Podcasts about cyfe

Have you tried all the Google Analytic tutorials and are still scratching your head on what it all means? You are NOT alone!   This is why there are people that are paid to solely do analytical work. But if you’re new in your business, there’s a tool you can use to do the analyzing yourself, without pulling your hair out.   In today’s Biz Bomb, Christine is talking about a particular tool that allows you to see where your website traffic is coming from. Plus it’s WAY easier to interpret than Google Analytics.   Tune in to hear why Cyfe (https://www.cyfe.com/) is the tool to use to dig deeper into your data. Connect with us on social: instagram.com/360healthbizpodcast (https://www.instagram.com/360healthbizpodcast/) https://www.instagram.com/kendraperryinc https://www.instagram.com/sleeplikeaboss_   PS we would LOOOOOOOVE if you left us a 5-star review. The more reviews we get, the more people will be able to find us on iTunes Podcast. Plus we always give people a shout out on our next recording when a review is left.   Resources: https://www.cyfe.com/

FULL SHOW NOTES[ INTRO music]00:10 Aaron Weiche: Episode 19. Navigating the Unknown.00:16 Intro: Welcome to the SaaS Venture podcast. Sharing the adventure of leading and growing a Bootstrap SaaS company. Hear the experiences, challenges, wins and losses shared in each episode. From Aaron Weiche of GatherUp and Darren Shaw of Whitespark. Let's go.00:43 Aaron: Welcome to the SaaS Venture podcast. I'm Aaron.00:46 Darren Shaw: And I'm Darren.00:47 Aaron: And the way we usually start our episodes is just by catching up. What's going on? What's happened lately? 00:56 Darren: Yeah, what's going on, Aaron? What's going on? 01:00 Aaron: Well, it seems like we're all... Have been doing the same thing for quite a number of weeks now. And it's interesting, until COVID-19 and everything else, anytime someone would post the Bill Murray Groundhog's Day meme on Facebook, or Twitter, or something else, I just never gave it much thought. And, literally, the last... I would say for me the last 10 days, I absolutely feel that way. Like it is such a lather, rinse, repeat of the same day with such little variance, it's wild.01:34 Darren: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. My days are a little bit all over the place actually. I just keep working on different things and I'm getting pulled in many different directions right now. Things are changing quite a bit actually for me, I feel. Yeah. Things have been really up in the air and I feel a little scattered.01:51 Aaron: Well, I will take some of your variance. I don't know if it's my attitude, or my outlook, or whatever else, but it definitely doesn't feel like enough variance for me. And I think some of it is just other things that I enjoy, like conferences, and things like that, all shut off. Sports, right? It's baseball season and every night I love sitting down with my Minnesota Twins on in the background, and happily writing a blog post, working on a contract, whatever that might be, just getting some small things done while I'm watching baseball, and that diversion of sports for me, isn't there, and that leaves a big hole.02:38 Darren: Apparently, there is a huge surge in Marble Runs sports. [chuckle] Have you seen this? They've got a big table and you're watching the marbles race through a track. Massive surge in viewership there.02:52 Aaron: Can you bet on it? 02:54 Darren: Probably, yeah. Bet on the white marble.02:58 Aaron: I need those small sources of joy.03:00 Darren: You can start watching that while you're doing contracts and stuff.03:03 Aaron: Yeah? 03:04 Darren: Yeah.03:05 Aaron: Interesting, just as we were talking before and prepped some notes, we definitely have some things to walk through, but I think a great place to start is both of us being remote and to some extent work-from-home. Me not so much really work-from-home, but with having a separate office, but has it felt that much different for you? Family life, at home life, what's that been like for you Darren? 03:31 Darren: Oh, yeah. It's kind of weird really. Because there is the sense that we're not going out anymore, and so a bit of isolation. But it doesn't feel that different to me. I've run a remote company since 2005, I've worked from home since 2005, and so our entire way of working... The way that I work is completely the same. No changes here. The only thing is, I see the Sun a little bit less right now. I'm just in the house and not going outside really. We're not even going for walks really, because Jill and Violet, my wife and daughter, have had mild symptoms, so we're supposed to be really isolated. I've been getting out into the backyard lately, but basically, from a work perspective, it didn't change much for us because we're 100% remote. We've always been that way. How about you? 04:27 Aaron: Yeah, same for myself personally and the GatherUp team. I've only been remote the last five and a half... Almost six years now, but long enough to forget the days of commuting, and in-office, and everything else. So that shift wasn't that hard, where for the rest of our company, which I should drop in I guess really quick just because I'm trying to get good at my references. Our group of products that Alpine Software Group had purchased that are Aramark tech that we used to call ASG MarTech, we actually rolled out a full brand for. So now it's called Traject. Traject includes the seven companies, SocialTools, Cyfe, Authority Labs, ourselves, Grade.us, we're all under this Traject umbrella. So we launched that just prior to everything with COVID-19 taking off. And I need to make that note before I start saying things, 'cause I'm trying to get good in being part of re-brands myself. Re-training yourself on how you refer to things.05:28 Darren: For sure.05:29 Aaron: So, for the Traject team, there's about 60-70% of the team as an overall that's all in-office and located outside of Seattle in Bellevue. And so it was interesting to watch. That first week, especially, was a struggle for them in moving from a centralized office to remote work and many of them have not been doing it right, they're working from the kitchen table and things like that, and especially with having others at home, if your spouse works, they might be just 10 feet away, and they're working remote, right? And it's like... I don't have any of those problems, my wife stopped working last year, it's a little different at my house, I have four kids that are home all the time now, ages 4 to 16.06:15 Darren: Yeah. She's working. Oh, she's working hard. [chuckle]06:19 Aaron: Oh my gosh. And they've done fabulous with leaving me alone, and they know if the office doors are shut, to cool it with dad. And luckily, in the last two weeks, their distance learning e-school has fired up, and so that occupies anywhere from two to six hours of their day depending upon what's going on and everything else. So, yeah, same as you, I feel really lucky that things haven't changed that much. But, yeah, the same... My 10-year-old daughter just said to me last night like, "Dad, every like hour or so, I'm gonna come get you and just make you go outside for five minutes." She's like, "You're in that hole all day." And I was like, "Yeah, you're right. That would probably be a healthy thing."06:56 Darren: Once an hour though, that'd be tough. I don't know, how about every two hours? 07:00 Aaron: [chuckle] I'm gonna try to appease the troops. If they have a suggestion for me at this point I'm just gonna take it because, yeah, I feel for them and all the small things that they're missing out. My kids all love school, but man, they are just missing friends, and socialization, everything else.07:19 Darren: Oh, man. So much, yeah. I used to have a pretty closed-door policy with my office when Violet comes home from school and stuff the office is closed, you don't come in. But now it's like, she wants to come and say hi to me, I'm gonna stop whatever I'm doing, just take some time to chat with her, "Oh, what are you working on? What are you playing with these days?" And you just hear her stories and just spend that time, because she doesn't have any other social interaction. Gosh, neither do I, so it's like, "Yeah, go ahead, interrupt me anytime, come on in and we'll have a little chat for a few minutes and then I'll get back to work." I think it's the way it has to be right now.07:56 Aaron: For sure. My kids have siblings to play with. They're very blessed, they have a lot to do. We're not in a traditional neighborhood, it's a little more spread out, so there's a couple of acres for them to be outside and play on without getting into some of those things and whatever else, so I'm more fortunate than not on a lot of things. I think the biggest emotional toll on me is just, for however long now? 12 years, 15 years, everything for me professionally has been growth, success, constantly going up, right? You still have your small struggles and dark weeks, or months, and whatever else, but really, the overall momentum is always forward. And I've never been a part of something like this where that momentum has been pulled back and you go from this growth mindset to a survival and circle the wagons to some extent. And I think that's been the hardest part on my mood.08:52 Darren: Yeah, it's a real shift from, "Okay, we've gotta build all this stuff and do all these things and keep growing forward," to like, "Oh wow. What do we have to do to protect at this point?" So, yeah, that survival mode instinct has kicked in and, yeah, it's tough to have that shift, and it doesn't feel good. All that growth always feels good and that push for success, but, yeah, it feels bad to be like, "I'm gonna make these tough decisions now."09:21 Aaron: Yeah. And still trying to find the success within it. I was listening to the last weekend local podcast on LocalU and I think Blumenthal coined a term of "sur-thrival". So it's like, how do you find ways to thrive in surviving? 09:37 Darren: Yeah. Totally.09:38 Aaron: I instantly grabbed on to that and I was like, "Yeah, that's a great way to refer to it. I totally agree."09:43 Darren: Yeah, and I'm seeing it actually, I'm seeing lots of opportunities in my business to thrive a little bit. And so we're trying to put in some defensive moves just to make sure that we can ride it out and some offensive moves. And so, I don't know, I'm feeling okay about it. The dust is starting to settle from the first few weeks of it really getting crazy and just starting to settle into this new way of how we're gonna operate, this new economy, and identifying the markets that are opportunities.10:14 Aaron: Yeah, for sure. And I agree with you, it's like there's a first big tidal wave where there was a lot more panic, less information, nothing had really been settled into, and I feel like this week, I feel like that wave has come, crashed, and it's now pulled back out. I think there's gonna be more waves, maybe not as big or aggressive, but it is starting to get a little different and a little more than norm.10:42 Darren: Yeah, and it's kinda like... That's happening for me, I have that feeling that, okay, well, those first few weeks I was just scrambling trying to figure out, "Okay, what the hell are we gonna do?" And I couldn't really focus on all of the regular operations. I was busy filling out government relief applications and sorting out all this kind of stuff. And so, I feel like, while that's happening for me, it's also happening for every other business in the world, where we're starting to kinda, "Okay, the dust is settling, now let's get back to business." It's like, what does the new business look like? What does the new way of operating look like? And all those businesses are gonna start coming out of the woodwork again and the economy will pick up. Sales have been super quiet, but we're starting to see more leads come in now as people are looking at alternatives to whatever else they're using.11:33 Aaron: Yeah. You just stated about five different things I wanna break down. One thing that you kind of mentioned, I know from you and I, we've both been talking professionally, we've also talked as friends during this, just 'cause you need that support in those outlets, but I know you've had to make some hard decisions around your business, and Whitespark, and some employee moves. What has that been and what does that look like? 12:01 Darren: Yeah. So once this all came out and we started realizing what a massive impact it's gonna have on the economy, we had to look at our expenses. Where are our expenses, what can we cut? So the first thing of course was to just take an axe to my credit card statement and be like, "What can I cross off here? What due is absolutely not essential? So we did some major cuts there. It's kind of crazy, I cut like $5,000 in monthly expenses off my credit card. And after I did it, I was like, "Well, dang, why didn't I do that a year ago?" It's just like so much.12:30 Aaron: You weren't forced to.12:32 Darren: Yeah, I wasn't forced to. It's like you kinda get into this. "Okay, well, finances are good, and yeah, those services are pretty good, but are they that essential?" And so I was able to do some pretty good cuts there. And then of course the next most major expense for our company... We don't have an office, we don't have a lot of overhead, it's really labor. So there were a couple of layoffs. One was on the development side, another one was on our GMB management team. We were actually in a pretty good growth mode with the GMB management team, where we were bringing on about 10 to 15 new clients every single month. And so we had just crossed that threshold where we're like, "Okay, well, we need to get someone hired and trained in order to meet that growing demand." And so we had just hired somebody and she had taken on a handful of clients right when this hit. And so we knew that that one was gonna start backing off, we were actually gonna start losing clients, so we had to make a lay-off there.13:38 Darren: It's really sad. She was amazing. We'd love to hire her back as soon as we can. So, once we can, we would love to hire her back. So a couple of layoffs and then another thing is that the government of Canada introduced what's called a work-sharing program. I think they always had it, but they loosened up some of their guidelines around it and made it easier to get into it. So we reduced hours with the team across the whole Canadian team and just to the point where they could still maintain all of their health benefits. So they still get all their health benefits, they reduce their hours by about 37%, and then the government work-sharing program tops that up for them. So it actually doesn't have a huge impact on them, it shouldn't be too bad, but it results in pretty significant payroll savings for the company. So all of those things are the defensive moves to make sure that we're shoring up some resources in the bank, because honestly, Whitespark has been in this growth mode where we've been running the line, where certainly we've been profitable, but it's not like we had millions in the bank or even hundreds of thousands in the bank.14:50 Darren: We were always like, "Okay, once we have enough more revenue, we hire somebody else," we'd have more expenses, we'd expand our servers. As a Bootstrap company, I think that's just what you do, you continue to grow your resources and your ability to build faster as you get more revenue. And so that's certainly what we're doing. So we didn't have this huge cushion. So my defensive measures were to try and create a little bit of that cushion, so it was tough. What was it like for you? 15:23 Aaron: Yeah. Well, one, I commend you, because those are hard decisions and just so many decisions in this are all about the balance between short-term and long-term effects. You make difficult short-term decisions to survive long term. And it's so important, I and we, the company, have definitely benefited from being part of a larger org within this. So, let's just say, as I commented to you, if GatherUp hadn't sold and we were still all by ourselves, I will say we had cash reserves for three months of zero income and 100% of our burn rate to be able to pay bills. We had done a good job of always investing our growth, but we always looked at... We definitely put money away when we were doing well within our growth and created a little bit more margin to have... Whether it was something like this, a crisis, economic downturn, or an opportunity where we were like, "Oh, if there is a small product, or a small team, we can purchase... " Or whatever else we wanted, to have at least a little bit of cash on hand.16:36 Aaron: But even within that, if it was just me and running the company, we would have made similar moves to what you did. There probably would have been... Obviously, the first thing is analyze every cost, cut everything out that isn't necessary, but then, just with about any company, bodies are your most significant expense. And, yeah, we probably would've at least had to make one, two, possibly even three moves, depending upon how we saw it, just to ensure that everything else was in the best position possible to survive at least a three-month if not a six-month economic winter of what we're just starting to get into.17:18 Darren: That timing, it's so unknown. That's the big thing, is this uncertainty, right? It's like, okay, we're seeing some drops, it's not that significant, but who knows, maybe in three months the US economy is gonna be so shut down because of this virus that we're in huge trouble. So if there's no spending happening anywhere, then some of the services and software that we provide will certainly get cut, and so it's trying to make sure that you can weather the storm. And that's what I think we've been trying to do. And it's nice that you're in that position. The timing actually of the acquisition really worked out in your benefit, certainly for the founders, and also, I think, just having that huge strong umbrella above you that can help protect from some of this, is really a nice place to be.18:10 Aaron: Yeah, no, who would have known? No way to tell, but yes, this scenario, it just shows you how much timing is a part of everything in life. So many different angles with it. But, overall, I really feel like Traject has done an awesome job. One is very early communicated the position of the company, the financial health of the company, and that they were already in talks with... We've talked before... There was a couple of layers between the very top level of the company down into the group we belong to. So immediately, there was strong communication, hit upon things that people would be most concerned about, and delivered a lot of good messaging there. And really, overall, the company just kept reinforcing, people first. This is tricky. Take care of yourself first. We want you to be emotionally and physically healthy, that comes first. If you're taking care of that, then we'll get at working and keeping the company healthy and all that kind of stuff.19:12 Darren: Right. For sure.19:14 Aaron: We basically have weekly AMAs with the exec team with Traject. So people are able to ask, "What's changing? Do you see anything different? What other decisions have you made?" So, just a really quick and easy way for whatever is a concern for people to hear that, and also for others, instead of those happening one-to-one in an email to the CEO or whatever else, everybody's able to hear it asked out loud and hear the answer to it, which I think...19:28 Darren: I love that. Oh, man, I'm gonna do that. I've been doing a weekly call with my team, but I always have a weekly call anyways, where I try to communicate the current health of the company, what's been happening in the company, what we're seeing in terms of our revenue and our different lines of business. So try to communicate that and be clear about that, but the AMA thing is a really good thing. I often get questions after the call, like people will just ping me on Slack, and I think it'd be really helpful for everyone to have that, and just, "Okay, that's the end of my spiel, now let's get into the AMA portion of the call." So I really like that idea and I think I'm gonna open that up for Monday's call.20:18 Aaron: Yeah, no, I think it makes people feel more comfortable. Everybody hears the same questions and the same answers, which is also great. And then lastly, they just put together a really good prioritization on, "This is what we're doing first. This is what we're doing second. This is what we're doing third," so the same things that we've just discussed on reducing expenses, different allocations, looking at this. And at the bottom of their list is, if these things don't work based on where things are at, then we potentially look at a percentage of salary cut across the board. And then, if that didn't work, then yeah, we'd have to look at the elimination of some positions. But the great thing, I think, it lays out is, one, it helps people understand the playbook that they're operating off of, which allows everyone to buy into the strategy. Two, it really helps them understand, there's a whole bunch of things before that comes on the table, and the thing I keep preaching to our team is, the thing to be grateful for right now is you have some control over this. We have our jobs, we have our personal income, and doing productive work is such a healthy thing right now.21:27 Darren: For sure.21:28 Aaron: Yeah. And a great distraction, and do what you can to not be paralyzed, or inundated, or overwhelmed, by all of this that's there, and focus on your work, because being successful with what you are doing is gonna contribute to the survival and some success inside of this, and making it to the other side. So when you get into that high level of like, what can you control and what can't you control, well, we can't control the economy and what happens to our customers businesses in full, and all of those kind of things, but we can control how well are we doing at our job, are we doing the right things that are needed to survive right now? Are we doing everything we can to help our customers so we're contributing to their survival? Those are all positives that I've personally worked hard to remind our team. Like, "Be grateful for that and let that gratefulness, and what you have, be the passion into what you're doing right now, in a difficult time for some to find that motivation."22:26 Darren: Yeah, totally. There's so much value in that. When I have a a really productive day in the office, you feel good about it, right? So it's a nice thing that people can lean on when things seem so bad. Being able to take your mind off of the struggles of the world and the stress of the uncertainty of what's gonna happen with this virus, and all the health concerns, and being able to just put your head into some work for a while and get that sense of accomplishment. I find a lot of value in that and I think it's a great thing to communicate to the team.22:58 Aaron: Yeah, you're exactly right. I've said multiple times in communication with stuff where we've elevated something very small and then pushed it out to everyone on our weekly stand-up or Slack, or both, whatever, is like, "No win is too small right now. Celebrate the smallest thing like it is a Super Bowl championship right now, because it's so important for the psyche and for your emotional well-being professionally," right? 23:26 Darren: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, it's great stuff. I'm gonna work on implementing some of that with my weekly calls too.23:33 Aaron: Nice.23:34 Darren: Yeah.23:35 Aaron: The next thing, I think, for us, the big shift almost immediately was just really realizing and I think all companies, especially SaaS, is in this boat right now, it's like, retention is absolutely the name of the game right now. Just as you said. And the same for us, leads, sales opportunities, whatever else, are like, I don't think they're even 10% of what they were in January, February, and early March.24:01 Darren: Right. That's amazing. I would say, if I had to guess in terms of leads for us, it's probably down only maybe 50%. Yeah. So our leads are actually still pretty solid. We're actually seeing quite a few people looking at cutting ongoing recurring citation services. So, let's say we're using Yext or Moz Local, or some of these other services, they are looking at our one-time offering and saying, "This is a much better way to go for citation management." So we're actually seeing pretty decent leads there, and then our software leads are... I'd say they're down about 50%.24:43 Aaron: Yeah. Do you feel like some of those people are looking like, "Okay, I want something around this service, but I want a more cost-effective solution?" And is Whitespark that compared to those. So you're gonna see some trickle down from those.24:54 Darren: I think it's exactly what I'm seeing, and I think also, on the software side, we're quite reasonably priced, and so I feel like a lot of people that are with more expensive solutions are looking to us. Or let's say they had to cut a $3000 a month SEO engagement with a good firm, and so they're like, "Okay, we're gonna take this in-house and now our marketing director has to manage some of this," and they're like, "Okay, local search software," and then we come up. And so I think that's where we're starting to see some of this. It's like people cutting expenses elsewhere and then finding us 'cause we are generally more cost-effective.25:33 Aaron: Yeah, that's awesome. I think that can be a big win. A forced changeover. Just the same as you analyze your credit card and like, "Why am I paying for this," or "What can I do," right? When people are doing that, and then you are positioned that way, that can definitely be a great migration from competitors to you at this time, which is awesome for you.25:57 Darren: Yeah. So we're actually... As part of our offensive moves, is we're putting up some landing pages that are specifically around that and we'll start marketing those.26:05 Aaron: Excellent. Yeah. With that stuff I always think of... I used to... Back in the day when... Building and running, maintaining websites, has worked with a lot of banks, and they would do a lot of campaigns on switching. Just like, "Here's what it's like to switch your checking account from Wells Fargo to us as a community bank."26:22 Darren: Oh, man, that's a great idea.26:26 Aaron: Yeah, just really laying it all out. So they're able to see like, "Hey, here's what's different, here's how we handle it, here's what we need." And just making it so that the consumer felt really comfortable with like, "Oh, this switch happens a lot. It happened so much. It's all laid out. And here's the majority of my questions. I feel really good about contacting them to do this."26:28 Darren: Yeah, I see the same thing in the cellphone companies. Telecom stuff. And so, yeah, I'll definitely look to that for inspiration for how to position those landing pages and those marketing messages.26:45 Aaron: Yeah. What was really interesting to me when you see... And just the way SaaS and recurring revenue works, March was still our best month in the history of the company. Every...26:58 Darren: That's amazing.27:06 Aaron: Yeah, minus one, two, three months over the last six years, it's like up into the right every single month. You know that predictable revenue, it compounds everything else, that's why so many people love software as a service. And so, with everything that's gone on, new clients early in the month, we signed a big deal midway through the month, there's still all these positive things going on, and most of the customers, some canceled, and others, we've been working with ways to help them with their accounts, but that stuff won't kick in until April. And just as you and I were talking before, it's like, I can already see from our predictive revenue tools that our April billing will be about 6% to 7% down from our March billing. And getting back into the psyche and whatever, I was like, "I've watched that number go up." The months where it didn't grow, it was maybe a quarter percent that it went backward, or almost even, but never even a full percentage point, and all things considered, a 6%-7% drop and considering a lot of that, is just paused billing. I think that's somewhat of a positive signal at this point after this first wave of crashing.28:29 Darren: Totally, yeah. Absolutely. I feel the same way, it's like, "Man, the losses are not that bad." And so my confidence grows every week, where I look at the numbers and I'm like, "Okay, I think this is gonna be okay." My confidence is growing but then I'm also a little... I don't wanna be overly confident because there's still so much uncertainty. It could get really bad in the next couple of months. So I don't wanna be overly confident, but I'm starting to feel like, "Okay, well, if we all settle in and this is the way it is, then there's still certainly some thrive opportunities." How can we thrive in this situation? And if we tap into those, certainly we're gonna see some losses, but how much of that can we recover with new initiatives? 29:14 Aaron: Exactly. I kinda look at it, as I mentioned earlier, baseball is a favorite sport of mine, right? It's like a baseball game and we're pretty much in the second inning right now. There's a lot of game left to be played, but it's underway, we're out there, a couple of things have already happened, and for us in these first couple of innings, the biggest thing around that retention is, we changed our cancel process. So instead of just being able to go... Hit "Cancel", drop a quick... We ask, "Alright, tell us why you're cancelling," and getting a little bit of info. We changed that to, you hit "Cancel", now you get a pop-up that says, "Hey, just so you're aware, with COVID-19 and everything going on, we get it, let's have a conversation and let's figure out how to keep you on board with us. Whether it's a reduction in billing, we need to pause your billing for a month." But we put a bunch of things in place and then we built that framework for our customer success team so that they could manage it, where they weren't coming to me and saying, "Alright, here's what this customer wants. They want 10% off this month," or whatever else.30:16 Aaron: We gave them a framework so that they could make those offers, handle those decisions, and take care of it right in the moment with the customers. So it really felt a win for them, win for our customer, win for the business, especially if we kept them from cancelling just to say like, "Oh, great, yeah, I'm a restaurant, or I'm an agency that serves restaurants and hotels. I just went to zero income, but I still wanna retain this data, 'cause they're gonna need this when they come back, what can we do with it?"30:45 Darren: Yeah, that's really smart. Yeah, actually, we put some measures like that in place too, and then we talked to your team about it, and got some more ideas, and it's so valuable. I think that is one of the big lessons for any of our listeners that are also doing SaaS, if you haven't put something like that in place, get that up immediately. Some kind of retention recovery program, right? 31:09 Aaron: Yea. 'Cause, yeah, the cancels are just likely gone. It's so much harder to get them... Say things recover in three months, getting them to physically come back, sign up, even if you market to them, send them messages, they've already... They've mentally divorced the situation. But if you're able to reduce billing or even pause a month or two of billing, then when it comes back, then it's like, "Okay, great, things are back, close to normal, are you good? Let's turn billing back on." Just so much easier of a process, and you need to do that when you're dropping or pausing revenue like that, you need more of an instant on when things return, instead of having to work a marketing program around it.31:49 Darren: Yeah. We actually had some reductions on our support team too, and our support is still as... It's certainly seen a drop in tickets, but it's still fairly active. And so I didn't wanna overwhelm my support team by having them talk to everybody that wants to cancel, 'cause there's a lot of them, obviously, they're coming in. And so we did the same kind of thing, but it's completely automated. So when you hit to cancel now, it gives you an option to be like, "Well, here are a couple of options for you. One, if you wanna keep everything still active, and still be able to use the software, we know things are tough," it's like, boom, "Here's a discount for you, you can get that discount." And so people could choose that option and continue to operate, or they can just choose the pause option, which means we'll stop actively doing anything in your account, we turn off all of the functionality, but we'll preserve your historical data, so that when you're ready to come back in, you can just press one button and turn it back on. So people get to choose themselves on the checkout and that's been helpful for sure. We're seeing a few people take us up on that option.33:02 Aaron: And I don't know if any of my CS team ever listens to this podcast, but I do wanna give them a shoutout. They have been doing an amazing job of taking care of GatherUp customers, and helping, and that's not easy right now for them either, right? Instead of solving technical issues, or usability issues, and things like that, you're talking to people who, they're fearful, they're losing their business, they're in a panic situation. And you're trying to calm them, do your job, and keep the business that you're running maintainable. So, really, a commendable job, a very tricky spot for them in their role right now for sure, and I super appreciate it. They have handled the lion share. I've handled 2% of the conversations that they've handled and they're killing it.33:05 Darren: I can attest to that. As a customer, we had... One of our large customers and reputation builder looked to cancel, and so that conversation happened with us and your GatherUp customer support team, and, man, they're awesome. They did an awesome job, really helpful, many ideas. And the real thing that comes across is that, what can we do to help? You can just really feel it. They're just... It's not about trying to save the money from the account, it's about, "Okay, well, what can we do to help here," and just really being helpful. And you feel it and it feels good. Yeah, I think they're doing an awesome job.34:29 Aaron: That's good. I think we have a lot of genuine care in our culture. I've always appreciated that about our team. So that's awesome to hear come through. Alright, lastly, let's end on something, I guess, a little more positive, some of the things that we're doing right now. What are you doing, Darren, as far as within marketing, within sales? I know you mentioned a couple of things right now, but how are you working this to find some success and get some new business inside of everything? 34:58 Darren: Yeah, for sure. We have a few initiatives that are about to launch. One is what we're calling... One of our big competitors that people look to us as an alternative is Yext. People have a subscription with Yext, they're paying for a monthly fee, or an annual fee, to just have their citation sitting in a database doing nothing, right? And so we have... We're about to launch what we call a Yext replacement service. And so, "If you're currently with Yext, here's how you could switch to us." And so it's exactly what you were talking about with the banks. We have a landing page specific for it, we have a custom package for it, and so that we're planning to launch next week actually. And so that's one of the big offensive moves that will keep our revenue on the citation team rolling. We actually haven't seen huge drops over there. A little bit, but not too bad. And so I think that this service... We actually are predicting some growth and we already have two potential new hires lined up in case we see some growth there from the launch of this service. Which would be great, it'll offset other areas of the business, right? So that's one of the big ones.36:08 Aaron: That's awesome.36:09 Darren: Yeah. Yext replacement service I think it's overdue. We've been thinking about it for a long time, and so we're pulling the trigger on that one and trying to get that up as soon as possible. Another huge one is, our biggest recurring software is our local citation finder. It's basically what we've built our business on. And that software honestly hasn't had a line of code added to it since probably 2015. We have not touched the thing, it's ridiculous. We've partly not touched it because it's been in this sort of complete overhaul redesign, re-development phase forever. We're actually shooting for a launch in 10 days. The 27th. April 27th, Monday April 27th, we're trying to finalize the final pieces of marketing, and polish, and we're pushing that out the door. And, oh my God, it's unbelievably better. And it's actually one of these weird pieces of software that over the period since this COVID thing happened, we haven't seen... I look at it on a daily basis and it's like, six new sign-ups, five cancellations. The next day will be like, seven new sign-ups, eight cancellations.37:27 Darren: And so it's holding fairly steady, and I feel like once we launch the new version of this, massive retention, because the software is just so much better. People are canceling not necessarily because of COVID, but they cancel because the software is like... It did the job for them, but it's pretty weak and it doesn't have a lot of reason to stay subscribed. The new version provides ongoing value in a way that's so much better than what the old version did, and it's a delight to use, it's fast, it feels great, it looks great, and just delivers so much more value. So I think we have the retention, but massive marketing push. There are so many people that are familiar with that software and have been using it for years, we have a huge opportunity to get our name out there and push the marketing for that. There's probably a hundred blog posts out there that reference the local citation finder. All the outreach to them, we can mention to them, "Hey, we got this new version. I've set you up with a free trial account, check it out." So I think we're gonna have a massive blast of additional marketing value, which of course will bring people to citation finder, but once they're there, they see all the other stuff we do too. So I think those two offensive moves are huge.38:43 Darren: And then on the Google My Business Management service, that's a great service that we're seeing fantastic growth, and I was really excited about where it was going. We've certainly seen it cut back, probably lost about 20 to 30 percent of our clients over there, but I did some talks in the fall for auto dealers where I crawled every Google My Business listing in all of Canada for auto dealers, and I broke it down. How many are using Google posts, how many are using... Have filled out the services fields, how many are using products? All these different features. And then I presented those stats, and then I talk about, "Well, wow, no one is doing this, it's a massive opportunity, here's how auto dealers can take advantage of that." And then, of course, I think that data which we're about to publish, for auto dealers, it's not a great time to be targeting auto dealers, but we're re-running that crawl for accountants, and lawyers, home services, all these businesses that are still continuing to operate, we're gonna re-run that with those marketing initiatives, so that we can get in front of those audiences and present our Google My Business Management service. 'Cause that management service is actually really reasonably priced.39:53 Darren: It's 349 a month. And so, for a lot of businesses that are cutting bigger expenses, it's one of those ones where they can come to us for a much lower cost. They're offsetting their cost, taking off that huge bill off their credit card, replacing it with this and still seeing great value in their marketing. So those are the things that we're looking at and cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to even potentially thrive over the coming months.40:19 Aaron: Yeah. No, that's great. And to some extent the same backbone of what we're trying to do. One, I've seen, you put out some tweets and sharing some visuals on the updated local citation finder. What a great way, build some excitement before it even happens.40:37 Darren: Yeah, a little bit of... Yeah.40:38 Aaron: Yeah. Love doing that stuff. Big believer in just doing your work out in the open or looking at your product as an aquarium and everybody can see in. I think those are great things. But I think the core of where you're getting is having things to talk about. If the only thing you have to talk about is, "We need sales," that's a boring conversation that nobody wants to listen to. Kinda like how you and I joked before this started. You made the statement that you have COVID blindness because every email that comes in says COVID on it. [chuckle]41:10 Darren: Oh my God. "A new message from our CEO." It's like, "Oh my God, I don't wanna hear what your CEO has to say about how, yes, you're still operational. I'm sure you are, 'cause everyone is, and thanks for the info."41:22 Aaron: Yeah. Yeah, no, totally. I'm with you on that. But, yeah, what we've looked at is the overall... Again, back to retention, is like, how do we help customers? One initiative that I launched is, I wrote out in a couple of hours, I created a spreadsheet and wrote down 120 blog topics. And then I took it to our team in our stand up and said, "Everybody pick at least two of these to write on in the next few minutes."41:47 Darren: That's impressive brainstorming, man.41:51 Aaron: [chuckle] I'm never short on ideas, only time to execute. So it brought it to everyone where usually it's like Mike and I blog and then we have a product and content marketer. She blogs a little bit, a lot more on feature releases. So we've gone from a once a week, once every two weeks post, to three posts a week for the last three weeks now. And it's been great.42:14 Darren: Yeah, smart.42:15 Aaron: And more social chatter, more things to come in, more things to talk about. And also, internally, I find... People already, it's great gratification for them to put work into it, put it together, and then have it published. And instead of sharing on their LinkedIn or their Facebook like, "Hey, here's what Aaron wrote, or here is our company blog," now it's like, "Here's what I wrote," right? And there's pride and accomplishment behind that. And so, I really feel like it's been a great movement. It's interesting, it's created a lot more work for me, 'cause I'm basically editing and finding really good visuals, and all that kind of stuff, but I love it. The post is at least half-written, if not more, by the time I'm able to get into it, so that's been a really big plus. And I'm always kind of a slogan or a catch-phrase guy. And so, internally, we've just really rallied around like, "Mentions are your best marketing and inbound is the best outbound right now." So, yeah. And going with those, content, then we have the... We're doing the local search Ask Me Anything webinar with you and Joy Hawkins on April 23rd. We already have a hundred and some registered for that. So I'm pumped about that. Traject has been great.43:30 Aaron: If you're a paid GatherUp customer, you can use our social product, Cyfe which is Reporting, or Authority Labs for free for 90 days. So we're offering access to other tools as well. So it's given us a lot to talk about, write about, be out there with, and, yeah, it's helped. It's like, our agency leads are down probably about 25-30% of volume of what they were, and then our multi-locations are really far down, that's the one that's below 10%. And they were just trying to, "Alright, what are the industries that are doing okay right now?" Certain areas of logistics, that's doing well. Grocery, pharmacy, things like that, they're doing well. So we're doing some light outbound with those, but much more we re-calibrated around... I just kinda put together a strategy of the the three Rs. And it's like, research and know the prospect super well. Reach out as a friend, a colleague, ask questions, how it's going for them, what are they seeing, things like that. And your goal is to build a relationship. So instead of trying to slam them into a demo, all you're trying to do is get a conversation going.44:43 Darren: Yeah, and try to solve their problem. What is the thing that they're struggling with, why are they even considering you, and then understanding what their challenges are and seeing if you can help them with that. That's all people want.44:56 Aaron: Yep, for sure. So we've just been hitting on that and we're starting to see progress. It's like, we're seeing the uptick in traffic to the blog, we're seeing more social chatter, we're seeing some of these other things. And these things are there a little slower. It's not gonna be next day success, but I really feel like if things cycle down another level, that's when this stuff is gonna kick in for us, and it's gonna keep us where we're at, and then at even kill, and we're also... We're not pissing people off by trying to shove sales and demo requests, and everything else, in their inbox, doing cold outreach at a time where nobody has mental bandwidth for that.45:36 Darren: And, man, I cannot believe the uptick in terrible cold outreach emails I've been getting in my inbox. And so, it's like, "Gosh, people are extra sensitive to it right now. Do not be taking that strategy, it will not pay off for you."45:51 Aaron: Yep. I don't even read my sales pitches right now. It's just...45:56 Darren: Forget it.45:57 Aaron: Yeah. Not even to see what they're saying. It's just such a hard delete, right? 46:01 Darren: Of course, yeah. It's the worst time to be pitching. If your company was built off of outbound, man, that was not a good move. Right now you need to be an inbound-based company.46:14 Aaron: Yeah, for sure. I agree. Alright. Well, I think we've ran a gamut of things, and I'm hopeful the next time we record it's not Groundhog's Day and we're talking the same things. [chuckle]46:25 Darren: Yeah. Well, it'll be interesting to talk again in a few weeks and see where we've landed. There may be some of these proactive moves. We'll see how they're paying off, and see where things are at.46:37 Aaron: For sure.46:38 Darren: Yeah.46:39 Aaron: Great to catch up, Darren. Glad things are going as well as they can for you guys. I'm excited to see the launch of the local citation finder, and I think you set it up perfectly, it sounds like it's gonna launch in about two weeks. [chuckle]46:54 Darren: You know what? It's even less. 10 days now.46:58 Aaron: Oh, I like this.46:58 Darren: Yeah. I've shortened my two weeks to 10 days.47:03 Aaron: See, we're always evolving and improving, that's what I like about talking to you.47:07 Darren: Yeah. Alright, cool, great talking to you Aaron.47:11 Aaron: Yeah, you too. Hey, everyone, wishing you guys are well in personal lives, emotionally, fighting for your business, all those other things. Many of you are so gracious. You reached out on Twitter, have sent encouraging emails on our episodes, and they're helpful and everything else. If you have anything going on in this time that this is sparked that you have a question on, or you wanna know how we're operating, or even wanna share some of yours, please feel free to reach out to Darren and I, we're really easy to get a hold of, either from our website or on Twitter. So go ahead and reach out to us, we'd love to cover any of that on our upcoming episodes.47:47 Darren: Yeah, even if you just wanna chat via DMs on Twitter, or something, and you've got some questions, happy to talk and see if there's anything I can do to help.47:57 Aaron: For sure. You're a good guy.47:58 Darren: Alright.48:00 Aaron: Alright. Take care, Darren, and we'll talk to you soon, and thanks everyone for listening.48:04 Darren: Thanks, everyone. Bye.[music]

Data is a crucial piece to success. And just collecting it isn't enough. You need to understand it. You need it to tell a story. To do this, you need a data dashboard tool. We've analyzed the 5 best data dashboard tools for bloggers and solopreneurs so you can start leveraging your data.We'll review:Geckoboard - https://www.geckoboard.com/Cyfe - https://www.cyfe.com/Klipfolio - https://www.klipfolio.com/Dasheroo - https://www.dasheroo.com/Google Data Studio - https://datastudio.google.com/overviewTo view a side-by-side comparison of all the tools and read the full article please visit: https://clearpath.online/resources/best-data-dashboard-tool/

In this episode, Erica is chatting again with digital marketer, and good friend of the show, Jen Evison!They discuss the main reasons some organisations struggle with or even fail at their social media marketing…It's not all negative though! Erica and Jen highlight these pitfalls, so you can avoid them and succeed with your social in 2019!In this episode we discuss:Why a strategy is essential How to manage social media resourcing Keeping bright shiny syndrome in check The importance of reporting and more. You'll also hear Jen's Dad's social media tips, my analogy between time management and handbag size, and Jen will also share what she's focusing on this year…Get in touch with and follow our guest…Check out Jen's website: https://jenniferevison.comConnect with Jen professionally on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenevison/Connect with Jen socially on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferevison.co/Follow Jen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JenEvisonHere are some resources we mention during the episode…If you haven't listened to it already, check out https://scoutdigitaltraining.com.au/social-media/social-media-strategy/ (Episode 4 of The Dobcast, where we run through our strategy framework). It includes some useful strategy downloads.Helpful social media marketing groups:Social Media Club Adelaide: https://www.facebook.com/groups/418534198239638/Australian Community Managers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/australiancommunitymanagers/Dashboard reporting tools:Dasheroo: https://www.dasheroo.com/Cyfe: https://www.cyfe.com/HootSuite Analytics: https://hootsuite.com/products/social-media-analyticsKlipfolio: https://www.klipfolio.com/Grow: https://www.grow.com/Learn more about Erica Stacey and Scout Digital Training:https://scoutdigitaltraining.com.auhttps://facebook.com/ScoutSocial/https://instagram.com/ScoutSocial/https://twitter.com/ScoutSocial/https://linkedin.com/Scout-Digital-Training/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsHyuL9trO_heoKF6ir7v_g

Ep. 12 of While @ Home w/ A.Cyfe

In episode #834, we discuss how often you should be logging in to Google Analytics. Tune in to hear why checking every day is never a good thing. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today’s Topic: How Often Should You Login to Google Analytics? [00:55] You can get addicted to checking your stats. [01:26] It’s not helpful. Go be productive instead! [01:50] If you check everyday, there are diminishing returns. [02:35] Take the time you would have spent checking your stats and do something actionable that will generate traffic. [03:15] Instead, just sign up for GA alerts. [03:50] Make sure you are comparing your stats from today to yesterday or this week to last. [04:20] If you have a team, put a dashboard up (mount a TV) and use Cyfe. [04:50] That’s it for today! [04:54] Go here to see how many downloads the show is getting. Also rate and review to help us meet our goal of 1 Million downloads per month. Hopefully, we’ll see you at the live event in L.A.! Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu

In episode #834, we discuss how often you should be logging in to Google Analytics. Tune in to hear why checking every day is never a good thing. We have committed to throwing a FREE Marketing School Live Event in Los Angeles, once Marketing School reaches 1M downloads in a 30 day period. Take action: Rate, review, subscribe, and SHARE. Check the progress here! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:27] Today's Topic: How Often Should You Login to Google Analytics? [00:55] You can get addicted to checking your stats. [01:26] It's not helpful. Go be productive instead! [01:50] If you check everyday, there are diminishing returns. [02:35] Take the time you would have spent checking your stats and do something actionable that will generate traffic. [03:15] Instead, just sign up for GA alerts. [03:50] Make sure you are comparing your stats from today to yesterday or this week to last. [04:20] If you have a team, put a dashboard up (mount a TV) and use Cyfe. [04:50] That's it for today! [04:54] Go here to see how many downloads the show is getting. Also rate and review to help us meet our goal of 1 Million downloads per month. Hopefully, we'll see you at the live event in L.A.! Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu

ISDA Secure Transportation and Executive Protection News Podcast for Thursday, October 25th, 2018 ====================== In Vehicle News From Ars Technica How driver-assist tech can result in a $5,000 fender-bender Cars with advanced driver-assistance technology are more expensive to repair than their less-autonomous counterparts, according to a study by AAA. What would have been relatively inexpensive bodywork due to a fender bender may end up costing two and a half times as much to repair, due to the location of cameras along with ultrasonic and radar sensors. "Advanced safety systems are much more common today, with many coming as standard equipment, even on base models,” said John Nielsen, AAA’s managing director of Automotive Engineering and Repair. “It’s critical that drivers understand what technology their vehicle has, how it performs and how much it could cost to repair should something happen." It's not just the parts, either. A rock hitting your windshield will require the camera used for adaptive cruise control to be recalibrated. And you'll likely have to pay more for the replacement windshield, as some manufacturers have more stringent standards for optical clarity. What would otherwise be a $500 windshield replacement can end up costing as much as $1,500. AAA has broken down some of the extra costs for cars with advanced driver-assist technology: Front radar sensors used with automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control systems: $900 to $1,300 Rear radar sensors used with blind spot monitoring and rear cross traffic alert systems: $850 to $2,050 Front camera sensors used with automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning and lane keeping systems (does not include the cost of a replacement windshield): $850 to $1,900 Front, side mirror, or rear camera sensors used with around-view systems: $500 to $1,100 Front or rear ultrasonic sensors used with parking assist systems: $500 to $1,300 https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/10/why-driver-assist-tech-can-lead-to-the-5000-fender-bender/ ====================== In Security News From Huffington Post How Investigators Will Work To Find Out Who’s Behind The Bomb Scare Pipe bombs were sent to several prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. From Washington to New York to Florida to Los Angeles, the authorities intercepted a wave of crudely built devices that were contained in manila envelopes. In the center of Manhattan, the Time Warner Center was evacuated because of a pipe bomb sent to CNN, which has its New York offices there. It was addressed to John Brennan, a critic of President Trump who served as Obama's CIA director. Pipe bombs were also intercepted in Florida and Los Angeles. The devices stashed in manila envelopes and mailed nationwide targeted top Democrats two weeks before the midterm elections. The bombs found this week were intended for at least seven officials, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). Law enforcement officials have also tracked down another suspicious package sent to former Vice President Joe Biden, and the FBI says additional packages may have been mailed to other locations. None of the bombs detonated and no one was injured.  The packages contained pipe bombs that appear to have been made with relatively rudimentary materials. Authorities have confirmed that a number of them contained explosive powder. There is no shortage of theories about who might be behind the plot. Instead of relying on conjecture, investigators will be looking for clear evidence to help them nail down a culprit, said David Chipman, a former ATF agent who worked on the 1993 World Trade Center attack and the Oklahoma City bombing and now serves as senior policy adviser at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. It’s not yet clear if the devices recovered this week will contain that sort of calling card, or whether the investigation will end up supporting claims that this was indeed a deliberate act of political terror against liberal political figures. Whatever authorities uncover, the plot is deeply concerning, said Chipman. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bomb-scare-investigation-evidence_us_5bd0af0fe4b055bc9487a922 ====================== In Terrorism News From Palm Beach Daily News Terrorism talk kicks off World Affairs Council season You have a better chance of being struck by lightning twice than being killed by a terrorist. That was what Georgia State University professor Mia Bloom informed a crowd of 115 people Tuesday at The Colony at the season-opening event for the World Affairs Council of Palm Beach. In her discussion, “Small Arms: Children in Terrorism,” Bloom covered a variety of topics, including the indoctrination of women and children, often called “cubs,” into terrorism; how the general population fetishizes terrorism; and and the motivations for recruiting women into terrorist groups. Her research on the last subject, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, with John Horgan will be published in their book, also called “Small Arms,” due out May 15. In addition to teaching communication and Middle East studies, Bloom monitors terrorist groups on social media and how they are recruiting people. Using her knowledge of Arabic, she has been able to create anonymous accounts and post on social media, she said. Bloom pointed out that 30 to 40 percent of ISIS messaging is positive, and that many women who end up getting involved are not in prison or involved in gangs. “Terrorists play on people’s altruistic tendencies,” she said. “People join because they think they’re going to help people.” Once these women see the real mission and realize this isn’t what they signed up for, they end up getting killed, she said. According to Bloom, the face of terrorism was male for a long time, but it has changed. Leftist organizations such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army were recruiting women as early as the 1970s, serving mainly as front-line activists. Nowadays, women can play roles in all levels of a terrorist organization, whether they’re logisticians, fundraisers or online recruiters.   https://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/20181025/terrorism-talk-kicks-off-world-affairs-council-season ====================== In Business of Executive Protection News From Strategic Marketing Solutions Cyfe – The All in One Business Dashboard Cyfe is an all in one dashboard for your business that connects to tens of different data connections. If you’re like me and you find yourself logging in and out of multiple websites, searching for at data, observing analytics, watching social media, maintaining your invoicing and your accounting software.  You have multiple tabs open trying to find all the data that you need on a daily basis. Well, I think you’ll be very happy with Cyfe.  Social media, finance, Emails, and even RSS feeds from your favorite reader. All in one place! No more having to have multiple tabs open. Logging in and out of several different websites a day. Cyfe can do it all for you! You’ll need to create an account, with the free account you get 2 dashboards with five widgets each.  However, with a free account, you won’t be able to access some of the data connections. After logging in you’ll see a blank area. The first step is to create a dashboard. The second step is to create your widgets for that dashboard. Cyfe widget categories are: Advertising Blogging Custom Email Monitoring Other Sales & Finance SEO Social Media Support Web Analytics There are over 80 widgets that you can put data into your dashboards. For instance, you can connect your favorite Email Management client such as Mailchimp. To set your data connection you will need to connect your Mail Management tool by giving Cyfe permission to access your Mail account. Note: Data connections will open a pop-up window, so be sure to accept pop-ups for Cyfe. Once connected you can select if you would want a specific mail campaign or list. Selecting list will show a chart with list growth. You can arrange the widget anywhere on your dashboard and have it be any size. For my testing a connected to AdSense, Mailchimp, Google Trends, Facebook Pages, and Stripe – combining 5 different websites that I would access on a weekly basis. You can position the widgets anywhere on the dashboard as well as minimize and expand the size. Now the other question you might have is, well this is great for me but how do I share the information and data with my team? You can export an entire dashboard or just an individual widget. You can export the data in various formats such as PDF or CSV. Another great feature is the ability to create public URLs of read-only dashboards that you can share with anyone. Cyfe also has the ability to schedule emails. This is a great feature when you’re emailing to clients with specific reports. This is one of those products that is a must for the protection professional.  It is a freemium pricing model.  With a free account you are limited to 5 widgets and one dashboard. The paid option is $19/mo. or $168/yr. https://larrysnow.me/cyfe-one-business-dashboard/ ==================== Links to all news stories mentioned in this podcast are available at the archive website securitydrivernews.libsyn.com. You can also listen to past podcast episodes and leave comments. Thanks for listening to the ISDA Secure Transportation and Executive Protection News podcast. ====================== This podcast is brought to you by the International Security Driver Association ISDA is a valuable resource for all practitioners working in the protection profession. We offer benchmark educational, networking, and marketing programs. The ISDA Membership ISDA Members represent all facets and levels of the protective services profession. The membership can be defined as a group of practitioners from different disciplines within the profession and with years of experience coming together to assist ISDA Members. Read more about our members Here is a collection of Books, and Articles authored by ISDA Members. Learn More about the ISDA Advantage and Become a Member Today

In this episode Gemma shares her insights on breaking out of "hustle mode". Resources mentioned in this episode: Google Analytics: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/ Cyfe: http://ssqt.co/m5bSbCV For more simply smart strategies and business inspiration, find Gemma here: http://gemmawent.co.uk/

Annie Cushing proudly proclaims her love for data and analytics so much so that she’s even  embraced the nickname Annielytics. In addition to data itself, one of her great loves is teaching other marketers how to “sexy up” their data. She has created a wonderful collection of tools and templates, of which perhaps the best known is her document “Hundreds of Tools for Marketers.” In addition, she’s a frequent speaker at conferences such as Pubcon, MozCon, and SMX. Find Out More About Annie Here: Annielytics.com@Annielytics on Facebook@AnnieCushing on Twitter In This Episode: [01:47] - Annie talks about one of the most frequent problems she sees with analytics, and how this involves Google Analytics leaving the average marketer behind in some ways. [05:28] - We learn about campaign tagging in more depth, and Annie gives a couple examples of  “gotchas” that give many people problems with routing correctly. [10:51] - Annie goes on to explore exactly how devastating the effects of mistakes in campaign tagging can be. She then discusses another potential problem. She also talks about what she considers an oversight: there isn’t a channel for “paid social” on Google Analytics. [14:22] - In response to Stephan’s elaboration on the problems with tracking paid social, Annie expands again on the importance of doing so correctly. [16:07] - What would be some good goals to set? In her answer, Annie explores the importance of tracking micro conversions. [23:43] - Annie talks about the “not provided” keyword data. [24:30] - Stephan and Annie take a step back and explore what “not provided” keyword data is, in case listeners aren’t familiar with the topic. She recommends going into the channels report (under “acquisition” and then “all traffic”) for valuable information. [30:55] - Stephan talks about what Google Search Console is, and what it can do. He then mentions the option of using a tool such as Rank Ranger. [32:25] - Does Annie use a tool such as Rank Ranger to access data, or does she do it by hand? As part of her answer, Annie discusses the value of Cyfe. [35:22] - Annie talks about Google’s Content Experiments, for which she says she hasn’t seen a high adoption rate. [37:53] - The difference between the popularity of Content Experiments and Optimizely is quite large (with Optimizely as the clear leader), Annie explains. [39:02] - We hear Annie’s thoughts on Tag Manager. She explains some problems with it, but ultimately concludes that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. [45:02] - Annie explains what she provides in her audits, and acknowledges that most people don’t love data as much as she does. [50:12] - Is changing the dashboard inside Google Analytics part of Annie’s process when she’s working with her clients? [55:40] - Annie addresses the question of her availability and how to get in touch with her. Links and Resources: The Definitive Guide to Campaign Tagging in Google AnalyticsHow to Track Social Ads in Google AnalyticsThe Definitive Guide to Channels in Google AnalyticsGoogle Search ConsoleRank RangerCyfeContent ExperimentsOptimizelyDan SirokerTag Manager

In Episode #161, Eric and Neil discuss the 7 elements of an effective marketing report. The marketing report reflects the health of your business and is a great sending base to inform that next step. Tune in to find out WHAT you need to assess and HOW to gather that information, in order to have that clear assessment of how your business is doing. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 - Today's topic: 7 Elements of an Effective Marketing Report 00:45 – First, have high-level goals 01:08 – Have a different kind of threshold 01:24 – “Have your targets laid out so it is easier for people to digest” 01:31 – Second, look at the growth 01:47 – Examine your growth weekly 03:25 – Assess how to calculate your growth properly—don't just look at the total visitor count 04:28 – The growth rate should be staying the same, if not increasing 04:39 – Third, use simple, report tracking tools, like Cyfe, and connect it to your spreadsheet report in order to pull data 05:27 – GA data grabber helps you to pull reports, too 05:50 – Fourth, track the lifetime value of the customer and the cost to acquire new customers 06:15 – You need a metric 07:11 – Fifth, look at your revenue churn and customer churn 07:28 – Lincoln Murphy's How Much Churn is Acceptable 07:47 – Ideal churn is less than 10% a year 08:30 – Sixth, Neil shares the time he talked to Ryan, from HubSpot 09:16 – Add your total headcount in your marketing report 10:18 – Lastly, the net promoter score allows you to measure the sentiments of the customers 11:12 – That's it for today's episode! 3 Key Points: Have a clear and simple goal which is easy for people to understand. Do NOT miscalculate your growth or it will lead you to a wrong impression of your business' health. Quantifying customer satisfaction is IMPORTANT – know and understand your supporters and detractors. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu

In Episode #161, Eric and Neil discuss the 7 elements of an effective marketing report. The marketing report reflects the health of your business and is a great sending base to inform that next step. Tune in to find out WHAT you need to assess and HOW to gather that information, in order to have that clear assessment of how your business is doing. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 - Today’s topic: 7 Elements of an Effective Marketing Report 00:45 – First, have high-level goals 01:08 – Have a different kind of threshold 01:24 – “Have your targets laid out so it is easier for people to digest” 01:31 – Second, look at the growth 01:47 – Examine your growth weekly 03:25 – Assess how to calculate your growth properly—don’t just look at the total visitor count 04:28 – The growth rate should be staying the same, if not increasing 04:39 – Third, use simple, report tracking tools, like Cyfe, and connect it to your spreadsheet report in order to pull data 05:27 – GA data grabber helps you to pull reports, too 05:50 – Fourth, track the lifetime value of the customer and the cost to acquire new customers 06:15 – You need a metric 07:11 – Fifth, look at your revenue churn and customer churn 07:28 – Lincoln Murphy’s How Much Churn is Acceptable 07:47 – Ideal churn is less than 10% a year 08:30 – Sixth, Neil shares the time he talked to Ryan, from HubSpot 09:16 – Add your total headcount in your marketing report 10:18 – Lastly, the net promoter score allows you to measure the sentiments of the customers 11:12 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Have a clear and simple goal which is easy for people to understand. Do NOT miscalculate your growth or it will lead you to a wrong impression of your business’ health. Quantifying customer satisfaction is IMPORTANT – know and understand your supporters and detractors. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu

In Episode #71 Eric and Neil highlight where marketing efforts are wasted. They’ll teach you the tools, techniques, and strategies to avoid that waste and minimize costs. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: Where are most people’s marketing efforts wasted? 00:41 – You don’t need a big marketing team 01:24 – Look for contractors 01:36 – Hiring too many full-time people can slow down the process 02:14 – Outsourced doesn’t completely mean overseas 02:49 – You have to be strategic in marketing 03:23 – Don’t over extend yourself 04:12 – Design related elements sometimes waste too much money 05:08 – Don’t dedicate everything to a specific marketing process 05:36 – Budget out how much money and time you want to spend 05:48 – Try things but don’t forget to track! 06:27 – Cyfe 06:41 – Google or Youtube: OKR 07:14 – Track your ROI thru Google Analytics 07:54 – Make sure you’re tracking the right stuff 08:46 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: A big marketing team is not always necessary. Marketing requires strategy—if you don’t have strategy, don’t start marketing. Try and test LOTS of different marketing techniques, but ensure you’re tracking the right data. Resources Mentioned: ProBlogger & Upwork – Where you can hire writers Cyfe – Where you can create different dashboards Google Analytics – Where you can track your ROI Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu

In Episode #71 Eric and Neil highlight where marketing efforts are wasted. They'll teach you the tools, techniques, and strategies to avoid that waste and minimize costs. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today's topic: Where are most people's marketing efforts wasted? 00:41 – You don't need a big marketing team 01:24 – Look for contractors 01:36 – Hiring too many full-time people can slow down the process 02:14 – Outsourced doesn't completely mean overseas 02:49 – You have to be strategic in marketing 03:23 – Don't over extend yourself 04:12 – Design related elements sometimes waste too much money 05:08 – Don't dedicate everything to a specific marketing process 05:36 – Budget out how much money and time you want to spend 05:48 – Try things but don't forget to track! 06:27 – Cyfe 06:41 – Google or Youtube: OKR 07:14 – Track your ROI thru Google Analytics 07:54 – Make sure you're tracking the right stuff 08:46 – That's it for today's episode! 3 Key Points: A big marketing team is not always necessary. Marketing requires strategy—if you don't have strategy, don't start marketing. Try and test LOTS of different marketing techniques, but ensure you're tracking the right data. Resources Mentioned: ProBlogger & Upwork – Where you can hire writers Cyfe – Where you can create different dashboards Google Analytics – Where you can track your ROI Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu

In Episode #47 Neil and Eric walk through their Top 10 Plugins for WordPress—they're not only talk about the plugins and their features, but best practices for making the most of these WP add-ons.  Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:15 – Sharing the Top 5 Wordpress Plugins 00:35 – Yoast SEO plugin 01:03 – ThriveLeads is all about content upgrades 01:20 – Allows for opt-ins that are relevant to specific content topics 01:52 – Allows for the addition of an easy CTA for every post 02:02 – Pretty Link 02:09 – If you're promoting someone else's product as an affiliate, you can cloak the affiliate link 02:47 – Also great for Facebook ads 03:03 – PolyLang 03:13 – Requires more work, but it creates SERIOUS ROI 03:49 – Most people don't speak English, yet most of the content available is in English 04:16 – Manual translate your content 05:05 – CoSchedule 05:19 – A wordpress plugin that organizes everything into an editorial calendar 06:56 – WPSmush 07:09 – Condenses images to make to help pages load faster 07:12 – WordPress Popular posts 07:47 – link every page to popular posts 08:20 – WP Checklist 08:26 – Creates a checklist for each and every piece of content 09:20 – HelloBar Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu

In Episode #47 Neil and Eric walk through their Top 10 Plugins for WordPress—they’re not only talk about the plugins and their features, but best practices for making the most of these WP add-ons.  Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:15 – Sharing the Top 5 Wordpress Plugins 00:35 – Yoast SEO plugin 01:03 – ThriveLeads is all about content upgrades 01:20 – Allows for opt-ins that are relevant to specific content topics 01:52 – Allows for the addition of an easy CTA for every post 02:02 – Pretty Link 02:09 – If you’re promoting someone else’s product as an affiliate, you can cloak the affiliate link 02:47 – Also great for Facebook ads 03:03 – PolyLang 03:13 – Requires more work, but it creates SERIOUS ROI 03:49 – Most people don’t speak English, yet most of the content available is in English 04:16 – Manual translate your content 05:05 – CoSchedule 05:19 – A wordpress plugin that organizes everything into an editorial calendar 06:56 – WPSmush 07:09 – Condenses images to make to help pages load faster 07:12 – WordPress Popular posts 07:47 – link every page to popular posts 08:20 – WP Checklist 08:26 – Creates a checklist for each and every piece of content 09:20 – HelloBar Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu

In Episode #46 Neil and Eric explain how to measure the results of your content marketing efforts. Listen as Neil and Eric illustrate why measuring your content marketing, while important, isn’t necessarily KEY until your content marketing and its reach has hit a certain level of exposure. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:30 – How to measure the results of your content marketing efforts 00:40 – What gets measured gets managed 00:55 – One thing you can do?—start simple. Track what’s important using a spreadsheet 01:45 – With content marketing, it takes time to measure results so be patient 01:50 – Neil never measures ROI from content marketing 02:25 – When you’re spending your OWN time on content marketing, there’s virtually no cost 02:45 – Content marketing is a LONG-TERM play 03:00 – As long as traffic keeps going up, you’ll be able to find a way to monetize 03:20 – Once traffic exceeds 10,000, start collecting emails 04:15 – Calculated Risk 04:55 – Content marketing is a 12-18 month journey before you see any traction 05:35 – Think of content marketing like you think of PR 06:35 – Writing eCommerce posts didn’t get the most traction…but they were the most loyal 06:50 – Moral of the story, buzz does not necessarily equate to sales 07:58 – Each visitor isn’t the same, attract the RIGHT type of readers 08:28 – Cyfe will allow you to build out dashboards with ease 09:10 – Make something people want before you start measuring 3 Key Points: Content marketing takes time, there won’t be short term wins. Attracting the RIGHT type of readers is more important than attractive LOTS of readers. What gets measured gets managed. Resources Mentioned: Calculated Risk – Blog from a WSJ journalist CYFE – Social media, analytics, marketing, sales, support, infrastructure... all in one place. Track your entire business in real-time. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu

In Episode #46 Neil and Eric explain how to measure the results of your content marketing efforts. Listen as Neil and Eric illustrate why measuring your content marketing, while important, isn't necessarily KEY until your content marketing and its reach has hit a certain level of exposure. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:30 – How to measure the results of your content marketing efforts 00:40 – What gets measured gets managed 00:55 – One thing you can do?—start simple. Track what's important using a spreadsheet 01:45 – With content marketing, it takes time to measure results so be patient 01:50 – Neil never measures ROI from content marketing 02:25 – When you're spending your OWN time on content marketing, there's virtually no cost 02:45 – Content marketing is a LONG-TERM play 03:00 – As long as traffic keeps going up, you'll be able to find a way to monetize 03:20 – Once traffic exceeds 10,000, start collecting emails 04:15 – Calculated Risk 04:55 – Content marketing is a 12-18 month journey before you see any traction 05:35 – Think of content marketing like you think of PR 06:35 – Writing eCommerce posts didn't get the most traction…but they were the most loyal 06:50 – Moral of the story, buzz does not necessarily equate to sales 07:58 – Each visitor isn't the same, attract the RIGHT type of readers 08:28 – Cyfe will allow you to build out dashboards with ease 09:10 – Make something people want before you start measuring 3 Key Points: Content marketing takes time, there won't be short term wins. Attracting the RIGHT type of readers is more important than attractive LOTS of readers. What gets measured gets managed. Resources Mentioned: Calculated Risk – Blog from a WSJ journalist CYFE – Social media, analytics, marketing, sales, support, infrastructure... all in one place. Track your entire business in real-time. Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu

In this episode of the Best Passive Income Model Podcast, listen in as Mark Podolsky chats with digital marketer, Eric Siu. Eric Siu is the CEO of the digital marketing agency called Single Grain and has worked with Fortune 500 Companies such as Sales Force, Yahoo, and Intuit. He is also the founder of the podcast, Growth Everywhere. In this episode, Mark and Eric talk about how he got started. Eric graduated from college and was doing data entry at a cubicle somewhere when a friend suggested he try out digital marketing. Instead of rotting away doing the same job every single day, Eric decided to go for it. From there, Eric got an internship and never looked back. Eric worked with his mentor, Neil Patel, as the Vice President of Marketing online, an educational marketing company called Treehouse when Neil asked him to help his cousin out and run the company. Eric eventually took over the company two years ago, paying $2 out of his pocket from the company profit. He then brought it to where it is today. When asked about digital marketing, Eric said that it never ends. Social media has blown it up to a point where everything can be measured. It is important to have the ability to look at the numbers to see whether they're working or not. 95% of the people start with something that you can draw conclusions from and this is a good start. Eric started Growth Everywhere because he saw that there were no marketing podcasts out there. It also allowed him to talk to founders and pay it forward. It was a chance to put people together. It has grown by itself and Eric humbly says it gets nice comments. He has since started a training course behind the podcast. He believes that it is a complement to Single Grain and it's also free branding for them. For entrepreneurs, those doing a side hustle, want to increase their passive income, or are new to marketing, Eric advises the listeners to choose a path. Choose something and stick with that. Get good at it. Neil Patel at QuickSprout.com did just that. He came out with content every week for years. It's about going an inch wide and a mile deep. Eric advises having a budget of about $20,000 to $40,000 to get a funnel working. However, not a lot of people who are starting out have this kind of budget. He suggests that everyone can learn content marketing. He says it's free to learn and be the expert. You can also eventually learn to articulate your message into words. When you do it consistently, you'll get better at it, it will start compounding over time, and it'll eventually get noticed. Building an audience is the hardest thing to do, according to Eric. If we're not collecting email addresses or creating one-to-one relationships with our prospects, the platforms own us. Perry Marshall says that the goal of each email is to entice your customers to open the next email. As a marketer, your job is to bring people to the point of sale. It's all a game. Every single marketing tweak you make can add to or decrease your bottom line. To be a great marketer, you need a growth mindset. Keep pounding away at it. When you're starting out, you have to learn a couple of times a day. If you say it's too hard for you, you shouldn't be in business. On hiring a copywriter if you have a low budget, Eric suggests going through a Facebook Group called Cult of Copy. Siphon off as much information as you can. Educate yourself first. As a rule of thumb, ask yourself if your content is interesting to you. Is it something that makes you proud to share it with people? That would be a good parameter, according to Eric. To know who to trust and who not to trust, you can take in as much information as you can but it's on you to determine signal from the noise. Look at consistency. How do you feel after listening to a podcast? Do you feel like you're being dumped into a marketing funnel? 99% of the time, your gut will tell you when you're getting the value or the runaround. Check out Frank Kern, Seth Godin, Eric Siu, Ryan Lee, Ryan Deiss, and Neil Patel. They all show up everyday. They are prolific and you get a sense that they really care. You get a sense that they love what they're doing and that they just want to give. When writing email, differentiate yourself with others by writing as if you're writing to your mom. Have a long-term view of it. Build a relationship over time, as suggested by Gary Vaynerchuck. You can't keep throwing right hooks because people will start to hate you. A good ratio agreed upon by Mark and Eric is 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 in terms of sending content before the promotion. The basic idea is to send 4 or 5 good pieces of content before you do the promotion. On Keyword Searches, Eric suggests that it's something you don't need to pay attention to. The more important question to ask whether or not you're adding value to the world. It is important to practice your writing every day. It's like going to the gym and exercising. It helps you get better at it. Eventually, you start seeing the fruits of your labor. Eric set a goal of writing 500 words per day and inputting this into a spreadsheet that tracks the number of words he's written in a year. When you get into the habit of doing that, you are able to automate the process. Keep going. When asked about newbie mistakes that make him cringe, Eric talked about giving up too early. In terms of content, it takes about 12 to 24 months for things to compound and for you to see the machine giving your returns. You just have to play the long game. In the beginning you're gonna suck. You just have to embrace it. You have to suck first to get good. However, when you no longer feel passionate about your work, maybe it is time to let go. 36 months is a perfect time to let go. As Seth Gold says, when you fail, you're done. Move on to the next thing. The strategy that's working right now for digital marketing is Gmail Advertising. He says that it was something Google wasn't consistent in implementing it. Not a lot of people are hitting it. Now is a good time to get in before it becomes saturated. Eric also talks about playing a bigger game. He says he already has something that's giving him a good cash flow. The next step is to figure out what he can do next to make him happy or how he can make an impact on the world. This is a game people optimize and play until their lives end. When asked about Marks Best Passive Income Model, Eric said it sounds sexy. He also says that he can't say much about it but at a high level, it's interesting and he can't really put fault in it. TIP OF THE WEEK: Eric: Long form content with 2,000 words or so are important to have out there. There are over 2 Million blog posts produced every single day. 300 to 500 word articles are not enough. Visit www.growtheverywhere.com and read “21 EPIC 10x Content Marketing Examples We Can All Learn From.” Read those and learn why they're good. Use a dashboard tool called Cyfe that helps you monitor your business data from one place and would cost $20 a month. It's a steal and you can make as many dashboards as you want. Ahrefs allows Eric to see how many links he's acquiring for SEO services. However, it's fairly expensive. Mark: Subscribe to Growth Everywhere Podcast and check out www.growtheverywhere.com. There are tons of resources on that website. My favorite tool out there is the Bad Hire Calculator. Thank you for listening to the Best Passive Income Model podcast. Your support helps me to invite guests who share their knowledge that you can use to grow your business.

Ep 159 Eric Siu, the CEO of the digital marketing agency Single Grain, which has helped companies such as Salesforce, Yahoo, and Intuit scale their revenues online. Listen as Nathan and Eric talk about how Single Grain went from having negative cash flow to profiting 30K a month. YOUR $100: Remember to subscribe to the show on itunes then text the word "nathan" to 33444 to confirm that you've done it to enter to win $100 every Monday on the show. Do this now. Stop reading this and do it! Click here to join the top tribe and instantly learn how Nathan made his first $10k at 19 years old: http://nathanlatka.com/startertribelive Top Entrepreneurs join Nathan Latka daily inspired by, Art of Charm, Pat Flynn, John Dumas, Entrepreneur on Fire, Chalene Johnson, Lewis Howes, School of Greatness, HBR Podcast, the StartUp podcast, Mixergy, Andrew Warner, AskGaryVee, and the great hosts of BiggerPockets! Bio Eric Siu has worked with various startups, non-profit organizations, and co-founded an online marketing agency. He was formerly the Growth lead at Treehouse, an online coding education business and is currently the CEO of Single Grain, a digital marketing agency. Eric has a podcast based on growth hacking at http://growtheverywhere.com/. 3 Key Points: Often it’s beneficial for a business to expand its main money making channel instead of investing in new ones. Previous expertise shouldn’t be underestimated as it can lend itself to current ventures. Watching the numbers of one’s business’s rise and fall is a more involved process and can be more insightful than reading a report. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:00 – Nathan’s introduction to today’s show 01:12 – Eric joins the show 01:22 – Single Grain is a marketing agency that helps with search engine optimization and paid advertising. 02:08 – Single Grain made 30K in monthly revenue from making nothing eight months ago. 02:29 – Eric was first brought on to help the agency for a 10% stake. Later he bought the other 90% for only two dollars. 03:25 – The company was struggling when Eric bought it out – losing money at negative 27K in net profit despite generating 1.5 million dollars in annual revenue. 04:32 – Eric sat down with the original founder and was able to negotiate owning the entire company by leveraging his expertise. 05:42 – Single Grain also generates money by referring to other agencies for services the company no longer fulfills. (Such as search engine optimization) 06:28 – Eric’s previous expertise hiring marketers allows him to vet agencies and determine their quality of work. 06:53 – Nathan and Eric discuss the latter’s earnings from Single Grain. 07:42 – For his newer business Care Sprout, Eric is delving into the senior living industry. 08:33 – Care Sprout has whittled its lead cost to 60-70$ per individual signing up for services. 10:05 – Nathan and Eric break down how Care Sprout makes money. 11:09 – A lot of businesses tend to neglect their main money making channel in favor of creating new ones. 11:27 – Eric talks about Care Sprout’s current money making channel, phone calls. 12:17 – Care Sprout spends about 30K a month for lead acquisition channels. (420 new leads per month.) 13:02 – Eric likes to look at his company’s numbers personally, but also uses a dashboard tool called Cyfe. 15:27 – Famous Five Resources Mentioned: Growth Geeks – The way Nathan hires growth hackers on a per project basis for things like info graphics, blog posts, and other growth projects Single Grain – Eric’s current business Care Sprout – Eric’s newer business Cyfe – Dashboard software Eric uses GrowthEverywhere – Eric’s Podcast @ericosiu – Eric’s Twitter LinkedIn – Eric’s LinkedIn Bill Gates – CEO Eric follows Emerson Spartz – CEO Eric follows Nathan Latka – CEO Eric follows TextExpander – Eric’s favorite online tool The Billionaire Who Wasn’t – Book Eric stands by Famous 5 Favorite Book?— The Billionaire Who Wasn’t – by Conor O’Clery What CEO do you follow?— Bill Gates, Emerson Spartz, Nathan Latka What is your favorite online tool?— Text Expander Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?—Keep going; those who persist will eventually succeed. Credits Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives Listen to The Top if you want to hear from the worlds TOP entrepreneurs on how much they sold last month, how they are selling it, and what they are selling - 7 days a week in 20 minute interviews! Join the Top Tribe at http://NathanLatka.com/TheTop The Top is FOR YOU if you are: A STUDENT who wants to become the CEO of a $10m company in under 24 months (episode #4) STUCK in the CORPORATE grind and looking to create a $10k/mo side business so you can quit (episode #7) An influencer or BLOGGER who wants to make $27k/mo in monthly RECURRING revenue to have the life you want and full CONTROL (episode #1) The Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur who wants to grow to a $100m+ valuation (episode #14). Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries.   Oprah gets 60 minutes or more to make her guests comfortable to then ask tough questions. Nathan does it all in less than 15 minutes in this daily podcast that's like an audio version of Pat Flynn's monthly income report. Join the Top Tribe at http://NathanLatka.com/TheTop

Cyfe i fwynhau sgwrs a sesiwn acwstig gyda Gwyneth Glyn fel un o ddigwyddiadau Pethe yn Gwyl Arall 2013.

Cada día surgen nuevas plataformas y con ellas nuevas métricas que nos obligan a tener que manejar cada vez más datos y acceder a distintos paneles para consultarlos, por eso las plataformas que unifican toda esta información en un sólo sitio se hacen cada vez más necesarias, y quiero hablaros de Cyfe, una herramienta que unifica las distintas métricas de tu web, blog y redes sociales en un dashboard que puedes personalizar a tu gusto.

Cada día surgen nuevas plataformas y con ellas nuevas métricas que nos obligan a tener que manejar cada vez más datos y acceder a distintos paneles para consultarlos, por eso las plataformas que unifican toda esta información en un sólo sitio se hacen cada vez más necesarias, y quiero hablaros de Cyfe, una herramienta que unifica las distintas métricas de tu web, blog y redes sociales en un dashboard que puedes personalizar a tu gusto.