business. In this episode we explore Chris’ early working life inside a large University and why he vowed never to work for anyone again; Chris talks about the importance of learning everyday; we dig into the rebrand of CMA in the summer of 2017 - an event that Chris describes as the most important decision he’s made in business. We also learn about his Jonny Cupcakes obsession, and what makes the brand such an influence for Chris. https://johnnycupcakes.com/ And finally Chris shares the reason why he does what he does with us. Find out more about CMA at: https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/ Connect with Chris on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/chrismarr101

Alessio Beltrami analizza Pitch Anything il libro di Oren Klaff e spiega come applicare quei concetti al Content Marketing. A Febbraio 2018 riapre Content Marketing Academy, l'unica Academy dedicata al Content Marketing http://contentmarketingitalia.com/academy

In this episode, I talk to Chris Marr, founder of Content Marketing Academy; the membership-based business which help other to grow by using the power of content, but also looks at other essential areas such as leadership, sales, email marketing, social media, etc.

Chris Marr has a vast background in events.  He started out in a venue that hosted events, so he learned the ins and outs of events of all kinds. Events organization has been drilled into him for a long time. His first business started off as an agency and he always did events. His first event was a marketing workshop that started for - How he's grown his event part of his business from a small 12 person workshop, to now events that host hundreds of people. - Why live events were such a huge part of his business right away - How free events can build your business - The most important thing you need to do to get people to come to your event. - Chris' prediction on the one thing people will pay money for in the future. - How to build anticipation and sell out your event far in advance - How to create not just an event, but an amazing experience Recommended Books --> Oversubscribed by Daniel Priestley Interested in learning more about the Content Academy? Visit here --> Content Marketing Academy Interested in getting your first event together? Download our free budget worksheet to start planning -> Epic Live Events Worksheet

Accedi a Content Marketing Academy qui: http://contentmarketingitalia.com/academy

Chris Marr, Founder and Director of the Content Marketing Academy, joins the Social Pros Podcast to share how he uses social to sell-out events well before they have even been launched. Special thanks to our sponsors: Salesforce Marketing Cloud (Magic Moments: How to Create Inspired Marketing to Amaze Your Customers: candc.dl/amazecustomers) Convince & Convert (Experience This! Show: experiencethisshow.com) Yext (The Everywhere Brand: http://offers.yext.com/everywherebrand) In This Episode Why creating great social means starting with great content How careful marketing to people outside the room leads to a successful event the following year Why generating online buzz means keeping live, in-person events on the calendar Why ensuring a full room of attendees means continual remarketing to people with tickets Resources Chris Marr on Twitter: @chrismarr101 Content Marketing Academy 365Days Event How Gary Vaynerchuk Uses Micro-Content to Drive Social Media Results Gary Vaynerchuk and The Currency of Attention Visit SocialPros.com for more insights from your favorite social media marketers.

Più info su: http://contentmarketingitalia.com/academy

Trovi le info complete sull'Academy qui: http://www.contentmarketingitalia.com/academy

The wonderful world of content marketing may well be an online-focused industry, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t space for some face-to-face interaction.   It’s very clear that events such as these can produce leads, brand exposure and some incredible results. Hosting your own digital marketing event takes it to the next level, with people attending purely to see you and your company in action. You create a more personal connection with those in attendance and can turn fleeting visitors into fully-fledged members and supporters of your brand. But, for it to be a success, you need bums on seats – and a way to spread the word to interested parties about the event. Sounds like a pretty expensive advertising job, right? Well… In this podcast episode, we chat to someone who defied this logic. Chris Marr is the founder of Content Marketing Academy, along with its popular annual live event CMA Live. The event brings CMA’s members together, offering them some invaluable advice and insight, along with the chance to exchange tips with fellow members. The true beauty of CMA Live, though, is how Chris has spent barely a penny on advertising the event. No paid ads. No expensive deal with advertising networks. Nada. Yet, Chris has managed to take CMA Live from a gate of 25 or 30 members and friends, to an annual sell-out show of returning supporters, in well under five years. Chris tells us how content marketing played a significant role in this rapid growth, spreading the word organically through targeted content and consistent outreach. He talks us through how the “Oversubscribe” technique has been used to great effect, creating a sense of scarcity and urgency that has catalysed interest. He also stresses the importance of networking and growing a community of passionate people has helped drive that success. “Build it and they will come” is an expression that rings true in the case of CMA Live, as they have built an event so beneficial that members want to make their own contribution to the event, as well as implore others to come along and be a part of it. If you’re looking for more cost-effective ways to generate exposure than throwing money at paid ads, listening to our chat with Chris should give you plenty of inspiration. For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to https://exposureninja.com/episode67

A Passionate and Interactive Co-Host, The Sales Lion Himself: Our co-host today has been called a “web marketing guru” by the New York Times. The Story of how he was able to save his swimming pool company, River Pools, from the economic crash of 2008 has been featured in multiple books, publications, and stories around the world. It is also the inspiration for his newest book, “They Ask, You Answer,” which was dubbed the #1 marketing book to read in 2017 by Mashable. Known for his incredibly unique ability to engage live audiences, Marcus Sheridan has become a highly sought after global speaker and consultant in the digital sales and marketing space, working with hundreds of business and brands alike to become the most trusted voice of their industry while navigating the ultra-fast rate of change occurring within consumers and buyers today. (http://thesaleslion.com) On This Episode You Will Hear: [spp-timestamp time="01:30"] The Sales Lion joins us as our latest co-host for a fun conversation. [spp-timestamp time="03:30"] Sales as a Profession vs a Job. Marcus doesn't agree with the point that nobody likes to be sold to. [spp-timestamp time="06:45"] 70% of the buying decision has already been made before we walk in the door these days. [spp-timestamp time="07:45"] Channeling They Ask, You Answer to save his pool business. [spp-timestamp time="08:45"] The online content that took him 45 minutes to write on his kitchen table has generated over $3.5 million in sales. [spp-timestamp time="10:45"] Active Listening vs Just Listening. [spp-timestamp time="13:45"] Good Parenting as a Teacher. [spp-timestamp time="16:25"] Analyzing how Tony Robbins works. [spp-timestamp time="17:35"] World Class Communication. [spp-timestamp time="18:50"] Marcus' #1 frustrated email that he receives. [spp-timestamp time="20:05"] You can be a profit to the world but nobody listens to you in your hometown. [spp-timestamp time="25:00"] How do YOU propose we solve the problem. [spp-timestamp time="28:00"] The #1 thing that dictates someones compensation in 2017. [spp-timestamp time="31:30"] Marcus' disappointment with George Washington University. [spp-timestamp time="32:45"] Read outside the lines, we don't need to follow outdated systems. Marcus' 16-year-old daughter travels the world with him since she was 14! [spp-timestamp time="33:45"] His daughter rocked her first keynote speaking opportunity, opening for Marcus, at a recent Content Marketing Academy. [spp-timestamp time="34:35"] His daughters 15-year-old entrepreneurial journey into the glitter eyeshadow market. [spp-timestamp time="38:50"] She said "Why Not Me". [spp-timestamp time="40:20"] Living Spouse, Family, First. [spp-timestamp time="45:00"] Updating your website with a section for the problems you solve. [spp-timestamp time="46:00"] Updating your website with a section for who you are not a good fit for. [spp-timestamp time="47:30"] Saying NO to prospects to grow your success. Save yourselves from the ones that cause you all the stress. [spp-timestamp time="53:50"] Final Words   [spp-tweet tweet="Is It Possible That This Applies to Me?! Listen in with @TheSalesLion @LIVETHEFUEL "] [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG6wnisRwak] Links and Resources: TheSalesLion.com (http://thesaleslion.com) @TheSalesLion on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheSalesLion) @TheSalesLion on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/TheSalesLion/) @TheSalesLion on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/thesaleslion/) @TheSalesLion on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2X9pBr24FsAMRgDhiUTTdw) River Pools (http://www.riverpoolsandspas.com/) Marcus Sheridan on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcussheridan/) Marcus Sheridan on...

Your Content Marketing Academy Founder & Co-Host: A human being and Dad to Spencer. Your latest co-host enjoys doing more of what makes him happy. He's an award winning community creator from the United Kingdom. 2009 – 2011 was a transitional time for Chris. He was studying academically and non-academically, Chris started blogging and was fired up about the potential of social media and content marketing. This is when he started to help small businesses in his spare time, cutting his teeth with social media and content for commercial enterprises. It makes sense now, looking back, that when he left his job to go to the university, that he decided to never work for anyone else, ever again. "So, my story isn’t that dramatic – I didn’t quit my job to become an entrepreneur. I simply decided to not get a job after university." - Chris Marr CMA was registered in 2012 and Chris become a Director the day he graduated from the University of St. Andrews in June 2013. "No one has ever asked me about my degree, and no one has ever asked me for my CV. This stuff doesn’t matter anymore." - Chris Marr Click and Read about Chris Marr of Content Marketing Academy... (https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/about/)   On This Episode You Will Hear: [spp-timestamp time="01:00"] Intro [spp-timestamp time="10:30"] Obsessed with the customers you have vs the customers you don't have. [spp-timestamp time="11:05"] Get customers for "less than free". [spp-timestamp time="17:25"] Allowing mistakes to happen and to learn from them. [spp-tweet tweet="The biggest killer in most businesses is complacency isn't it? @hellocma @LIVETHEFUEL "] [spp-timestamp time="20:50"] The biggest killer of most businesses is complacency. [spp-timestamp time="24:40"] Chris loves to teach. [spp-timestamp time="32:00"] Creating speaking freedom by building lifestyle freedom into his business. [spp-timestamp time="35:20"] Chris' first "real job" at 19. [spp-timestamp time="38:35"] Massive influence from Marcus Sheridan aka The Sales Lion. [spp-timestamp time="40:00"] Being a great speaker doesn't just come from having a successful business, best-selling book, etc. [spp-timestamp time="44:20"] I lot of people don't know what they don't know when it comes to public speaking. [spp-timestamp time="44:35"] The World Class Communication Workshop at CMA and creating the World Class Communicator Podcast coming soon. [spp-timestamp time="50:00"] Final Words     [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UYLhiy-4C0]   Links and Resources: CMA (https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk) CMA Podcast (https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/podcast/) CMA Membership (https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/community/) CMA on Twitter (https://twitter.com/hellocma) Chris Marr's Blog - Be Less Busy (http://www.chrismarr.co.uk/be-less-busy/) Chris Marr on Twitter (https://twitter.com/chrismarr101) Chris Marr on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismarr101) Chris Marr on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/chrismarr102) Chris Marr on Instagram (http://www.instagram.com/chrismarr101) People Mentioned: Mark Asquith (https://www.excellence-expected.com/) Marcus Sheridan aka The Sales Lion (https://www.thesaleslion.com/meet-the-sales-lion/meet-marcus-2/) Ryan Holliday (https://ryanholiday.net/) Final Words: You have to live for yourself. You have to stay true to yourself. Don't get distracted by too many other people, your competition, etc. Keep moving forward all the time. Embrace those mistakes. The quote, "The Obstacle is the Way" from Ryan Holliday. Action Steps: Please  Submit an iTunes Show Rating & Review (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/livethefuel/id1150969758?mt=2) , we need more reviews to increase...

#27: Content Marketing is a hot topic, but it’s also a confusing one. As if you ask different people, you probably will get different answer. So I thought why not let me invite my good friend and the leading voice of the growing Content Marketing movement in the UK-Chris Marr come to the show to share his perspectives with us. After all, he has built his entire business based on Content Marketing, well, he even hosts annual conference in Scotland called The Content Marketing Academy, which is happening in June. I will be there, and I hope to see you as well. In this episode, we are learning some key lessons such as Chris’ journey to become entrepreneur, how to overcome imposter syndrome, how to create the content that converts, and how to build a vibrant community for your business. It’s gem-packed as you can tell! Now, let’s chat with Chris. Key Lessons: How Chris burned the boat to start his own business from the get-go. What’s Content Marketing in his perspective -Show vs Tell -Assets Spending vs Assets Building -Relationship building vs short term transactional behaviour How to conquer the thoughts of “Who would care about my content?” How to build vibrant community for your business Tweetable: @chrismarr101@kellybaader Trust is the true currency of today’s business world. Links: Chris’ website: https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/about/ (https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/about/) TCMA 2017: http://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/2017/

Chris Marr is a teacher and student of content marketing. He’s the founder and driving force behind the Content Marketing Academy, the UK’s largest membership organisation of its type. Chris is the leading voice of the growing Content Marketing movement in the UK. His pioneering work has helped countless organisations grow through content marketing. His drive comes from a desire to help people break free from the world of interruption marketing. Through workshops, events, coaching and, of course, a ton of freely available content, Chris has become a respected Content Marketing educator. Like all educators, Chris is also a dedicated student. He’s interviewed and facilitated events with many of content marketing’s most notable thought leaders. The knowledge he’s learned from the likes of Jay Baer, Ann Handley, Marcus Sheridan and Mark Schaefer has been shared freely with the members of his growing community Chris has also connected with many content marketing practitioners who have achieved remarkable success. By shining a light on these businesses and sharing the stories of their success, Chris perfectly blends the theory and practice of content marketing. His passion for content marketing is surpassed by one thing – his family. Chris is married to Andrea and together they made another human – Spencer, who was the perfect Christmas present in 2015. You can also connect with Chris on email chris@cmauk.co.uk or social media his links are below Snapchat  (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismarr101) Recommended Book: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (http://amzn.to/2fYQM4l) Favourite App: Slack (https://www.slack.com) **COMPETITION** Email your definition of Success to me, and the winner will receive a copy of The 10 Second Philosophy by Derek Mills, the winner will be notified in December.  Good Luck. If you have found anything useful on this episode, then please leave a comment and rate the show.  If you would like to ask Geoff a question or suggest a topic to cover on the show, please email him at podcast@geoffnicholson.co.uk You can find more information about Geoff at www.geoffnicholson.co.uk or on the following social media links YouTube (http://www.twitter.com/gncoach) I have also created a Facebook page for the show, would love you to join me over there as well.

Inbound is finally over :( Welcome to our Day 4 Summary & event wrap-up of Inbound 2016! We talk Alec Baldwin, Rand Fishkin's SEO 2017 predicitions PLUS two very special 3-in-3 interviews. The first is with UK's leading voice in Content Marketing, Chris Marr, founder of the Content Marketing Academy and Annual conference of the same same. Check TCMA here: https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/ The second is with Iliyana Stareva, Principal Channel Consultant at HubSpot! Hear from someone actually representing the brand that organises Inbound, Iliyana talks to us about 'Inbound PR' plus key things that have worked for her clients in 2016 We'll be back with our regular format for episode 41 to discuss all things digital and inbound marketing!

Just because you're self-employed doesn't mean you have to go it alone in business. Joining or building a network of fellow professionals can be hugely beneficial to you for a number of reasons. Despite this, many people still shy away from networking events. Some common excuses for this include… I'd feel awkward I wouldn't know what to say to anyone The people there aren't my target customers The people there aren't in my line of work I'm too busy, it would be a waste of my time It would cost me money as I wouldn't be working I'd rather spend this time on marketing I do all my networking on social media So what are some of the benefits of networking? Building relationships Increasing visibility Becoming known as the go-to person in your own line of work Giving and receiving advice Being around others who know what it's like to run your own business Reducing feelings of isolation Leading to sales and other opportunities Social events and friendships Cross promotion and collaboration In this episode we're taking a deep dive into business networking. We'll be hearing the opinions and experiences of our returning friends Laura Lucas, Alison Colley, Chris Marr, Julie Christie, Andy Brown, Patricia McGuire, and Pete Matthew. On top of that we're joined by business networking expert Stefan Thomas, author of the Business Networking for Dummies book. Stefan brings a wealth of knowledge and advice on his specialist subject, and I'm certain you'll hugely benefit from it going forward. Transcript It can be difficult because a lot of people find it hard to go into a room full of strangers and just start talking to them. But I think if it's something that makes you nervous is just remembering that probably most people feel nervous as well. I'm Colin Gray, and this is UK Business Startup. This week we're getting into one of those areas of business that really splits the crowd. Some people love it, and even more hate it. But there's little doubt that, if you do it right, it can be one of the best ways to grow your business. And, it has a bunch of benefits besides that. You might have guessed by now. Of course, we're talking business networking. Stefan Thomas: A lot of people think that networking is just that thing which some of us who are quite odd do at seven thirty in the morning where we meet up at formal networking events and have breakfast with other people. But networking is about every connection you make along the way. That was Stefan Thomas – author of business networking for dummies. He's one of the top UK experts in this area, so he knows how to get networking right. We'll be hearing plenty from him on this episode, along with a few old friends. Talking of which, here's Alison Colley again from Real Employement law advice on how she sees networking. Alison Colley: When I set up my business actually going to networking and meeting people who had either set up their own businesses or who were providing the sorts of services that I needed as a business was crucial. There's no better way of building trust than at networking. Then you can tap into those resources Chris Marr: It's a bit cliché now but it is true that people buy from people that they know they can trust. Not only that. People refer business to people that they know they can trust as well. The only way to get known by people and for people to like you and to trust you is to build a relationship with people. That was Chris Marr, founder of the Content Marketing Academy. He talked a lot about trust on our marketing episode, and here it is again. This ties back to what Stefan told us – it's those connections, and the trust you build with them. Those are the people that send you clients, or might even become clients themselves. Now, at this point, you might be thinking – this just doesn't apply to me. It's only for b2b companies isn't it? Well, Chris has a good way for you to figure it out. Chris Marr: We look back over the last six months, look at where our business has come from, and we always write down two or three names. That piece of business came from that person, this business came from that person. What you start to realize actually is that people are massively involved in your business. If people just don't know who you are, then you're less likely to get business. We do coaching calls, especially with people who are just starting their business. One of the big things that always comes up is, well, they say to me, “We're not getting enough business.” I immediately ask them, “How big is your network? What are you doing to actively grow your network,” and they're just simply not doing enough to get out there and to be known by people. So, it's not just trust, it's visibility, isn't it? No matter what type of business you have, you can always be more visible. The problem is, this personal connection caper is pretty time consuming… How do you make sure you're making that time worthwhile. Chris Marr: I don't mean going meeting everybody, not going to have a coffee with every single person because it can be a massive time suck. What you need to be good at is qualifying people that you want to connect with, people who have influence, people who clearly are good at introducing people to other people, and people who have quite big networks are the people you're looking to spend time with. What you're not trying to do, and I guess this kind of like the next question is, is not just about spending time with people that could be potential customers, because that's sort of like thinking quite small. You've got to think quite big. You actually want to meet people that have bigger influence. They may never ever buy from you, but they might be … They will probably introduce you to other people, they will probably recommend your services to other people. It's well put – you might well find some direct clients through networking, but the big wins are in the wider viral effect. You get to know 10 people in a networking group, and suddenly you're the ‘roof repair guy' not only for them, but their entire network. When their friend says, Man my roof just fell in, who do you think they're going to tell them about? So, that makes sense – looks like the time's well worth it, as long as you're smart about how you spend it. Remember too that time's just another kind of currency. Here's how Stefan sees it. Stefan Thomas: I treat my networking as part of my marketing spend. That's an investment to my business because I know that an awful lot of the big opportunities that I've got coming up in the coming year and that I've had in the last couple of years have come from a little conversation at a networking event, and if I go to networking events, conferences, seminars, whatever it happens to be, then I'm more likely to start more of those conversations which lead to big opportunities. So, Stefan knows it's worthwhile for him. He's tracking those opportunities and where they lead. But, then, Stefan's a pro. What about mere mortals like us? Here's Julie Christie from Tea Break Tog: Julie Christie: I didn't do anything like that for about three years, and then when I did that everything changed. Pretty much over the course of a couple of months I realized that everything was changing because of the people that I was meeting in this group, just expanding my network, but also encouraging me to think about my business differently. People who were having successes in different areas from me I was able to question them and learn from them and vice-versa. So, this is interesting. She's pretty clear that her network brings big direct benefits. But, she's also starting to delve into the other upside. Because we know that, for all the things we love about running a business, it's not all shiny rainbows. Other Benefits Laura Lucas: I was a bit worried I might be lonely when I first started my business working for myself, but because of the networking I've done I've meet amazing people actually. People who I feel are much more likeminded and much more attuned to the sort of ambitions I've got and where I want my life to go than maybe people who I would happen to work alongside. I always enjoyed going into work and having good relationships with my colleagues and so on, but I feel like there's something that people who have their own business have in common. They've got that vision and that ambition. It's just great to be around those sort of people. It's actually about developing those relationships to see how we can help each other and how we can collaborate and who we can introduce each other to. Is a huge, huge benefit of having a business that I hadn't expected. Julie Christie:  Every week you're with these people who are passionate about their businesses and we're all talking about our business and how we can move it forward. But because you're meeting them the next week you're really motivated to go back and work on those things that you've been talking about. I've meet some amazing people through that, and doing that it has changed the direction of my business and improved my business and made me think with a lot more clarity about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. For me it's been absolutely huge, huge part of growing my business. Stefan Thomas: But also in business I think that networking helps you to build the structure, to build the support structure around you, and a network of supportive people which to my mind is just as important to sales. There's no doubt that running a business can be a pretty lonely, isolating job. If you're working yourself, who do you turn to for help, for support, for some simple feedback on something? Well, for Laura, Julie and Stefan, it's their network. As they all said there, they've met people through networking, built relationships, found support, and  they've really grown their business as a result. Alright, I'm hoping you're at least a bit convinced, but there's a good chance you've still got a few reservations. Networking does carry a lot of baggage…. I got a sign of this when I asked Pete Matthew if he sees any value in networking: Hating Networking Pete Matthew: Absolutely, though it can drive fear into the hearts of a lot of people. I'm a natural introvert. If I go to a party, you will usually find me in the corner on my cell phone. But I've taught myself to be better, because it's important to have relationships. It's amazing where relationships can go. I even found out that Stefan, our networking Guru, took a while to find his feet. Stefan Thomas: Not only have I covered it hundreds of times but of course I've been there myself. This wasn't something that I was born to do. My very first networking event I really did stand awkwardly in the corner. That was sometime in 2005. There's an awful lot that I've learned since then. It's definitely makes me feel better knowing that I'm not the only one who feels like a lemon every time I walk into an event like this. I always find myself making a meal over pouring a coffee. It's my way of delaying that moment when I have to turn around and try not to look panicked, hoping someone will come over and talk to me. The thing is, it's natural to feel like that, but it's always fine. Laura Lucas: If you're not sure if it's for you or not go and find out basically. It can be difficult because a lot of people find it hard to go into a room full of strangers and just start talking to them. But I think if it's something that makes you nervous is just remembering that probably most people feel nervous as well. You've got something in common with everyone and just really being open to having those conversations. You'll hopefully find, I know I've certainly found that networking events I've gone to are very open and welcoming and people are interested to hear about you and they're keen to tell you about them. It's not as hard as you might think it is. Ok, we'll get over the fear and give it a try. First step, I suppose, is finding a group: How to Network Stefan Thomas: The very first thing that I would do would be to google networking events in your town, wherever your town happens to be. Look for the local chamber of commerce. They are very likely to have some sort of networking event there. It's pretty likely in most towns in the UK that you will also have networking organizations such as 4Networking of which I'm a member and BNI and other networking organizations that exist. Thanks Stefan – simple enough. So, once we're there, how do we get over the fear and make that first introduction? People I think look for some clever answer as to how to start a conversation with someone, and what I have found works best is to go for the lowest common denominator. If you've grabbed a cup of coffee, it's very likely that there are other people grabbing coffee at the same time. Talk about coffee, talk about parking, talk about the fact that everyone got caught in traffic this morning. You're in that enviable position working event, or conference, or seminar, that you immediately have something in common with everyone in the room. An awful lot of my early sales training was about finding that thing that you have in common with someone so that you can start talking to them on common grounds. My usual one is just to catch someone's eye at the coffee table as say, ‘Hey, how's your day been?'. It's simple, easy and usually gets people talking about something they're interested in. It also tends to give me a clue on whether it's sometone I can get on with too, because if they just start moaning about their day, then they're obviously not the most positive of people. Laura Lucas: One thing that helps me on those times when I do feel a bit self-conscious is just to try and find someone that looks more nervous than me and help them feel better. That can be a really effective way of actually forgetting about your own hang-ups. If you make the conversation about the other person you're much more likely to have an impact. Sometimes we'll go in and we'll feel like we're supposed to have this perfect elevator pitch and you should go in, say the elevator pitch and walk out with a client. Well that's not really the purpose of it. It's just begin to know people and it's really about just looking for things that you've got in common. Chris Marr: Be the person that introduces yourself to other people. Don't go sell. Don't sell to people. Just go and meet people. Make friends with people. That's what I always use to say when I go to event, is like who can I make friends with today. That's one of the best things you can do because people hate being sold to, and they can see a mile off, they can see you gearing up to hand your business card over and people hate it. They just absolutely hate it. The best thing to do is to almost forget that you are selling anything at all and just try and meet people and make friends with people. Laura and Chris are spot on here, for me. You can always spot the serial networkers – those folk that see it as nothing more than a chance to push out as many business cards as they can. I really don't know how they can't see what a turn-off that is. They're not building any kind of relationships, and that's where the value lies. Now you might remember Andy Brown from Triple Your Clients. He takes it a step further – he doesn't just think about building relationships – he gives even more value to one of his business groups. Andy Brown: I'm on the committee there and also on the committee of the St Andrews merchant association, even though I'm not actually a merchant, I don't have a shop or anything in St Andrews. I joined the committee because I'm all about being useful and giving value, particularly in the local area. It's not a me, me, me situation. It's just I think you do get a lot of benefits from just giving. You've got to be mindful of your own time, but I say that I've got these skills related to the internet. I can probably help even though you've got a presence on the High Street. I can help for instance the association. Then with the business club we have a website. I update that. Just by definition that I'm updating that I get in contact with all the people that come and speak at the business club. So, part of Andy's networking is doing just a little bit of work for the clubs – stuff that he finds pretty easy – but it helps grow that trust, that reputation, that makes him more prominent in the network. It's all about giving, really. What's the cliché – you get what you give. Stefan sums it up well: How to Talk to People Stefan Thomas: The way that I treat any networking event is to ask a lot of questions, to find out a lot about the other people in the room, and to get to know them. I very rarely try and push my services on people at networking events. Right, we've been along to an event, we've beaten the fear, and we've made some friends. But what we do we do next? What happens after that first conversation? Next Steps Stefan Thomas: If you think about this for a second, when you I and finish this conversation a number of things will happen. You've got your next appointment to get to, you've got your client you've missed a called from, and those little conversations that you have at the event start to slip out of your memory. Now the same happens to everyone else in the room, so it's your job to continue to remind them that you exist. It's not their job to continue to remember you. Chris Marr: Bring the business cards home with you. Ping them on email. Just say, “Hey it was great to meet you today, and I'm looking forward to catching up with you sometime in the future,” and then stay in touch. That's the big thing. Stefan Thomas: There are two things that I talk about a lot in terms of follow up: active follow up. That's when someone said, “Stephen, I'm really interested in what you do.” In that case I make a point to actively follow up, to phone them the next day and say, “Really like that you're interested in what I do. Can we talk about it more?” Passive follow up, passive follow up is I think when most people lose because actually keeping gently in touch with people over weeks, months, and in my case sometimes even years, that's the thing that has often led to the hidden opportunities, the opportunities that I would never have spotted that come out of the woodwork a few months or even years later. I know myself how easy it is to miss this out. We talked earlier about making sure it's worth the time you invest. Well, the problem is, without the followup, it doesn't really matter how well you do in person, nothing's gonna come of it. You need to get yourself a system – Chris mentioned the business cards there – put them somewhere you'll always find them. When you get back to the office, put it in your process that you always look in this place after an event. And you always do it right away. Like Stefan says, this stuff fades from your memory really quickly. Stefan Thomas: With all of the tools that we have in 2015, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, the telephone, all of these ways of keeping in touch with people, and yet there's a staggering statistic that 87% of people never follow up after networking meetings. If you just do that, if you just make an effort to keep in touch with people in a very gentle non-sales-y way, then you're immediately putting yourself ahead of the competition. A trick I often use is just to write a few words on the business card. Just something that'll remind you who this person is, what you might have in common, what's worth following up on. Having those little nuggets in the follow up contact really separates from the rest, as Stefan said. And if nothing else, it reminds you who the card belonged to. I've found many a card, weeks later, and had no clue where I got it! Now, Stefan mentioned a bunch of mediums there, so it's worth digging into that a bit. Email, for me, is still the first stop. I'll do that for the main followup. But, social media can be a great addition. Social Media Stefan Thomas:  I also treat all of my social media activity as networking as well, because all the way along I'm either making new connections or I'm strengthening my existing connections. Pretty much everything that we do in our day-to-day business is networking. So for Stefan, actually, social media can support his existing connections, and it can be a first contact for others. You'll remember Patricia McGuire from Purple select – she had a few thoughts on social networking. Patricia McGuire: Sometimes when I look at the way my staff network I think really they spend too much time on social networks and the online platforms doing this. To be honest with you they're really, really valuable. Again, you need to think where are the people you need to talk to, what platforms are they on, and start building relationships with them. If you're using online platforms, so if you're using Twitter or Facebook or whatever, it's not enough to be on those platforms. You need to interact with people, offer advice, tell people when they've given you some advice that's really worked, just interact like you would do in a normal everyday life and you will find that that works very well and business will start being referred to. But I still believe that you cannot beat face-to-face relationships. So, for Patricia – you can build a network online, as you'd expect. But it doesn't replace face to face. I'd say it's a valuable part of your networking, not the whole. Laura Lucas: If you're into offline networking I think online networking can really enhance that, because I'll give you a great example actually. A great friend of mine is Kate McQuillan who has Pet Sitters Ireland. She's a really keen blogger. I met her briefly at the Content Marketing Academy Conference in 2014, so I met her once. We meet. She talked to the conference and I was very impressed with what she'd achieved through blogging. We didn't really get much of a chance to speak to each other, but I really got to know her in the Content Marketing Academy Facebook group. Then I really got to know her personally on Facebook, just from like chatting and interacting, and it's developed into a full bloomed friendship now. She's as much my friend as anyone that I've known since school days or anything like that. She's business friend and she's a personal friend as well. I love that story in that it shows the value of putting long term effort into your network. It's not just those one-off meetings, and it's not even just that follow-up, right after it happens. It's beyond that, making sure that you're building relationships long term – not just for your own benefit, but really creating a partnership with everyone in your network. Stefan Thomas: The process doesn't stop. In 2015 when you and I are talking it is so easy to keep in touch with people, and it's the biggest mistake that most people make is not to keep in touch with people. Laura Lucas: I think sometimes when it's business networking we can think it's all about business but it's actually all about just building a relationship. It doesn't matter what you build that relationship on. I think just take the pressure off yourself and enjoy getting to know people really. Pete Matthew: Find half a dozen people who are like you, small business owners like you but maybe in different markets and just help each other. You'll be surprised where that will end up. This is Colin Gray on UK Business startup, hoping that I've given you the motivation you need to get out there and start building your own network. I promise you, it'll end up being one of the most valuable assets in your business. Now, we're nearly at the end of the season. We'll be tying it up next week with some key takeaways from the series, and giving you an insight into what's coming next. We're also going to be running a little competition leading up to the launch of season 2, so do make sure you tune in next time around. Also, a wee request, in the spirit of this episode, I'd love to ask you for a little referral of your own. I hope we've helped you figure out some of this crazy journey we can business, and if you feel like that's built a bit of trust, then I'm proud to call you part of my network. If that's the case then could you do one small thing. Have a think about one person you know that might like this show. Fire up your email and send them the link, copying us in if you think it'd help – we're on info@thepodcasthost.com. It'd mean a huge amount to me, and it'll help us to get this out to more people, hopefully helping as many folk as we can in the long run. Ok, that's it for this week – this show is created by The Podcast Host, produced by Matthew McLean, written and narrated by me, Colin Gray, and we're a part of the 3B Podcast Network – that stands for British Business Broadcasting. You can check out the other shows on the network at 3bpn.com. Thanks and we'll see you next time.

How do you know when you're ready to take on staff in your new business? Are you ever actually “ready” to take such a step? That's the basis of this episode, as our assembled panel of experts and business owners offer you their own tips and advice for taking on staff. Whether you're a sole trader who needs an extra pair of hands for a few months, or the owner of a limited company looking to employ several people, the process is fairly similar across the board. There's also the danger of putting off hiring staff because you don't think anyone can do the job as well as you. That might be true, but is this approach sustainable in the long term? What happens if you fall ill, or want to take a two week holiday abroad? On this episode you'll hear from recruitment consultant Patricia McGuire, content marketing guru Chris Marr, photographer Julie Christie, employment law specialist Alison Colley, accountant Gordon Howes, and financial planner Pete Matthew. Recommended Reading There's a couple of excellent books on this subject that are worth checking out. The first is a classic called The E-Myth Revisited (Why most small businesses don't work, and what to do about it) by Michael E. Gerber. This one is primarily aimed at small business owners who are trying to do everything themselves. The second is Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker. Again it deals with the problem of trying to do it all yourself, but this one is a guide to hiring and managing virtual staff, rather than on-site employees. Transcript It becomes very apparent that you can't do everything and that's another piece of advice. Don't be a superhero. You cannot do everything. I'm Colin Gray, and this is UK Business Startup, where this time, we're talking people. Do you remember that quote from Chris Marr last time around? Chris Marr: You need to pick out a time in the day where you are spending an hour or so working on your business. You need to have a plan for that. What are you doing every day to build your business? This is one of the biggest mistakes new businesses make. They forget to think big. They forget to make time for planning, for strategy, for figuring out how to make the business a success. Instead, they just keep doing what they're good at. The gardener keeps gardening, the programmer keeps programming, and the baker just bakes! The problem is, that's not building a business. That's building a job. And it's a really terrible job at that. It relies on you to run, it relies on your time, so when you're not baking, you're not earning. That means no breaks, no holidays, no time to get sick! And it means no time to bring in more customers or grow a business. That's what Chris from the Content Marketing Academy was talking about. So, what's the way out? Well, building a business that doesn't just rely on you. That's what. And that means staff. So, this is where it can get really scary. Julie Christie: I have two employees. I didn't necessarily feel ready to do it. I just knew I had to do it. For two months, I couldn't afford it. I definitely took a hit because I was training her and I was sitting beside her all the time and we weren't taking on more work. Within two months, she was paying for herself. It was a very, very scary move to make but it was the right move and it allowed me to work on the business. I no longer was having to phone clients, go back and forth with anyone, design albums. All the admin was taken away from me so I was able to then do more shoots and more marketing to get more shoots. That's the bit that surprises most new business owners. The admin. There's so much to do, from logging receipts, to paying tax, to handling bills. And that's just the general stuff. There's bound to be tonnes specific to your industry too. So, this is where a lot of people start, as you heard there from Julie Christie, the founder of TeaBreakTog.com. She's still doing some of the main work – photography in her case – but he's using the time that's been freed up to do the marketing too. As Chris mentioned at the start, and even more in the last episode, that's your big job as the founder. Marketing and growing your business. You can still do a bit of the technical work, but you need to find time for the high level stuff. Generally, that means staff. So, how does it work when you're starting out? Let's look at Bill the gardener again. Patricia McGuire: As a sole trader, Bill can take on a temporary member of staff. Certainly, Bill could advertise and take someone on just for a seasonal period of time so he could offer a seasonal contract to them which would be fixed, which means there's no obligation to keep them on after that or he could give something like a zero hour contract just to see how things go. If things work out well, he can tell the employee that he will increase the hours. That's the way in for a lot of people who start out working for themselves. They take someone on for the busy periods. No long term commitments, just getting a bit of help when it's needed. It is a great way to build confidence and learn a few of the processes. And it gets you used to managing people – something most of us aren't used to! So, once you make the decision, what's our responsibility here with the tax office? Chris Marr: He needs to inform the Inland Revenue that he's going to become an employer before he engages anyone. He will register for PAYE as an employer. He will receive his employer's PAYE reference as well as his Accounts Office reference. This is easy enough, and it's the same for a limited company. In fact limited companies tend to do this right off the bat! Either they'll be taking on staff right away, like a café, or you want to get paid as the founder. Either way its' really easy to register on the HMRC website – honestly, quick as anything. Pete Matthew: One thing it's really important now is you've got to report to HM Revenue and Customs now when you pay your employees. You need to pay your employees on a certain day and that will need to be reported to the Revenue on that day, and any tax and national insurance due to the Revenue will need to be paid at the same time. That's called real-time information. Okay, this might sound a bit complicated, but don't worry, there's technology out there to help. Remember on episode 2 when Pete was talking about managing your finances? Pete Matthew: There are, again, software systems usually very often a part of the general accounting software systems that you can buy and they will do all that for you, so you'll need to register with the Revenue as an employer so that you can submit your real-time information, your payroll information as you go. Both Pete and I have mentioned it before, but FreeAgent, is the one I've used in the past. It handles both invoicing and payroll, working out all of that stuff around tax and national insurance. There are plenty of other apps out there that can do it too. So, don't let this part put you off – help exists! Talking of which… Julie Christie: When I decided to hire Fiona, I spoke an HR consultant who talked me through everything. He also put together a contract of employment and all the paperwork that we had to have in place and he advised me on insurance issues and things like that as well. That was all taken care of and then my bookkeeper, she took on payroll as well as keeping the books. It wasn't too bad at all and has been worth that's weight in gold. We talked about bookkeeping and accountants in the finance episode, and Julie highlights it here. They can take on payroll for you, handling all of the fiddly work. And contracts – that's a tricky one, and well worth getting some help with. You'll find HR consultants all over the country, and you could get contracts and handbooks made up for just a few hundred pounds. In most cases, as Julie says, it's worth every penny. Ok, we've dealt with the prep. Everything you need to do to get set up as an employer. That's a bit dry, but the next bit's more exciting – that's actually having them on board, getting the help, the input, the expertise they offer. Saying that, before we get too excited, I guess we need to think about what they want in return… Pete Matthew: Paying staff isn't massively different whether you're in a limited company or you're sole trader. They are your employee and so you have certain responsibilities. A key one, of course, is paying them. They're not going to work for you very long if you don't pay, so that's a drain on cash flow. That needs to be planned in, always a good idea to have two or three months cash flow in reserve if at all possible, so you know you've got at least two or three months' worth of payroll that you can pay your staff so you're never sort of going right to the wire. This ties into those questions at the start of the episode. When do you know you're ready to take someone on? As Pete says, money plays a part. If the work dried up tomorrow, how long could you pay them for? Now, don't let this scare you – it's planning for the worst case. And with the help of someone else, it's even less likely to happen than it is right now. You'll be freed right up to search for more work after all. But, it's worth a think. Next, what about frequency? Pete Matthew: I would err towards paying people monthly for the simple reason that most people pay things out on a monthly basis. They're paying house and car insurance and other things on a monthly basis. It can be easier for your employees to budget on a monthly basis. Having said that, I have been paying on a weekly or fortnightly basis since I was at university and part-time at McDonald's. It's a long time ago. Some people may prefer it. I think the world is increasingly moving towards monthly though. It just seems more logical to me. This depends a lot on industry too – the leisure industry always tends to pay weekly, but the finance industry doesn't, for example. This isn't a big deal, just choose what's right for you. And then? All that's left now, is finding the staff themselves! Alison Colley: If Amy is looking to take on staff, there are various routes that she could take. She could take the traditional route of putting an advert in the newspaper but in my experience with my clients, that can be quite expensive and quite a timely process. Another way of looking for staff would be to use somebody specific like an agency, somebody who she can trust to make those initial findings for her and to try and find the right member of staff, so do the initial interviews and things. From experience, vetting and interviewing takes a long long time… Agencies charge a fair bit for this, but sometimes it's worth it… Alison Colley: The other way of doing it is to look within her circle, within her network, see if there's somebody who she trusts and likes who might be looking for work. I find that way with my clients who were taking on their first member of staff, this is normally how they find them rather than going down the traditional advertising route because it would be quite daunting to bring someone into your new business especially when you've worked so hard on it, so finding someone that you trust and know in the first instance is probably a good way of finding staff. Interviews can only tell you so much, so that personal connection can make a big difference in finding someone you trust. AND someone who's right for the business. You're going to have to live with these people, day in day out, so personality matters. Pete Matthew: These are not just payroll numbers after all. They are people and they come with issues to deal with, things like needing to take time off to go to hospital appointments and emergency, things which might happen to him for family reasons, in inverted commas, that you've got to sort of be able to cope with these things. And that's when things get complicated. Because real people ARE complicated. But here's how Pete thinks about it. Pete Matthew: Certainly, a key thing for me here in my practice is culture. We obviously need people who are competent. They need to be able to do the job but I would rather have somebody who I need to train but who fits in well with me and what I'm building here rather than have someone who is superbly competent but is a bit of a pain to work with. Company culture is huge, and it's all your job at the start. You're the founder, you set the tone. Small companies always have a culture based on the founder's personality, their values. As Pete says, the plan is to find people that fit that culture, and for you to reinforce it every day. If you live and breathe the values of your company, then that's infectious. It improves the morale, the productivity and the work that everyone does. Now, there's one last option I want to go through, before we're done. Just incase it still seems too daunting. There is an easier way, and we've already alluded to it… Virtual assistance – that means working with people OUTSIDE of your business to do the work of an employee. Julie mentioned earlier that her bookkeeper does payroll for her – that's a virtual assistant. The bookkeeper isn't employed by Julie, but she does work for the company. Work that needs done on a regular basis. So, How would that work with Amy, our café owner, for example? Alison Colley: This is certainly something that Amy should be thinking about for things like her marketing and social media whether she goes to somebody using a service like Upwork who provide virtual assistance or whether she goes for someone more local, would be down to her to decide. Certainly, with virtual assistance, you can give them a try without having to commit anything in the long term. You can try a couple of people and see how it works out. I would say that it would be better for a small business to try and do it virtually for those sorts of things initially than taking on an employee and having the additional costs and expense of things like PAYE and national insurance. Great advice there from Alison Colley whose an Employment Law Specialist over at alisoncolley.co.uk. Whether they're in the UK or abroad, working with a VA gives you a tonne of experience in managing tasks and staff. And that's without a lot of the HR or admin headaches. I know a lot of new businesses that used virtual assistants to grow to a certain point and then they've graduated to in-house staff. It lets you get that work off your hands without worrying about long term commitment. Of course, the downside is that they might not be as bought into your business as an employee. And managing staff at a distance can be tricky. But, for most people, especially sole traders or really small companies, it can be a stepping stone to much bigger things. So, are you ready to take someone on? Are you Set for that leap? Patricia McGuire: I think you know when you're ready to take on staff. It becomes very apparent that you can't do everything and that's another piece of advice. Don't be a superhero. You cannot do everything, but there are worries, obviously. How are you going to pay them? How are they going to settle into your business? How are they going to reflect your business? But actually, you know when the time is right. You know when the money is right. You just have to do it. If your business is going to grow, you have to employ other people to help you grow it. This was episode 4 of UK business startup. You can find links to everything we've mentioned on the show at the Startup website at podhost.me/startup/. Thanks too to all of our contributors, and you can find out more about what they do at the same place. If you've enjoyed this show, please do pop over to the iTunes store and give us a review. It helps in a huge way to get the show out to more people. And if you're not on an apple device, then tweet us @thepodcasthost – we'd love to hear what you think. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time!

Chris Marr - Content Generation for Success Chris grew up and remains in Scotland with his growing family. He began his successful entrepreneurial journey in 2010 when he wrote his first blog. Find out how your entrepreneurial journey can be successful with Chris Marr - Content Generation for Success. Share Chris's Episode 69 on Twitter He began Content Marketing Academy as a general marketing company in 2013. As the company grew, he realized the company needed to educate. The more teaching they could do, the more money businesses would be willing to spend for marketing. CMA started with the thought of educating and teaching but it's more about building a community. Delivering Content Chris Marr's company does speaking, videos, podcasts, blogs, podcast interviews and is out there as often as possible to get exposure for CMA. CMA is changing the way their clients do business. Chris Marr says Scotland is behind compared to the United States in marketing. CMA is ahead of the curve. They are leading the industry forward in Scotland by changing the way their clients communicate forever through content marketing. If you are not creating content today, blog, video or podcast, you don't exist. When people search for solutions and you have not created content, you won't be found. Business marketing is no longer about who is shouting the loudest. Consumers have more choices and think about buying choices differently. Community Acknowledgement Chris compares this to being in a crowd. If you say something and no one acknowledges you, what is the point. Providing or receiving feedback on your content is vital to getting people to like you and building a community. If you would like to learn what Chris Marr says next about content generation, listen to the episode by clicking on the download or the play button at the top of this article. To connect with Chris Marr - Content Generation for Success, check out his links below and remember he welcomes all questions, comments and inquiries! Don't forget to mention you heard about Daniel on Stop Riding the Pine:-) Email Chris Chris on Facebook Instagram Connect with Chris on LinkedIn Subscribe on YouTube Here are the highlights of my conversation with Chris Marr - Content Generation for Success if you are in a hurry: Who is Chris Marr? (3:51 Mark) Why is content vital for business? (13:20 Mark) Why build a community? (26:40 Mark) What does Chris say about scalability? (27:45 Mark) What was Chris's break away moment? (31:56 Mark) Special Mentions: (iTunes Shout Out) Jeff Augustine. Thank you to Alexis Ayala, for providing the incredible editing for this episode. If you need to find an audio editor, send Alexis an email at lex@slapshotstudio.com. Thank you to our awesome sponsor, Interview Valet, A professional concierge guest booking podcast service for hosts and guests - You be the Guest, We do the Rest! Check out their new website at InterviewValet.com. This episode of Stop Riding the Pine Podcast was brought to you by Done4YouWP.com Are you a busy coach, professional or agency looking to have your WordPress website headaches handled by your very own development team for wholesale prices? Then you should visit Done4YouWP.com to find the solution that best fits your current challenges with a full-scale approach to managing your WordPress website. Stop Riding the Pine is a lot of fun and we love sharing the shows we've done. We would greatly appreciate your assistance in helping us grow this show by not only downloading the episodes, but also sharing them. Leave comments and rate our show so we can make the show even better.

Creating and hosting a live event is an incredible opportunity for you and the people you're serving. If you've ever considered hosting your own, or just wondered why in the world anyone would ever take on such a momentous task listen in to today's episode! Chris Marr of The Content Marketing Academy in Scotland joins us to talk about why he started doing live events, how his company is creating the demand for content marketing in the UK, and what some of his greatest struggles and successes have been with his own live events. On episode 158 of Youpreneur FM Chris and I delve into all of that and more; it's an eye-opening look at the mindset needed to carry out consistently high quality events and why those events matter to us as entrepreneurs. Essential Learning Points From This Episode:Does Chris have days when he doubts what he is doing? What it really means if you say you don't have time. How did he get speakers to present at his first event? Why the little things at a conference matter so much. How I sold out my London mastermind event with no advertising. Much, much more! Important Links & Mentions From This Episode: Content Marketing Academy event website (https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/#) Chris Marr on Twitter (https://twitter.com/chrismarr101) Build the Business of You (http://chrisducker.com/launchpad) The Virtual Freedom Book 2 year anniversary (http://virtualfreedombook.com) (www.youpreneuracademy.com) Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose mine, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the top and bottom of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes (https://www.chrisducker.com/itunes) , they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to (https://www.chrisducker.com/itunes) , to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Isn’t there enough content out there already? How can business owners find time for social? What does “letting go” of content actually mean? How can we ensure we keep it human online? I speak to Chris Marr of the Content Marketing Academy to get all the answers. Questions for Chris: Tell us about the Content Marketing Academy and what you do? There is a lot of content out there already. Remind us, why is content marketing essential? Why can’t business owners the find time for social and for content marketing? What does “letting go of content” mean? What social and digital channels do you think work best for content marketing? If you could only use one platform, what would it be? Why do business people struggle to adapt new channels such as Snapchat or Instagram? What’s the best way to make an impact with storytelling on social? How can business owners project their personal brands on social? What are the best tools and apps for content and social marketing in 2016? What made you switch away from MailChimp to ConvertKit? What brands inspire you on social? Article: http://linkhumans.com/podcast/human-content-chris-marr Write ups: http://linkhumans.com/podcast Subscribe on iTunes: http://bit.ly/smknowhow

Content marketing is a critical tool for successful businesses today. If you're not currently leveraging a content marketing strategy, I'd argue that it's imperative that you do. Our guest, Chris Marr, walks us through why it is so important and what it means to your business.    Chris Marr is a teacher and student of content marketing. He's the founder and driving force behind the Content Marketing Academy, the UK's largest membership organisation of its type.   Chris is the leading voice of the growing Content Marketing movement in the UK. His pioneering work has helped countless organisations grow through content marketing. His drive comes from a desire to help people break free from the world of interruption marketing   Through workshops, events, coaching and, of course, a ton of freely available content, Chris has become a respected Content Marketing educator.   Like all educators, Chris is also a dedicated student. He's interviewed and facilitated events with many of content marketing’s most notable thought leaders. The knowledge he's learned from the likes of Jay Baer, Ann Handley, Marcus Sheridan and Mark Schaefer has been shared freely with the members of his growing community.   Chris has also connected with many content marketing practitioners who have achieved remarkable success. By shining a light on these businesses and sharing the stories of their success, Chris perfectly blends the theory and practice of content marketing.   His passion for content marketing is surpassed by one thing - his family. Chris is married to Andrea and together they made another human - Spencer, who was the perfect Christmas present in 2015.   Learn more about The Content Marketing Academy by visiting: https://www.thecontentmarketingacademy.co.uk/ Chris Marr's personal page is http://www.chrismarr.co.uk/ Chris can be followed on Twitter @chrismarr101

MPAF80 – Chris Marr on Content Marketing, Educating and Communicating without Selling You might hear traditional marketing described as "interruption marketing". An advert stopping you from watching your favourite TV show is an example. But you don't have to shout at your customers, interrupt them or get on their nerves to engage with them. What if marketing could be about: Education Entertainment Fun Help In this episode I talk to Chris Marr about content marketing. And he describes the principles of content marketing just like that. Education. Entertainment. Fun and help. Listen to Chris expand on these principles and how it could work for your business. Hear how you could create content cost effectively, engage potential clients and have them come and find you. That's all right here in episode 80 of the Marketing Protection and Finance Podcast. Who is Chris Marr? Chris Marr is a content marketer, blogger and podcaster. He helps businesses in and around Fife in Scotland to embrace content marketing principles and improve their communication. Chris is also the founder of The Content Marketing Academy, Scotland’s first and only annual content marketing conference, and is the founder and host of The Content Marketing Academy Podcast, both of which are great examples of Chris’ commitment to promoting marketing and guiding business owners. Links and Show Notes. For links to the books and apps mentioned by Chris, please visit http://rogeredwards.co.uk/MPAF for the show notes. What is the Marketing Finance and Protection (MPAF) Podcast? It’s the Podcast for Financial Services Professionals looking to share business ideas and inspiration in the world of Marketing, Protection and Finance. The MPAF Podcast is a 30 minute audio show you download from http://rogeredwards.co.uk/MPAF, iTunes or Stitcher Radio. Each week I’ll be interviewing financial services providers, advisers, experts and journalists. Interviews to listen to in the car, on the train or on the treadmill. The main focus of the podcast is on what we can do to make protection and finance more accessible to the consumer and how financial services professionals can develop and promote their businesses. We’ll look at financial services products, interesting business models and campaigns with an emphasis on the following: Marketing – talking about how financial services professionals can develop and promote their businesses using traditional marketing tools but focussing on modern content marketing and social media techniques. Protection – talking about life insurance, critical illness, income protection and other protection products Finance – talking about pensions, platforms, savings and investments My aim is to make sure that you will get one or two big business ideas that you can apply to your own business.  Whether it is a sales idea, advice idea, product tweak or simply an app that is worth looking at. I’m your host, Roger Edwards. A marketing guy from Edinburgh I help people like you with your marketing strategy, content and social media. Until I set up my own business I was in and out of senior marketing roles in UK Financial Services Companies for two decades. Some of you might remember me as the Marketing Director and Managing Director of Bright Grey and Scottish Provident. Please subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes and I’d be grateful if you would leave a review. http://rogeredwards.co.uk/itunes Fancy Appearing on the Show? Would you be interested in appearing on the MPAF Podcast? Are you working on a new proposition, campaign or a business model you want to talk about? Do you fancy drawing out some inspirational business and marketing ideas that MPAF listeners can take away to use in their own businesses? Do please contact me if you want to get involved. http://rogeredwards.co.uk

In episode 40 of the Graduate Job Podcast, I am joined by content marketing guru Chris Marr, as we explore all aspects of getting a job in content marketing. As the founder of the Content Marketing Academy and Host of the Content Marketing Academy podcast, Chris is ideally placed to share exactly what you need to do to get started in this booming field. We explore the basics, from what exactly content marketing is, how and why you need to start building your brand online, to the key hints, tips and skills that will get you ahead as you start your career. It doesn’t matter if you’re a newbie to content marketing, or already have your own online platform, there is something in this episode to inspire you. As always, all links to everything we discuss and a full transcript are available in the show notes at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/content. Before we start a quick request from me, your feedback helps me to create the episodes you want to hear, so I’ve set up a super simple and very quick survey, as I want the show to best serve your needs. It’s got 5 questions and will take you a minute, so please check it out at http://www.graduatejobpodcast.com/survey/. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. But in the meantime, let’s crack on with the show. MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT: What exactly content marketing is Why now is the perfect time to get started in content marketing How you can get involved at university and begin to build your brand online Why you need to start a blog to get ahead in content marketing The key skills that will set you apart when you apply for content marketing jobs How you can move from being a consumer on content, to a curator, then creator of content Why the number one thing you need to do is to START!

Can Social Media really be used by small businesses to find and win customers locally? In episdode 11 of TubbTalk, I talk with Chris Marr, a Social Media and Marketing expert. Chris and I discuss:- Overcoming the common objection "We don't use Social Media because our customers don't use it" Why Social Media is worthwhile for local businesses The perils of not prioritising Social Media (or any type of Marketing) in Small Business Examples of Social Media opportunities for local businesses The mistake of using Social Media to sell to people Who your competition really is on Social Media Joining the dots - How the principles of off line networking successfully work in social networking How a small business can build a following on Social Media The power of Twitter lists Why should businesses seek out Twitter chats Details of The Content Marketing Academy event in Edinburgh, 

My today's guest is Chris Marr. Chris Marr is a content marketer, blogger and podcaster. He helps businesses in and around Fife to embrace content marketing strategies and improve their communication. He is content marketer, blogger, Director of Learning Everyday Ltd, Founder of The Content Marketing Academy and Host of The Marketing Academy Podcast. Interview Highlights Content Marketing: the ability to communicate with people without selling to them. Go with the platform your audience resonates most and you feel comfortable with. The best thing is to stick to one main platform in the beginning. You can create community around your content. It is very important to connect on a personal level with your audience. Building audience takes time. [spp-tweet "Build your audience piece by piece, one person at a time."] You don't need to create more content. You can engage with other people's content that is already there. [spp-tweet "There are thousand and one ways to get your message out there."] The mistake that people often do is they try to do too much. They get overwhelmed and spread themselves too thin. Because of that they do the next mistake and become inconsistent with their content. The best way for anyone to differentiate is by being as personable as possible. [spp-tweet "One of the best ways to connect with your audience is being yourself."] People remember the lessons through stories.

“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” Jim Rohn In episode 12 of the Changeability Podcast we talk about making goals happen with entrepreneur Chris Marr.   Yes, we’re super excited to have our first guest on the show, because Chris is a real-life example of someone who takes massive action when it comes to using goals in his life and business.   Chris set out two years ago with a mission to become an expert goal setter and in this practical session he shares the challenges and successes he’s experienced, and gives us a fascinating insight into the system he uses. We’ve been looking at goals and vision in the last few episodes of the Changeability Podcast, and it’s great to hear today from someone who’s making goals happen in such a real and positive way in his life and business.   This episode is full of actionable tips and techniques for anyone who wants to change or achieve something and have a positive outlook in their life and business. All this and more with Chris Marr, host of the popular Marketing Academy Podcast and founder of Learning Everyday and the Content Marketing Academy conference.    As we delve right into Chris’s take on goals you’ll find out about: Why goal setting works – and the evidence Chris found to prove it 3 major goals Chris has achieved in life and business The 8 step system Chris uses to create his goals and become an expert goal setter Some of the challenges and difficulties of making goals happen Thinking big and small Logic and creativity Why SMART goals are a great place to start Why goal-setting is a number one success principle What is a goal cash up The hardest thing about goals (and it’s not the goals) What stops us achieving our goals Finding your own way and being yourself Chris’s formula for staying in an optimum mindset to achieve what you want Some harsh advice (it’s not that bad really) The power of being around great people Why Chris doesn’t watch the news anymore Why you should never moan about Monday mornings if you’re a friend of Chris’s How to stay positive