Podcast appearances and mentions of lori highby

Today, we're going to clear up some common myths about digital marketing and uncover its true potential. My guest is a powerhouse woman who has mastered this art for multiple companies, and she's here to share some of her best-kept secrets.    I'm excited to introduce you to Lori Highby, founder of Keystone Click, a digital marketing agency, as well as a podcast host, speaker, and educator. With expertise across multiple industries, Lori helps businesses unlock their full potential through strategic marketing. She has worked with everyone from Fortune 500 companies to small, micro-businesses, guiding them to success. Outside of her work, Lori enjoys playing hockey, brewing beer with her husband Andy, and pushing herself on long bike rides—all while continuing to educate and empower others.    In this episode, Lori and I dive into:    ✨ The abundant opportunities within digital marketing ✨ How to leverage AI (artificial intelligence) to elevate your content quality ✨ Key tips for designing a digital marketing strategy that works ✨ The right way to measure your return on investment (ROI) ✨ Why podcasting is a powerful tool for promoting yourself and your business    Join us for a conversation packed with actionable insights to help you harness the power of digital marketing.    Subscribe now so you'll never miss an episode and leave us a review. It really helps us know which content is most important to you and helps us find new listeners.  Join our Feminine Business Magic Facebook Group (https://tinyurl.com/ygdkw7ce)  with your host, Julie Foucht. This is a community of women dedicated to connecting, supporting, and celebrating each other in growing businesses that honor their Divine Feminine while filling their bank accounts abundantly.    Resources mentioned:  Take the Witchpreneur Quiz and discover which Feminine Magic is your Key to Financial Success. (https://bit.ly/witchpreneur-quiz)  Purchase Love-Based Feminine Marketing (https://tinyurl.com/ydmzb6qz)      Lori Highby's Free Gift:  Free Social Media Audit: https://pageservices.keystoneclick.com/ksc-social-audit-registration    Social Capital Podcast: https://lorihighby.com/social-capital-podcast/     **Contact Lori Highby via LinkedIn or https://keystoneclick.com/ **    **Connect with Julie Foucht via Facebook (https://tinyurl.com/yeb82uuj) or email at https://juliefoucht.com/** 

Account executives are critical for agency profitability and success. Without them, we wouldn't have anybody responsible for building deeper trust with clients and growing their accounts. That's why we've brought Lori Highby on the show this week to share everything she knows about the account executive role. Some of you might recognize her from the AE Bootcamps she teaches at, and she's here to bring that wisdom to the greater AMI community so we can better understand just how important our AEs are for agency success. As someone who has an inside look at how AEs think and the questions and concerns that are always in their heads, Lori is the perfect person to share them so we can learn how to better support our AEs.   We cover everything from the expectations in an AE role, how agency owners can better communicate their goals and expectations to AEs, recognizing their hard work, and supporting their goals and aspirations within their role so they can also grow with the agency.  This episode is packed with incredible insights, so we hope you can take some of these topics and use them to better understand and support the AEs in your agency.  A big thank you to our podcast's presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They're an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: Recurring struggles that account executives face and are looking for guidance about The importance of standardized communication on the team and with clients Helping AEs level up their soft communication skills Supporting your account executives' eagerness to learn and level up The importance of AEs knowing agency math and using it to determine profitability What AEs really want from agency leadership  Take more time to recognize and appreciate your account executives' hard work How to find more moments for recognition on your team What AEs love about their jobs How to support and encourage your team in leveling up their skills How agency owners can amplify AE success in the agency

In this episode, Cary welcomes Lori Highby, founder of the digital marketing agency Keystone Click, for a practical and lively discussion about using AI tools like ChatGPT and others in daily business. Lori shares how AI helps her manage tasks in marketing, sales, and content creation, and she offers insights on how even beginners can benefit from AI with a few small steps. From making sales calls easier to drafting empathetic emails and even having fun with clever writing prompts, Lori explains how AI fits naturally into her work and life. Main Topics Covered Using AI for Everyday Marketing and Sales Tasks Creating Empathetic and Effective Client Communications AI for Personal Fun and Professional Efficiency Exploring Other AI Tools: Descript, Perplexity, and Adobe Enhance Getting Started with AI: Tips for New Users and Best Practices Key Takeaways AI Makes Daily Tasks Smoother: Lori shares how AI tools like Fathom and ChatGPT help streamline sales calls by summarizing conversations, tracking client pain points, and guiding follow-ups. Customizing AI for Empathy and Impact: By using AI to refine emails and make them more empathetic, Lori demonstrates how AI can be a helpful partner in fostering client relationships and managing sensitive communications. Approaching AI Playfully Opens Doors for Beginners: Lori encourages new AI users to start with small, fun prompts to learn AI's potential, like using ChatGPT to write a humorous Airbnb review or creating awards for her hockey team. Episode Index Introduction: Cary and Lori's background and initial greetings. About Lori and Keystone Click: Lori shares her journey as CEO of Keystone Click and her focus on strategic digital marketing for industries like manufacturing and construction.  Fun with AI: Writing a Clever Review: Lori describes using ChatGPT to write a witty review for an Airbnb experience, showing AI's versatility. Streamlining Sales Calls with AI: Lori talks about using AI tools like Fathom and ChatGPT for capturing and analyzing sales calls to improve follow-up and client relations. AI in Client Communications: The role of AI in helping Lori and her team craft clear, empathetic emails for clients. Training and Coaching on AI Usage: Lori shares insights on introducing AI to account managers and clients, from discovery calls to practical exercises. Live Demos of AI for Business Groups: Lori describes showing clients real-time AI examples, which make AI less intimidating and more accessible.  Lori's Favorite AI Tools: Discussion on using Perplexity, Descript, and Adobe Enhance for tasks ranging from research to content creation. Tips for New AI Users: Lori's advice on starting with AI in small, impactful ways, emphasizing problem-solving and time efficiency. Privacy Concerns and AI: Importance of data security and establishing guidelines for using AI with sensitive information. Fun with ChatGPT in Everyday Life: Lori's playful side, using ChatGPT to create lighthearted awards for her hockey team. Lori's R.A.C.E. Prompt Structure: A structured approach to prompts—Role, Action, Context, Execute—making AI easy for beginners. Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts: Cary wraps up the episode, highlighting key takeaways from Lori's experiences and AI tips. About The Guest Lori Highby is a seasoned podcast host, speaker, educator, and founder of Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency. With experience working with Fortune 500 companies and micro-businesses alike, Lori helps businesses realize their potential through strategic digital marketing. She brings energy and passion to her work, empowering other professionals to grow and innovate through practical, actionable insights. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Cary is a seasoned marketing professional offer coaching, consulting, and guidance through his company CM Weston. He is a founder in the Bangor, Maine-based advertising and marketing firm Sutherland Weston. He is a certified "They Ask You Answer" coach - a sales and marketing framework developed by Marcus Sheridan designed to help companies stand out as the voice of authority in their industry and drive measurable sales results. His specialties lie in developing practical and tactical strategies to help businesses overcome sales and marketing challenges. Cary is available for coaching, consulting, and strategy engagement with businesses and not-for-profit organizations. Connect with Cary: Podcast Website: www.ChatGPTExperiment.com Cary's Agency Website: www.CMWeston.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caryweston LINKEDIN NEWSLETTER The Chat GPT Experiment is also a LinkedIn Newsletter and you can find it here: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-chat-gpt-experiment-7110348839919702016/ MUSIC CREDITS The instrumental music used in this podcast is called “Curious” by Podington Bear. You can contact the artist here: Podington Bear on Free Music Archive

Your Website: More Than Just Pretty – It's a Salesperson That Never Sleeps Your website isn't just a pretty face for your business. Done right, it's a 24/7 salesperson, constantly working to attract and convert leads even when you're not. But how do you make sure your website pulls its weight? I sat down with **Lori Highby**, owner of Keystone Click, to get to the bottom of what makes a website not only visually appealing but also a powerful sales tool. Here are some key takeaways: Speak to Your Customer's Pain Your website's primary job is to solve your customer's problem. Lori emphasized the importance of understanding your *ideal customer* and addressing their pain points right from the start. Visitors are looking for solutions, and if your site speaks directly to their problems, it will grab their attention immediately.  *Tip*: Each page of your website should focus on *one* problem or pain point. Avoid overwhelming your audience by trying to solve everything on a single page. Pass the “Billboard Test Lori introduced a great concept: the "billboard test." You have just seven seconds to capture someone's attention when they land on your website. If your message isn't clear, they're gone. So what should you focus on? A unique value proposition and proof of your work.  Unique Value Proposition (XYZ Statement) - Clearly define what you do, who you do it for, and what benefits your customers get by working with you. For example, "We build websites for contractors, helping them attract more business. Proof of Your Work: Instantly build trust with visitors by showcasing testimonials, client logos, or press mentions. People need reassurance that you can deliver.  Make It Easy to Convert Once you have their attention, it's critical to make the next step obvious. Whether it's signing up for a newsletter, booking a consultation, or making a purchase, your call to action (CTA) needs to be clear and compelling.  *Tip*: Don't make your visitors work to figure out how to engage with you. Have multiple, easy-to-find CTAs on each page guiding them towards conversion Craft Your Homepage as a Gateway Your homepage is like the cover of a book — it introduces your brand, but more importantly, it should act as a gateway to the rest of your website. Lori suggested thinking of it as a “choose your own adventure.” Make it easy for visitors to navigate to different sections of your site based on their needs, but keep the overall message simple and clear. The Post-Conversion Experience Matters What happens after someone fills out a form or takes a desired action on your site? This is often overlooked but incredibly important. Lori pointed out that the follow-up, like a thank you page or an automatic email, should continue to build trust and confidence in the decision they've just made. *Tip*: Reinforce their decision by providing additional value, like testimonials or next steps, and ensure the entire process feels seamless and professional. --- Discover other episodes and more:  https://morethanafewwords.com/avoid-fomo/ Connect with Lorraine on LinkedIn  

In this special 400th episode of Social Capital, host Lori Highby, CEO and Founder of Keystone Click, is interviewed by Abby Radewahn, Digital Content Manager at Keystone Click. They discuss Lori's background, her passion for sports, and her journey from working at a web development company to founding her own digital marketing agency. Lori shares valuable lessons she learned about networking, mentorship, and the importance of authentic relationships. The episode highlights essential networking tips and emphasizes the significance of strong personal and professional connections in achieving success.Highlights00:00 Introduction to Social Capital Podcast00:49 Lori Highby's Background and Early Life02:57 The Role of Sports in Lori's Life04:42 Early Career and Lessons Learned07:12 Founding Keystone Click10:02 Personal Growth and Decision Making18:06 Networking and Mentorship25:35 Final Words of WisdomConnect with Lori on LinkedIn.

Using AI to Market with Lori Highby In this episode of the Profit Answer Man, Lori Highby, a podcast host, speaker, educator and founder of Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency, shares her vast multi-industry knowledge and experience. Lori's unique ability to identify and harness the potential within businesses, from Fortune 500 companies like ABB and Syngenta to micro-businesses, has enabled her to help them achieve their marketing goals through strategic, actionable moves. Lori's passion for teaching and learning is evident in her professional engagements, where she empowers and educates fellow life-long learners. Outside of her professional life, Lori enjoys playing hockey, brewing beer with her husband Andy, and embarking on long bike rides to test her limits.   In this episode, you will learn the following: How to unlock customer insights and understand where your audience spends their time online. Identifying customer pain points and researching your competition for easy marketing opportunities. Insights into the Profit First system which simplifies financial management and improves cash flow. The transformative role of AI in marketing and its impact on workflows. Evolving landscape of SEO and the necessity of staying informed in a dynamic digital world. Significance of consumer research, brand awareness and effective use of social media in today's marketing strategies. Various programs designed to boost business profitability, including DIY courses and personalized CFO services.   Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorihighby/ Keystone Click website: https://keystoneclick.com/   Hi, I'm the Profit Answer Man Rocky Lalvani! I help small business owners simplify their financial reports to make more informed business decisions with fewer hassles. We utilize the Profit First system created by Mike Michalowicz Sign up to be notified when the next cohort of the Profit First Experience Course is available! Check out our website: http://profitcomesfirst.com/ Questions: questions@profitanswerman.com Email: rocky@profitcomesfirst.com Relay Bank (affiliate link) - https://relayfi.com/?referralcode=profitcomesfirst  Profit Answer Man Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitanswerman/ My podcast about living a richer more meaningful life: http://richersoul.com/ Profit First Toolkit: click here to sign up Music provided by Junan from Junan Podcast Any financial advice is for educational purposes only and you should consult with an expert for your specific needs. #profitfirst

In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Lori Highby about how to be a networking superhero. Lori Highby (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorihighby/) is a podcast host, speaker, educator, and founder of Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency. Using her vast multi-industry knowledge - gained from experience and education - she has the ability to see the potential of greatness within the already established good of a business. Through strategic actionable moves, she has worked with Fortune 500 companies such as ABB and Syngenta to micro-business owners, to achieve their marketing goals. Lori carries her energy and drive into her professional engagements in order to empower and educate other fellow life-long learners. When she's not guiding clients or teaching agency account executives how to reach professional excellence, she can be found playing hockey, brewing beer with her husband Andy, or going on ridiculously long bike rides just to see if she can!  Check out all of the podcasts in the HCI Podcast Network! Check out the ⁠HCI Academy⁠: Courses, Micro-Credentials, and Certificates to Upskill and Reskill for the Future of Work! Check out the LinkedIn ⁠Alchemizing Human Capital⁠ Newsletter. Check out Dr. Westover's book, ⁠The Future Leader⁠. Check out Dr. Westover's book, ⁠'Bluer than Indigo' Leadership⁠. Check out Dr. Westover's book, ⁠The Alchemy of Truly Remarkable Leadership⁠. Check out the latest issue of the ⁠Human Capital Leadership magazine⁠. Each HCI Podcast episode (Program, ID No. 655967) has been approved for 0.50 HR (General) recertification credit hours toward aPHR™, aPHRi™, PHR®, PHRca®, SPHR®, GPHR®, PHRi™ and SPHRi™ recertification through HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®). Each HCI Podcast episode (Program ID: 24-DP529) has been approved for 0.50 HR (General) SHRM Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCPHR recertification through SHRM, as part of the knowledge and competency programs related to the SHRM Body of Applied Skills and Knowledge™ (the SHRM BASK™). Human Capital Innovations has been pre-approved by the ATD Certification Institute to offer educational programs that can be used towards initial eligibility and recertification of the Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD) and Associate Professional in Talent Development (APTD) credentials. Each HCI Podcast episode qualifies for a maximum of 0.50 points.

Welcome to the Evolvepreneur (After Hours) Show I am your Special Host Mechelle McDonald Join me today where we dig deep with our guests and get you the best concepts and strategies to fast-track your business. My very special guest today is Lori Highby ... Lori Highby, a podcast host, speaker, educator, and founder of Keystone Click, a digital marketing agency, possesses extensive cross-industry expertise. Leveraging her knowledge, gained through experience and education, she excels in identifying the untapped potential in businesses. From Fortune 500 companies like ABB and Syngenta to small businesses, Lori employs strategic actions to help clients attain their marketing objectives. She infuses her professional endeavors with energy and dedication to empower and educate fellow lifelong learners. Beyond her work guiding clients and teaching agency account executives to excel professionally, Lori enjoys hobbies such as playing hockey, brewing beer with her husband Andy, and embarking on long bike rides for personal challenge.

Are you falling for marketing myths? Ever wondered if what you believe about marketing is true or just a misconception? Need guidance to navigate through the maze of marketing myths? Join us with our guest, Lori Highby, who is ready to debunk common marketing myths that you might have fallen for. In this enlightening episode,…

I would love to tell you that out of the gate I was a business genius and everything I did in marketing worked perfectly. Well that's not true.  We all make mistakes along the way, but when we learn from them we have a better shot at success. And if we can get out ahead of some of those mistakes, by learning from what other business owners are doing wrong we can shorten the cycle to success. In this conversation with Lori Highby, we discuss the three most common mistakes new business owners make and how to avoid them. 1 ) The We We syndrome where owners think all their marketing needs to be about them.  2) Defining too broad a target 3) Describing what makes them uniquely qualified to solve a problem.    ABOUT LORI  With a core personal value of lifelong-learning, Lori Highby has shared creative and strategic digital marketing, personal branding, and entrepreneurship lessons with people and organizations from allover. Her 20 years experience, education, and involvement range from currently owning a digital marketing agency, Keystone Click, being the 2013 recipient of the “Bravo! Entrepreneur Award” from BizTimes Media, teaching undergraduate students as an adjunct professor at UW-Milwaukee, and serving on numerous boards including the Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin. Lori earned her Bachelor's Degree in Business & Marketing from Marian University and her MBA from Cardinal Stritch University.   She is also part of More than a Few Written Words, a collection of essays by some of my favorite guests. 

Today my guest is Lori Highby. Lori Highby is an accomplished entrepreneur and a marketing expert with over 20 years of experience in the industry. As the founder and CEO of Keystone Click, a digital marketing agency based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Lori has been helping businesses of all sizes to improve their online presence and grow their brands since 2008. Her passion for helping businesses succeed in the digital age is a driving force behind her continued success. Lori's knowledge and passion for helping businesses succeed in the digital age is a driving force behind her continued success. Today we're going deep into the newest technological advancements, artificial intelligence and what it means for your business.

More people than ever are tuning in to the Pat Miller Show. With this explosive growth, comes curiosity. Why is the Pat Miller Show on the air? Who is Pat Miller, and what is an Idea Collective? And most importantly, why should YOU be a part of it?Pat dives into your questions, share his vision, and let's you in on the 4-word phrase that guides everything he does.Also on this episode:Social Media / Community / What's Working - Building a community is a huge part of building a business (Trend #1). Lori Highby, founder and CEO of Keystone Click talks about finding your community, along with 9 other trends in social media to be aware of in 2023. Branding / Messaging - Everyone talks about having a personal brand, but what exactly does that mean? Lindey Lambert, Branding and Messaging Expert is here to answer your branding questions and tips to make it feel more personal to you.It's the Event of the Year!! Just a reminder about the Idea Collective Small Business Conference Retreat coming up in November. Who are the keynote speakers? How can you get involved? And why should you attend? For more information, check out smallbizretreat.comTired of working on your small business all by yourself? Wish you could have allies and partners willing to collaborate with you to solve problems and capture opportunities? Check out the international problem-solving small business community that is working together to beat the odds and achieve their small business goals: The Idea Collective Small Business Incubator: https://ideacoachmedia.com/idea.Also, we want YOU on the Pat Miller Show. Sign up for your appearance now: https://www.patmillershow.com. Mentioned in this episode:Welcome to the Pat Miller ShowThe Pat Miller Show is a nationally syndicated radio show exclusively for small business owners. Our mission is summed up by our slogan: "Don't Grow It Alone." Welcome to the mission! Learn more at https://www.ideacollectiveincubator.com Sidekick AccountingThis episode is sponsored by Sidekick Accounting. Sidekick is your trusted companion as you grow your small business that effortlessly handles the finances. Now an official Profit First Provider! Contact with Sidekick Accounting at https://pat-miller-show-podcast.captivate.fm/sidekick Sidekick Accounting ServicesBankable EventsDesign a highly profitable, community building, brand boosting event for your small business with Bankable Events - even with no experience! Bankable events offers proven strategies for designing events that drive revenue. Learn more at https://pat-miller-show-podcast.captivate.fm/bankableBankable EventsChoices Coaching & ConsultingThis episode is sponsored by Choices Coaching & Consulting. Krista Morrissey and Choices Coaching & Consulting build leaders in your small business so you can grow faster. Learn more: https://pat-miller-show-podcast.captivate.fm/choicesChoices Coaching & ConsultingAthena Legal Solutions Small business legal...

Lori Highby, founder of Keystone Click, joins me on this live recording of "The Business Storytelling Show" to discuss the topic.Connect with her here: https://lnkd.in/gYCyiuW5

Lori Highby is the CEO and founder of Keystone Click and an expert in the various ways you can use SEO to make a significant impact in your marketing efforts.

Welcome to this episode of Business Growth Hacks where we'll be exploring the world of entrepreneurship. Today we'll be talking with Lori Highby, a digital marketing agency professional who is also a hobbyist in brewing beer, and enjoying outdoor activities. We'll delve into how Lori balances her hobbies and business and why she believes in keeping the two separate. Additionally, we'll hear from Andrew's experience working at Apple and how he is now implementing similar strategies in his own business to improve processes and create a team-oriented culture. So sit back, relax, and join us as we learn about unleashing your marketing potential. KEY POINTS: Lori is a digital marketing agency professional who empowers and educates others.She is CEO of Keystone Click/Digital Marketing Expert/B2B Marketing StrategyShe enjoys playing hockey, brewing beer with her husband, and going on long bike rides.She and her husband started making wine and then shifted to making beer.Making beer and wine is a hobby for Lori, not a side hustle.The struggle of having an entrepreneurial mindset and trying to turn hobbies into businesses.Lori is working on a book called "Never Start a Business" to advise new entrepreneurs to steer clear of certain ventures.She enjoys kayaking and outdoor activities but doesn't try to turn them into a business.Andrew used to work at Apple, where hackathons were held for solving major problems.Implementing a similar system in their own business for process improvement.Conducting quarterly meetings with your team, including remote workers, to evaluate the business and set goals.The team building activities are included in the meeting to celebrate the wins and get everyone on the same page.Lori loosely follows the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) for larger organizations, but only uses the nuggets that resonate with her business. LINKS MENTIONED: Keystone click.com Keystone click on Facebook Keystone Click on Youtube Lori Highby on Instagram Lori Highby on Linked In Andrew Brockenbush on Twitter Beefy Marketing Beefy Marketing Blog Small Business Nation

Lori Highby is a podcast host, speaker, educator, and founder of Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency. Using her vast multi-industry knowledge – gained from experience and education, She has the ability to see the potential of greatness within the already established good of a business. Through strategic actionable moves, she has worked with […]

Lori Highby is a podcast host, speaker, educator, and founder of Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency. Using her vast multi-industry knowledge – gained from experience and education, She has the ability to see the potential of greatness within the already established good of a business. Through strategic actionable moves, she has worked with […] The post Lori Highby with Keystone Click appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

Lori Highby, CEO and Founder of Keystone Click, is the definition of a doer. She began her entrepreneurial journey in 2008 at the start of the recession by sending snail mail! She has been able to build a thriving business since, crediting culture, growth, and education to her and her team's success. Lori discusses why she decided to start her own business, what it was like being a woman business owner starting out, and her passion for manufacturers! She also shares how her dad has been an impactful figure in her life and how her community involvement honors his memory.

As a young entrepreneur, Lori Highby started her business in 2008, at the start of a recession. She grew her business, Keystone Click, to now have 9 employees and many clients nationwide. Culture, growth, and education are critical to her team's success. She is also a podcast host, speaker, educator and blogger. You'll see her blogging on many websites about digital marketing, personal branding, website design best practices, entrepreneurship, and networking. She is also the founder of Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency. Using her vast multi-industry knowledge gained from experience and education, she have the ability to see the potential of greatness within the already established good of a business. Through strategic actionable moves, she has worked with Fortune 500 companies such as ABB and Syngenta to micro-business owners, to achieve their marketing goals. She carries her energy and drive into her professional engagements in order to empower and educate other fellow life-long learners. In addition to creating the Social Media Marketing curriculum at Milwaukee Area Technical College, she is also an adjunct professor of B2B Marketing at UW-Milwaukee and frequently speaks on webinars and at conferences about digital marketing, personal branding, and entrepreneurship. She currently serves on the board for many local organizations including the Better Business Bureau Serving Wisconsin. Podcast host, speaker, educator, entrepreneur, and digital marketing strategist, her life-long passion for learning continues to fuel her 20+ year career of educating and empowering others to reach their goals. You can find Lori on her Website and tune in to her Podcasts. Remarkable Quote: “If you go right and you're 20% down that path and you go 'I should have gone left' - then just stop and go left. It's okay! At least you're making progress and you learned something.” Sponsor Today's episode is sponsored by: Picked Cherries' social podcasting app is the destination for the best podcast listening experience for all listeners. Download the app for FREE on Google Play and the App Store. Share podcasts like never before with Picked Cherries. Learn more at PickedCherries.com. Find Us Online! Website: iamJulietHahn.com Instagram: @iamjuliethahn Twitter: @iamjuliethahn LinkedIn: Juliet Hahn FB: @iamjuliethahn Fireside: Juliet Hahn Clubhouse: @iamjuliethahn YouTube: Juliet Hahn

Lori: Welcome to A BROADcast For Manufacturers. We are your hosts Lori Highby, Erin Courtenay, and Kris Harrington. Our first episode is really to share with you a little bit about us. We will be interviewing each other on our backgrounds, passions, and most importantly, why we are excited to be co-hosting A BROADcast For Manufacturers!Lori: I'm going to start by asking Kris a couple of questions. Kris, could you please tell us a bit about yourself? Kris: I love to eat. No, I live on a farm. Actually, as it comes to, I guess, my manufacturing story and a little bit of background of kind of how I've landed here, I spent some time in the US Navy. So I think what's interesting for me as I was always a natural athlete in school. So I just love to work with my hands. You know, I think the one thing about sports is that I'm just that kinesthetic, naturally. So any time I can be doing something with my hands, I'm happy. So one of the ways that I could use my hands and travel the world, which was also a dream for me was to join the Navy. So I started before I ever went to school, I was in the Navy. After I left the Navy, I was a machinist mate just to share that as well. After I left the Navy, I went to work here in Milwaukee at Brady company, and I worked on the manufacturing floor. So I ran a machine I started off on second shift, then I moved to third shift, I worked in a cleanroom environment, but I was responsible for, you know, picking the materials that I was going to run on my machine, setting up the machine, and then producing products that would be eventually packed and sold to our customers. So I have that experience of actually working on machinery as well. I went to work for We Energies, you know, those of us that are from Wisconsin, we know that they are the local electrical and gas company here, but I located underground utilities for a while. So when I did that, I was outside working with construction companies and wherever they were building or digging or, you know, doing any work outside that you had to locate those underground utilities to make it safe. For those. I was kind of a part of that. So that's just some fun part of my background. So I was a non-traditional student when I decided to eventually go to school. I did choose Marquette University here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So I think I started at Marquette and about the age of 28. So I was older, um, you know, I thought I was going to going to school for physical therapy. Because I, again, am naturally sports-oriented, and I just wanted to work with sports teams and in heart and help on the physical therapy side. But what I realized when I got to school is that I really wasn't good at chemistry and biology. But I couldn't wrap my head around it. I just didn't understand why we need to learn chemical formulas and all these other things and, you know, dissect animals. Yeah, and things of that nature as already having been an adult and, you know, being responsible for things. I didn't understand the application of that. So I had gone to a counselor to say, hey, I don't know what I'm doing here. And I'm, I'm spending a lot of money at Marquette. And if I'm not going to do well, I got to get out of this. And he asked me a few questions and suggested that I start at the School of Business. And the next year, I went into the school of business and I can tell you everything clicked for me. It was awesome: media, economics, accounting, finance. I had intuitively learned through working and living and having my own adult responsibilities, but now I was getting this broader and deeper understanding of things. So my first real career move after I graduated from Marquette was to start at Bucyrus international here in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They were a manufacturer of mining equipment, very large surface mining equipment. During my time there, mining was really growing. Mining...

Lori Highby is a podcast host, speaker, educator, and founder of Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency. Using her vast multi-industry knowledge - gained from experience and education, she has the ability to see the potential of greatness within the already established good of a business. We discuss: The courage to ask “Who do you know” [02:40] Three golden rules of networking [05:31] The real problem with the follow-through [07:50] The least smartest person in the room [10:44] Why you aren't getting found [14:33] How to make your website work for your referrals [19:10] The best way to prove your expertise [22:10] Through strategic actionable moves, she has worked with Fortune 500 companies such as ABB and Syngenta to micro-business owners, to achieve their marketing goals. Lori carries her energy and drive into her professional engagements in order to empower and educate other fellow life-long learners. Learn more about Lori at http://www.keystoneclick.com/ (www.keystoneclick.com), http://www.lorihighby.com/ (www.lorihighby.com) and https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorihighby/ (LinkedIn).

Lori Highby is the CEO and founder of Keystone Click, a digital marketing agency. She's been in the marketing business for the last 20 years. Her podcast, Social Capital, around networking and marketing by interviewing global leaders in these spaces. This week, episode 39 of Listeners to Leads is about increasing your thought leadership through podcasting with Lori Highby! In this episode of Listeners to Leads, Lori Highby is sharing the importance of understanding your audience in order to make a marketable podcast and actionable steps you can take right now to encourage your guests to share your show. Lori and I also chat about the following: Why someone should start with their niche if they want to use their podcast to become a thought leader.What thought leadership is and how it's a strong focus on educating and adding value to your audience that makes that distinction.How best to utilize your thought leadership to lead your audience to buy your product or service in your podcast episodes.Making your show easy for guests and audience listeners to share so that they actually share and your podcast grows.Thought leadership cannot be assumed; it has to be earned through educating and providing high value to your audience.Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above.Thank you for listening!If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me!  And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH LORI HIGHBY:FacebookInstagramPodcastWebsiteCONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:InstagramLinkedInWork with Galati Media! 

Manufacturing Mavens Episode 2: Digital Transformation In The Manufacturing Industry   Today's episode is Part 2 of our 3-part Manufacturing Mavens - a BROADcast Mini Series. I've got 2 guest hosts with me for this mini-series! Kristina (Kris) Harrington and Erin Courtenay. Part 2 is going to be Guest Hosted by Kris Harrington. Kris is the President and COO for GenAlpha Technologies. During her time with OEMs in the mining industry, Kris and the other founders of GenAlpha saw a need to find a better way for B2B manufacturers to do business. This led to the development of Equip, an eCommerce, eCatalog, and Analytics solution for manufacturers and distributors who want to grow their business online. Take it away, Kris!    Kris: Thanks, Lori! Happy to be here. Let's start this show with a quick introduction to our hosts.   Erin Courtenay is VP of Digital Services at Earthling Interactive. Erin loves watching programmers work their magic, opening up the possibilities of the internet to small and medium businesses with powerful websites and custom software. Calling herself a “digital empathy practitioner”, Erin is determined to help clients move thoughtfully and compassionately into their digital future.   Lori Highby is a podcast host, speaker, educator, and founder of Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency. Using her vast multi-industry knowledge - gained from experience and education, She can see the potential of greatness within the already established good of a business. Through strategic actionable moves, she has worked with Fortune 500 companies such as ABB and Syngenta to micro-business owners, to achieve their marketing goals. Lori carries her energy and drives into her professional engagements in order to empower and educate other fellow life-long learners.   Thank you, mavens, it is such a pleasure to be here with you both today. As a former leader in a global manufacturing organization responsible for growing equipment and aftermarket sales, and now a leader of a digital eCommerce company, I am often reminded how much things have changed in just the past twenty years. I mean, I can remember when I was so excited to get a Blackberry phone (remember those?) so that when I was traveling to remote mining areas and arrived at my hotel, I wouldn't have to hook up my laptop to the dial-up hotel internet connection just to check my emails to make sure I didn't miss anything important before going in to visit my customer the next day. It was so much faster to check them from my Blackberry, and for me, this was roughly 2007.   Fast forward to today, now if a manufacturer were to roll out an eCommerce solution like Equip, if I were still that same sales leader visiting my customer, I would be able to stand next to their machine in the pit and pull up full product bills of materials, identify the products from a 3D interactive drawing, add them to a shopping cart and send them a quotation all from a smartphone or tablet. The customer experience opportunities are incredibly different today for those manufacturers who are ready to make the leap into digital self-service. And this is just one example of the type of digital services available. This takes us to today's topic - Manufacturing and Digital Transformation where we're going to talk about manufacturers and their journey toward digital transformation.   Let's get into it. To set the stage, Erin and Lori, I would like to hear how each of you define digital transformation for the manufacturing industry?   Erin: One thing it always goes back to his business goals. Your business goals should define your approach to digital transformation. In manufacturing, I see a couple of things that define digital transformation. The first is digital transformation as cultural transformation. So opening the business culture to digital tools, be in sales, operations production is a cultural change. And so the digital transformation has an impact on everyone, and how they identify as part of the organization. The next component of digital transformation is maintenance or growth strategy for your business. So tools like eCommerce, ERP, automation are becoming sort of the oxygen of all businesses, and manufacturing is no different. So to breathe, to grow, it can't be ignored, digital transformation is going to be foundational.   Lori: I resonate with everything you said, and especially the cultural component because regardless of any transformation that you are incorporating into your business, you've got to get everyone on board and it's sometimes very challenging to do that if this is the way we've always been doing it for the last 40 years and you're trying to teach an old dog new tricks. I like to compare it to what manufacturing has been doing already with regards to automation, robotics, and creating efficiencies in their business, I think it's no different when you're looking at other segments of the business such as marketing, sales, and the communications and that relationship and that nurturing and it's just taking that transformation or that evolution of what's happening, and applying it to different segments of the business. You mentioned ERP systems, which are taking all elements of your business and combining them into one extremely useful digital tool and resource. But the critical component of that is the adoption of getting all components together and then getting all of the business on board with how to use that component. If you're looking at marketing automation, you need the sales and the marketing team working together on the same page and it's all about maximizing the relationships. COVID taught us real quickly that you can have relationships that aren't in person shaking hands, and that you can still nurture and create new connections.   Kris: I know there have been numerous articles written about this, but I am curious, based on each of your experiences, what do you think are the three most important reasons why manufacturers need to be prioritizing digital transformation?   Lori: It's hard to pick only three. I'll start with something that carries over from the last question, which is that efficiencies are there. Just like in the machines and the equipment at the plants, there are efficiencies in leveraging the digital tools and resources out there. We're all in that marketing and sales side of things, but we really focus on maximizing and shortening that lifecycle and making it easier to have those conversations with your clients or your potential clients. The second one, I would say is this next generation, the current generation is online. That's where your next client is hanging out. They're not going to answer the phone, they're not always going to show up at a trade show because I think trade shows are more of that nurturing opportunity. Using SEO making sure your websites getting found online, leveraging social media to tell your brand story, and creating efficiencies around that is going to help you to continue to find that next client. The third thing that I think is the most important actually out of all these three, is what your customers are expecting. They're expecting to have a conversation on your website using a chat feature, they're expecting to log in to place an order online and just repeat that order and not have to have a conversation or get an instant quote, or whatever it is. If your customers are expecting this, you have to make this transformation.   Erin: My response to three reasons that digital transformation is more of a big picture kind of thought. First is attracting and retaining a workforce. Younger generations, like Lori, pointed out, expect and anticipate a digital forward work environment. If you can't provide that, that's not going to be appealing to younger people. We all have heard about how workforce attraction and retention is a big issue in manufacturing so digital transformation, not only for the functional parts but going back to that cultural idea, demonstrating that your digital forward as a company or as an organization. Next is modernization. I mean, we don't leave our baskets anymore. We're not horse-drawn carriages, we're digital so it's time to get there. Then the last one, I think this is not spoken about enough is pleasure and freedom. I just was in a webinar the other day which talked about the future and technology and what it can do for us. If we can lean more heavily on digital tools to do sort of the mundane things for us, it can open up all these possibilities of creativity, of moving ahead, of offering us time to do the things that we really love and care about, and value. If we're going to get there, that means we all have to participate and contribute to digital transformation, not just wait for it to happen, because then that's something that's happening to us, not something that's happening with us.   Kris: The world is a bit of a crazy place right now, what do you think are some of the biggest challenges manufacturers are facing today that may be preventing them from moving forward with their digital journey?   Erin: This is where I may get a little controversial. I think one of the biggest challenges is rigid industry leadership that is not helping lead us into the next era with digital transformation. I see people like Matt Goose and Eddie Saunders doing much of the heavy lifting. These are folks that are getting young kids excited about manufacturing by meeting them where they are and they are doing that heavy lifting. I'd like to see more of that from industry leadership. So it's a little bit of a prescription and also a diagnosis mixed in together.   Lori: Erin, I just have to say that I love your perspective. My answer is from a bit different perspective in that I think part of the challenge is that to some extent, it's cluttered. There's a lot of information coming from a lot of different directions and you don't know where to start. I think there's also this fear of the unknown because it can be a big investment. I know that these manufacturing organizations, when they invest in a new piece of machinery, they have so much confidence that it's going to produce a certain volume of new business for them, and they can get so much work done. But when they're making this investment into this unknown territory, where they don't have their historical references for themselves to have confidence on how it's going to improve their business, they're really just trusting kind of someone else's opinions, but there are opinions on all different spectrums and there are all different ways to tackle this. So I think that's where there's a lot of hesitation and reservation to move forward.   Kris: If you could offer one piece of advice on how digital can help solve the challenges preventing companies from moving forward, what would it be?   Lori: To solve the problem based on how I answered the last question, I would say manufacturers need to start having the conversations with those that are doing it right now and start asking some intelligent questions to build their confidence and really just get that conversation going, which is what we're doing right now. They have to have true curiosity into this topic in order to have any movement going forward and helping them solve some of these bigger issues where digital can do so much and solve so many problems. Yeah, it is a time and financial investment on the front end, but the long end return significantly outweighs any current hurdles that someone may be having right now. So my very simple answer is to start talking about it and start asking questions.   Erin: A challenge that keeps folks from moving forward and I think I'm going to name that challenge as thinking that you're locked in a rigid mindset. Whether that's before you get started with the technology, or you might even be mid-technology and so that brings to mind this example of somebody that we worked with. They had a transportation management system platform that they were using and it just kept not being the right solution for them. Over and over again, they were running into roadblocks and barriers and they asked us how we could help them. We suggested to them that they should make their own because it could fit their needs and might even save them money. They decided to try it and not only did they save money, but they also ended up making six figures from that platform, because they were able to then sort of rent it out to some other folks as well. So just knowing that one of the great things about digital transformation is flexibility is the ability to name your own solution. It can be daunting, I totally get it, but if you keep that in mind, that you should ask for what you want, you should know what you want and ask for it and not be let alone by the no's, that will help you really move forward.   Kris: What services do each of you offer that support the manufacturing industry?   Erin: At Earthling Interactive, we do take that consultative approach. Yes, can seem off-putting at first, but what that allows us to do is though, is we are adept at starting where you are, where our clients are. For example, so many manufacturing websites are, frankly terrible, and they're out of date. But you can actually accomplish a lot with just a website refresh, and not just because of how it looks, but it can function and be a very powerful tool for you and your business. We can start there, let's just get you a new website. But we're also great at modifications and fixes. For example, if you're running a technology that's falling short of your expectations, like that example that I mentioned before with the TMS system, or let's say you've got a time tracking system that isn't conforming to your business model, we can help it get there, we can help do those tweaks in those modifications so that you have a tool that really works with your business, and helps you accomplish your goals.   Lori: At Keystone Click, we brand ourselves as a strategic digital marketing agency. What we're doing is really focusing on our clients' customers. So you the manufacturer, you're trying to get new customers, and we get inside the head of your customer and really figure out what is that customer journey? What is the pain that they initially have? How are they searching for that pain? Because people don't know what the solution is the right way they know what the challenge is that they're facing. Then how do we position you and tell your brand story in the digital space so that you are positioned as the expert to solve the problem that they have? We do that by conducting research on your customer and then building a full strategic plan that's focused on helping you achieve your business goals. Then we support the implementation and we do websites as well. We manage your social paid initiatives, and really anything under that digital umbrella with your business end goal in mind. What about you, Kris?   Kris: I think the best way to describe what the Gen Alpha team does is really equip manufacturers and distributors with the tools, services, and advice that they need to sell their products online. So we come with real-world experience, the founding members of Gen Alpha all worked in manufacturing and we truly believe that there was an easier way of doing business with a manufacturer. So we've been in the shoes of our customers, trying to satisfy their customers and grow business at the same time. We believe that in coordination with our clients. We keep building upon our already solid foundation of helping them to keep delivering better solutions year after year. So we truly love working with the manufacturing industry and we want these people to be relevant and successful in the future. I think what I would say about all of us and all of our companies is that we do care so much. If you were to work with any one of us, you're going to have a trusted relationship where we're going, to be honest with you about your business, how we believe we can help you, we're going to offer you alternative solutions, but the true intention around everything we're doing is for the greater good.    Thank you for listening to part 2 of our 3-part series. If you've enjoyed what you heard, definitely chime in for part 3, and if you didn't get a chance to listen to Part 1 - you'll want to take a listen as we dove into Social Selling. In Part 3 we will be talking about co-opetition vs competition. Reach out to Lori if you're interested more about strategic digital marketing, reach out to Kris if you want to learn more about manufacturing eCommerce solutions, and reach out to Erin if you're interested in learning more about manufacturing consulting services.   Head to keystoneclick.com/mavens to learn more about your hosts and their exclusive offerings available for Mavens listeners!

Social Selling In Manufacturing   Today's episode is Part 1 of our 3-part Manufacturing Mavens - a BROADcast Mini Series.  I've got 2 guest hosts with me for this mini-series!  Kristina (Kris) Harrington and Erin Courtenay.  Part 1 is going to be Guest Hosted by Erin Courtenay.     Erin Courtenay is VP of Digital Services at Earthling Interactive. Erin loves watching programmers work their magic, opening up the possibilities of the internet to small and medium businesses with powerful websites and custom software. Calling herself a “digital empathy practitioner”, Erin is determined to help clients move thoughtfully and compassionately into their digital future.   Erin: Let's start this show with a quick introduction to our hosts.   Kris Harrington is the President and COO for GenAlpha Technologies. During her time with OEMs in the mining industry, Kris and the other founders of GenAlpha saw a need to find a better way for B2B manufacturers to do business.  This led to the development of Equip, an eCommerce, eCatalog, and Analytics solution for manufacturers and distributors who want to grow their business online.     Lori Highby is a podcast host, speaker, educator, and founder of Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency.  Using her vast multi-industry knowledge - gained from experience and education, She has the ability to see the potential of greatness within the already established good of a business. Through strategic actionable moves, she has worked with Fortune 500 companies such as ABB and Syngenta to micro-business owners, to achieve their marketing goals.  Lori carries her energy and drives into her professional engagements to empower and educate other fellow life-long learners.   I'm super excited about today's topic because social selling is really what brought the three of us together. Kris and I have been guests on Sam Gupta's awesome eCommerce LinkedIn Live panel. That's how we got to know each other and now we've become good friends. Lori, this podcast has been a favorite for a long time and I've really gotten to know you through your wonderful content. Together we've all utilized content and digital platforms to build relationships. We are able to move our prospects through the funnel in a way that is warm, genuine, and provides value - even though it all takes place online. That's the beauty of social selling.   But social selling isn't just about content and friendships, all social networks exist to provide content and relationships - the key part here is business development. Successful sales have always been inherently social, because as our friend Greg Mischio reminds us (frequently!) your prospects must know you, like you, and trust you to move forward with the sale.    The pandemic era obviously drove a lot of selling online, both in B2B and B2C. As a result, so many more sales professionals are using the tools of social sales like LinkedIn, podcasting, video-sharing, and CRM-related applications. So there's the social side, which I think all sales professionals are naturally gifted at, but the technical side can be a bit of a head-scratcher - so that's what I'd like us to focus on a bit today. Sound good Ladies?   Lori: We're ready!    Erin: How do you guys use LinkedIn as a social selling tool? I mean, beyond the obvious - what are some of your special tips and tricks. Next, tell us about one other tool you use and why you think it is great.   Lori: Probably because I spend hours on it on a daily basis, actually, and people are surprised when they hear me say that. The first thing you want to look at on your LinkedIn is optimizing your profile. I know you both understand that word optimizing, but not everyone that is listening really understands what that means. It's just making sure that when someone is searching for something that you're the one that shows up as a resource. We've heard of optimizing your website for Google, it's the same philosophy and concept with LinkedIn so that when someone looks at your profile, they realize what your true expertise is. Oftentimes, people think a LinkedIn profile should be structured like your resume and that's actually wrong. It's a beautiful place to tell your story and showcase what you want to be known for, and help put some perspective in other people's eyes on your expertise, but also to be found for your expertise as well. So start with your profile first and then you have to look at creating connections. When I'm looking at the connections, I'm genuinely looking to create relationships, but also to be a resource. I've gotten to the level where I have a follow button, and not just a connect button, which is a fun space to be. But it's all about adding value, and not selling. I know we've talked about this before that social media is about being social, the selling is something that happens after the fact because you've created that relationship, you've established trust, and people are comfortable because you've provided so much information of value that then they're interested in having that conversation of potentially creating a business relationship. One of my favorite tips is when someone reaches out and connects with me that I do not know, I have a two-part question that I respond back with them. My first question is, what is it about my profile that intrigued you to want to connect with me? And the second question is, how can I best be a resource to you on LinkedIn? That then starts a conversation and it also easily identifies those who are going direct for the sales pitch that I'm not interested in actually fostering a relationship with. But it's really fascinating because sometimes people connect without saying a reason why, but they're actually interested in doing business with you. You'd be surprised how many people when I asked that question are like, "Oh, we're actually looking for a marketing company right now and I was interested in talking more." So they sent me a connection request, but then open with the ask, but I had initiated the conversation to do that. So I think it's a really powerful way to start that conversation when someone is reaching out to you.   Kris: What I do on LinkedIn is, I'm really using it to deepen a relationship with the connections that I may have just made. So if we just did a demo with a new company and there were new participants in the demonstration that I haven't met before, I might connect with them on LinkedIn to deepen that relationship. At the trade show, I was just recently at, there were a lot of people that I'm connecting with, that I already formed personal connections with and now I want to deepen that relationship. I'm not necessarily lead looking to sell, I'm looking to have that connection because my whole goal on LinkedIn is to share content that is of value. I would say that my biggest trick is just to be authentic. Sometimes it's challenging when you're in a place where there are professionals so you want to have that professional face, but in reality, you want people to get to know you and who you are. It's the challenge of being authentic to who you are, who your company is, and how you want people to understand how you can be helpful and useful. So that's really what I'm using LinkedIn for. Now, when it comes to some other social platforms, we have tried Twitter, and we've tried Facebook, but we find that those are really more personal, at least in the space that we're in. We're sharing information, but we're just not connecting with people as much on those platforms today as others.   Erin: One of my biggest challenges in social selling is tracking and accountability metrics. Digital behaviors are inherently trackable but I still find myself struggling to put together a useful dashboard of behaviors and outcomes. What are one or two of your most useful tracking methods?   Kris: Overall, any metrics related to marketing, I think are a little difficult for our organization to understand when they're working because we have a long sales cycle. But I will tell you the two metrics that I've found that will lead to conversions is we're really tracking our followers and we're watching the growth of our followers. That's really important because I hope that it means that people connected with something that we're doing enough to say, "I'm going to follow what they're doing and keep an eye on them." That gives us an opportunity when we're sharing great content that we're going to potentially come up in their feed and then they're going to look at us a bit further or at least read what we might be sharing or listen to the videos that we might be publishing. The other metric that we look at a lot is website sessions. So when people go from social media to our website, which is where we would hope that they would go if they're interested in learning more about Gen Alpha, or engaging with more content, because we have a lot more content on our website than we do on social media. So if we can get people to follow us and they start to see us repeatedly in their space, understanding their industry, what they do, if we're being useful, and then they move to the website and they continue to resonate with the materials that we're giving them, there's that potential that hopefully, they'll engage with us in some other way. Those are two that we've been really following. We have a lot of metrics and probably similar to both of you, we don't always know which ones are the best. But those two for us are indicators.   Lori: I could probably resonate with Kris on what we're doing for ourselves is still a little bit of a mystery. Moreso, because I'm not the one looking at it, I've got a team behind me. But I can tell you what I talk about from an educational standpoint when we talk to our clients and when I'm out there speaking about measuring your ROI. What's very important, I think this is one of the biggest things that people don't get clear on is what is the goal that they're trying to achieve? There's so much data out there on the internet that you can get analysis paralysis because you're just kind of staring at it and you don't know if this is valuable or not valuable. So when I was teaching at the university, there were the three A's that I would look at. One is attainable which asks if the data that you're trying to capture is easy to get? Is it easy to analyze and then can you take action on it, why are you going to look at data that you can't even take action on? Is it going to tell you a story that's going to say, we're on the right track or the wrong track? Going back to what is it that you're trying to achieve and then figure out what is the tactics that we're putting in place to achieve this goal, and then align your measurements with those specific tactics. That's going to help you get clear on is this data actionable? Those are easy for the hard numbers, which are cost, profit revenue, the size of your pipeline. The hard analytics are actually what we refer to as the soft numbers. Those show that people know you, like you, and trust you, that you've increased engagement, that you have customer loyalty, that you're building relationships and rapport. That's what we're all trying to do in the digital space, but it's really hard to measure. There is no easy way to do that, but a couple of things that we look at from a brand awareness standpoint are if you have an increase in your website traffic, that means new visitors. Customer loyalty, then you're looking at repeat visitors or does your email subscriber list grow because people want to hear from you? Lead generation is an easy one, do you have more conversions on your forms or not? So it's just really taking a look at what is it that you're trying to achieve and what data points are going to be helpful and telling you if you're on the right track or the wrong track?    Erin: Many of our listeners are probably in B2B sales, most likely in manufacturing and industry. We'll be talking about digital transformation in an upcoming episode, but I'd like to touch on the topic of transitioning from a heavily trade-show, site visit-oriented sales strategy to incorporating more digital social selling techniques. Do you have any stories from the field of where this has gone well and where it has maybe not yet quite penetrated?   Kris: So I shared with you that I do think trade shows still have a lot of value for having that personal touch. But of course, we haven't had trade shows for the last 18 months and they're just kind of coming back. But I think it's taught us that there are other ways to connect with people as well. So I do think all of the social opportunities are really important. What we found can be helpful is sending a message through LinkedIn, because often, and I do think this is true, I mean, it's been 10 years since I worked as a manufacturer. But when I was a manufacturer, I was very busy with my job and I was not hanging out on LinkedIn like I am today as a vendor or service provider to a manufacturer. To even get their attention, I like the trigger of the message because if they have their notifications turned on that message typically will send them an email or some notification, and then there's a stronger likelihood that they're going to read it. So then they've been brought there and now we can at least have a conversation or deepen that relationship like I talked about earlier. The second thing that we've been doing is inviting people to follow us and that's how we've grown our followers. That simple invitation just to ask if they want to learn more industry-related content to follow up on LinkedIn is going to help. From doing that, each month, our followers are increasing. So the simple ask, which is something we just started doing, I would say five months ago, we've been building the followers every month thereafter. Now I will say that the actual conversation from social is slower to achieve. Even if they've accepted the connection request, and they followed us, it does not mean that they're ready for a conversation. So anybody out there, don't expect that that's going to happen quickly. Most people aren't ready yet to have that conversation, they still want to learn about you and your company, and that's where hopefully you get to really shine. They establish that connection with you over time and when they're ready, they will reach out to you. So the actual physical conversation takes a bit more time.   Lori: I love what Kris said about first creating the ask because so many people forget to do that snd that's the most important part. Everyone is running around crazy and has shiny objects in every direction so the simple ask to follow us is actually extremely beneficial, because they may have wanted to do that, but just forgot. So sometimes as the asker, just tell, go follow us. It's extremely powerful, but yet so simple and so many people are missing that opportunity. But what you're talking about, Kris is really what's changed in the whole selling process, actually, and the experience of, I'm going to meet you for the first time at a trade show, and you came to my booth because there was something that intrigued you and then we're going to start a conversation because you're really interested in that. But now what's happening, and I like to relate it to the old school newspaper about how every single newspaper had car ads in it every single week. The reason is that the car salespeople want to make sure that when you are ready to buy, their brand is in front of you. It's the same thing with what's happening in the b2b, social selling space. It's not that I'm going to be a hard sales pitch, I'm going to constantly be knocking on your door, rather, I'm going to continue to be top of mind, and continue to provide valuable information and showcase my expertise so that when the time is ready, that you want to buy, or at least start that conversation, I've already proven myself so we're further along in the sales process than if we just had that conversation at that tradeshow booth because we've already done all of the information of proving expertise, and providing value. I've experienced this, and I've seen some of our clients experienced this and it's just fascinating to see. I'm going in thinking it's a discovery call, and I'm doing all my homework and they're like, "We're ready, tell us where to sign," and my mind just gets blown. It goes back to what Kris said about making sure that you have the right people following you and telling the people that you want to be learning from you following you so that you are establishing that trust so that when they are ready to buy, there's no doubt in their mind who they're reaching out to.   Erin: You can't talk about social selling without also talking about content. Lori, this is your wheelhouse, and Kris, you've demonstrated a mastery of content production. Why do you think content is so important to social selling and how can our listeners up their content game?   Kris: We had decided that content would be an opportunity to share our thought leadership in the space. I do think that I think very simply, and I try to write very simply as well, I'm not trying to sound smart, just share my experience, and hopefully, that becomes the most useful. But the way we've been able to publish so much content is that we decided that we wanted to increase our brand awareness and lead generation, and we were going to do that through content. So what we did is we set goals on the amount of content that we would create each month, the number of posts that we would put on LinkedIn, the number of articles we would write, the number of blogs, the number of articles we would submit to publications and hope that they share for us as well, and video creation. So even if it's snippets of me participating with somebody else, we have accounts, and we're going to achieve that. What's happened is it's forced us to research, to explore different topics, to share our experiences, and for me, it's forced me to say yes to a lot of things that historically I probably would not have done because it would be outside my comfort zone. We really thought that this was important because if we were going to increase our brand awareness, people had to know how our employees thought about how we could help other manufacturers. I learned from my team, from our customer experiences, and then, of course, I have my own life experiences. So combining all of that together goes into that creation process and that's really how we've been able to do it. I have to tell you, we started it in 2020. We've been in business for 10 years and for eight of those years, we really did no marketing, it was word of mouth. Of course, we had a website, but we weren't trying to drive people to it, but in 2020, we sat down, we wrote our goals, and we have been achieving them consistently since. Thankfully, we had done that because the pandemic would have forced us to go there anyway. But then we already had a plan, we were already in the middle of it and we just kept going.   Lori: For me, it's all about building a plan and I really liked that Kris and her team fleshed out the plan and defined some clear goals because at the end of the day, if you're just making assumptions, and just randomly throwing stuff out there, the location, the message, you don't know if it's actually going to be doing its job and serving its purpose. When it comes to what content and where to post it, you have to go deep into your customer and figure out what is that pain. This is something you both kind of addressed already in figuring out, not necessarily the pain that you're assuming that you have the solution that they're coming to you, it's understanding the pain and how they're thinking about it and using the same messaging across that space. Then, more importantly, fix the message, get it right, and then understand where to position it. So you can just put some stuff all over the place. A lot of people just jump in and assume that these are the platforms because they're the most popular platforms that they should be on there. But the reality is, you have to really understand your customer and figure out where are they hanging out online and then you decide do I want to go wide or do I want to go deep? Do I want to go deep in that platform and really own that platform and be the thought leader on that platform or do I want my message spread across a number of different platforms? We all know that time is money and you only have so many resources at the end of the day so I'm a fan of picking and starting with one platform and going deep on that and really building a strong following in that space. You guys talk about that you're on clubhouse and some other platforms right now and I love clubhouse and I was fascinated with it, but I realized I don't have the time to invest in that. I'm spreading myself way too thin, and I just can't do it. I'll jump on as guests on people's shows every once in a while but I know that there is value there and it's very powerful, but we've already invested in other channels and I think that's the mistake that a lot of people make is they're spreading themselves way too thin. Then there are lots of strategies around repurposing content. People are fearful that they're always having to think of something new to create, but at the end of the day, they didn't realize, well, you've been doing this for 10 years, you probably have emails that have content that you've written to just responding to someone's question and there's a blog post or a social media post in that email. You've already got it written, there's no reason to have to wreck your head and ask, what do I write about today? The answers are in front of you. It's simply the questions that people have asked you and if one person asked you it, there are likely 100 other people asking that same question looking for it online somewhere.   Erin: My favorite podcaster always asks his guests for three book recommendations at the end of every interview. I find the answers fascinating and helpful. So I'll bring the same question to you: What are three books you think our listeners should know about?   Lori: Oh, this is such a fun question. I used to teach at the local university and on the last day there's a series of books that I would put out and I said, "No matter what, keep teaching yourself, keep learning, keep reading, and here are some books I highly recommend." So the top three: The One Thing by Gary Keller. I've actually re-read that one about three or four times now and it's all about, identifying your goal, and then asking yourself, what is the one thing that I can do today to help me achieve that goal? The next one is Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. He interviewed a ton of extremely successful individuals to identify their trends and what their morning routines were like and found six things that were consistent. Not necessarily all six per person, but he put those six and built a morning routine. There's an acronym for it which is SAVERS. So it's silence, which is meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing, which is journaling. I implemented his philosophy and it changed so many different things, and my mental state and productivity. I don't do all six anymore, but I found what works for me. The last one is a business book geared towards either leadership teams or business owners called Traction by Gino Wickman. It's really about the philosophy of running what's called the entrepreneurial operating system. It serves as a way to really be strategic in your business and have some structure around it.   Kris: I have to tell you that I'm a learner by nature. So every test that I take, I just love to learn, and for 25 years of my career, I would say to people that you could find me in the Self Help section of the bookstore because that's where I always found the best books and then, of course, the business section. But I have to tell you, and since this is Manufacturing Mavens, I thought I would just touch on a few books because I've really been into the lives of women lately and I've either read or listened to a lot of memoirs. The first is Untamed by Glennon Doyle which is a must-read or must listen to book. Just As I Am by Cicely Tyson is another one. She just recently passed away at 96 years old and she is a phenomenal African American woman who really took care of her career in the movies that she participated and I didn't know her life, I didn't know her life story. It's encouraged me to study African American History in a different way than I ever wanted to participate in the past. So I really enjoyed listening to her book and I've gone back to listen or read it multiple times just because she just has beautiful stories that make you want to be a better human or take a real position on things as well. Right now, I am listening to All In by Billie Jean King and she is reading it herself. Obviously not a trained reader of books, but it's her life and her life story. I wasn't old enough to watch her play tennis and she was kind of winding down her career when I was born, but she's been a female activist for many years. I'm a sports person by nature and I love everything about participating and competing and in team sports, particularly, but I'm listening to her story and all the things that they overcame, and how they signed a contract for $1, it's pretty remarkable. So I won't give too many things away, but those are some really good ones that I've read recently or listened to that have changed me in some way!   Thank you for listening to part one of our 3-part series. In the next episode, the Manufacturing Mavens will dive into the digital transformation currently occurring in the manufacturing space. Reach out to Lori if you're interested more about strategic digital marketing, reach out to Kris if you want to learn more about manufacturing eCommerce solutions, and reach out to Erin if you're interested in learning more about manufacturing consulting services.   Head to keystoneclick.com/mavens to learn more about your hosts and their exclusive offerings available for Mavens listeners! 

Lori introduces us to her company Keystone Click which is a strategic digital marketing agency. We dive into how you can understand and improve your customers buying journey, the tools you can deploy throughout that process, what most businesses get wrong when they try to improve the customer journey, and so much more. Show Links: https://www.keystoneclick.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorihighby/ https://www.youtube.com/keystoneclick https://www.facebook.com/keystoneclick

Lori HIghby joins Liza to talk about the power of networking and how profitable relationships are built in business.

It's worth making the investment in people that are really good at their job. You focus on what you are really good at and your expertise. Hire those attorneys, HR professionals, the marketers, whatever holes that you have. Make the investment on the front end because it's going to actually save you time and money down the road vs. you trying to figure it out on your own. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-inventive-journey/message

Lori Highby is the founder and CEO of digital marketing agency Keystone Click.  But, what is digital marketing?  Kimberly is about to find out.   Show Notes: Keystone Click Bamboo Reach Grattitude App Apple Watch Episode Sponsor: Repourd Candle Factory

Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. LORI'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “To figure out the content to create, keep a list of the questions that people ask you. If you're hesitant or not sure what to write about, the next question that either a client or prospective client asks you, it's a great starting point for you to take that and turn it into a piece of content that you share it on LinkedIn, or write a blog post or something along those lines. It's a great starting point.  Another tip I would say is just go in your sent email. You've likely answered some of these questions in an email already. You've already got half of that post written then for you [laughs]. 

When was the last time you changed your B2B marketing strategy? Are you missing out on some big B2B marketing opportunities just because you haven't fully embraced the latest channels? How do you most effectively target B2B consumers in 2021? Those are just some of the questions that I'm going to be asking my guest today. She teaches B2B sales and marketing. She's a speaker, podcaster and blogger, and the Founder of Keystone Click - a strategic digital marketing agency that's been established for over 12 years. Welcome to DMR - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorihighby/ (Lori Highby) from https://www.keystoneclick.com/ (Keystone Click). 'Secret Software':(Share a lesser-known martech tool that's bringing you a lot of value at the moment and why that tool's important for you.) https://lumen5.com/ 'Magical Marketer':(Who's an up-and coming marketer that you'd like to give a shout out to, what can we learn from them and where can we find them?) https://www.linkedin.com/in/exponentialinfluence/

Lauren Ruff, Assistant Vice President and Marketing Director with Ixonia Bank, sits down with Lori Highby, Founder and Owner of Keystone Click, a women-owned digital marketing agency located in Milwaukee, to discuss what online efforts a small business should consider.A company or organization needs to both think about what solutions they provide and how people seek those solutions online. Hear Lori discuss the many ways to promote your business and the products and services you provide, as well as some of the emerging digital trends she and her colleagues are seeing at Keystone Click.Need more information?To learn more about Ixonia Bank and our solutions, we encourage you to visit our website at: https://www.ixoniabank.com/about-us/To learn more about Keystone Click or to visit their resource library, please visit: https://www.keystoneclick.com/...DISCLAIMER – The INSIGHTS by Ixonia Bank Podcast is for informational purposes only and any recommendation made herein does not take into account the specific investment objectives, financial situation or particular needs of any particular person. Whilst the information provided here is believed to be reliable, it has not been independently verified by us. The views expressed herein may change without notice and may differ from those views expressed by other Ixonia Bank personnel. This should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Before making any investment, you should carefully seek appropriate independent legal, tax and regulatory advice. Member FDIC | Equal Housing Lender | NMLS# 423065Copyright: Ixonia Bank 2021

The weekly marketing podcast, More than a Few Words is hosted by Lorraine Ball and features conversations with professionals from around the world. Many business owners assume they know the answer. They believe they don't need research, but Lori Highby thinks that's a mistake.When you are making assumptions, it is like shooting darts in the dark. You may hit the target, but the majority of those darts are going to hit the wall or break a window. If you start with the facts, really get into the head of who your target customer you can craft a plan based on data and insight. Now you have a strategy to get the right message in front of the right people so they want to do business with you.  ABOUT LORI HIGHBY With a core personal value of lifelong-learning, Lori Highby has shared creative and strategic digital marketing, personal branding, and entrepreneurship lessons with people and organizations from allover. Her 20 years experience, education, and involvement range from currently owning a digital marketing agency, Keystone Click, being the 2013 recipient of the “Bravo! Entrepreneur Award” from BizTimes Media, teaching undergraduate students as an adjunct professor at UW-Milwaukee, and serving on numerous boards including the Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin.   She is also the host of the Social Capital Podcast.  

With a core personal value of lifelong-learning, Lori Highby has shared creative and strategic digital marketing, personal branding, and entrepreneurship lessons with people and organizations from all over. Her 20 years experience, education, and involvement range from currently owning a digital marketing agency, Keystone Click, being the 2013 recipient of the “Bravo! Entrepreneur Award” from BizTimes Media, teaching undergraduate students as an adjunct professor at UW-Milwaukee, and serving on numerous boards including the Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin. Lori earned her Bachelor's Degree in Business & Marketing from Marian University and her MBA from Cardinal Stritch University.   What I want to talk about is your story and how you got to the place you are now. Let our audience know how you've got to be the expert you are. I was going to school to school for commercial art and graphic design. And I found I was working full time at a web development company while I was going to school and found that those were the marketing guys out doing all the fun things, they're going to golf outings, taking clients to lunch where the designers were just sitting at their desk, day in and day out. I'm like, I don't want to be doing that. At the same time, I was also taking a sociology course. I was really fascinated by how messages and visuals can really impact a decision that someone makes and that really comes down to marketing. So I shifted my educational direction to be in marketing, while also working full time. I was at this agency for about five years. I was doing SEO and PPC and email marketing before those were common acronyms in the space. And then actually went to a traditional marketing firm, where I was doing outdoor radio print for quite some time. They brought me on because they wanted to start tapping into the digital space a little bit. They weren't as eager as they had initially sold it. So while I learned a ton about traditional marketing and advertising, I found that my true passion is really in the digital space, because so many cool things can be done, and it's constantly evolving. In 2008, I decided to start my own shop. When I did start, I was just going to do websites, because that was something that I knew a lot about. I found that over time someone would ask me after we built the site, now how do we get found on Google? And I would just tell them what to do, because I knew how to do it. And or they'd say Facebook's coming up, and they're like, should my business be on Facebook? And I'd say, yeah, this is how you do it. So eventually, my clients were coming back and saying, Well, can you do this for me? Because they don't want to be doing it. So eventually we've evolved to become more of a strategic digital marketing agency. It was never a smooth path. I know this podcast is very much about overcoming the challenges that we faced. And I went in and started a business because I love marketing, and I'm passionate about it. Understanding the financials is something that I'd say, is probably one of my weakest areas. And I'm heading to a two-day workshop to better myself in this. I think that's one of the things that as a professional, and a leader is we continually need to be educating ourselves, while also aligning ourselves with those that have the strengths that are our weaknesses. It's still good to consistently be adding knowledge to our buckets. In the space that we're in digital marketing, there's new things happening all the time. We are constantly educating ourselves.   What was it like when you hired your first team member? I had no idea what I was doing. That's definitely another area where I invested some time to be properly trained. To be properly trained first on the interviewing process, I had someone coached me on how to conduct behavioral interviewing, and that significantly changed how I do interviewing. And now our interviewing process is no different than, like the sales pipeline process. It's a funnel. You have this big bucket of candidates and you have different levels of activities that you're engaging with them on to see who's going to move on to that next level. Please share the interview process you use. We will post a job that's available out on a number of channels that align with our industry. And we use a platform called Workable.com. It acts like a sales funnel, but you set the stages for the different candidates that you have. Then we do a phone interview where we ask them the same 10 questions. It's a quick 10-minute call. But the process for them scheduling the interview is one of the tests. You qualified yourself right away. The next phase, based on how that phone interview went, is what we typically like to do an in person, but now it's via zoom. It's more of a deeper conversation with some additional team members. I'm not in it at that point. It's more making sure that the team is comfortable with the personality of that individual. It's extremely important that we maintain a positive culture and workplace. And then I conduct the behavioral interview if they pass that stage, and then we also will do a skills assessment. Pending on what their role is, we want to make sure that they can actually do what it is that they say they can do. You gave me a little sneak preview on how we can be very focused in our messaging. We want to help the person that we can really give the best results. But we have to have our messaging on target. So then that way, they know we can provide the solution for them. Tip #1 - Conduct research in order to build a solid marketing plan together. And obviously, in today's day, and age content is the fuel around that. First and foremost you need to know what it is that you're trying to achieve. So earlier today, I had a phone call with a prospective client of ours, and she wants us to run some Facebook ads with her. So what is the goal? What do you what do you want to happen? She wasn't able to give me a clear answer. How do you define success if you don't even know what it is that you're trying to achieve? You need to know where you're trying to go. What is the goal that you're trying to achieve? Before you can build your plan anywhere. I always like to relate to it like a GPS. We have our end destination, we plug it into the phone, and you get a couple route options. And you may end up getting a detour, which I'd say 2020 is a great detour for all of us. If at the very least, and this is why I really emphasize having that plan, you've got part of the way to your goal and objective. So it's easier to follow that detour to help you achieve that goal that you have at the end of the day. Or maybe you just tweak the goal slightly, but you really need to know where you are today and where you want to be. When I say where are you today, some of the things that you really should be looking at are your website analytics. How much traffic is coming to your site? How are people finding you? I look at the forms on your website and see how many conversions you have. As far as social media followers, what type of engagement you have. The size of your email list is going to be extremely important to take a look at as well as the open rates. If you have videos, a good metric to look at is the time watched on your videos. Then just high level looking at your content. Where are you distributing your content? What is the message that's being conveyed? And then you're just looking at those end results. You want to know where you are today. Where is it that you want to get to, and then that's when you build your roadmap on how it is you're going to achieve that. Tip #2 - Take a look at your competition. I don't want you to put too much thought into this, that you're constantly looking at them. But when you're looking at that that destination that you're trying to reach, it's really good to see what competition you have out there and take a look at what they're doing. We typically recommend looking at about three to five competitors. You want to look at where are they showing up online? What channels on social media? Are they sending out newsletters? Are they blogging? And what is it that they're saying? Is there a consistent message that's being conveyed? Or are they just kind of all over the place? What type of content are they publishing that people are engaging with? You also want to take a look at how they are showing up in the search engines. When you are Googling for your offering, and your competitor shows up, but you don't, that may give you some insight into what they're doing on their website and the type of content that they're creating. You can also take a look at what kind of ads they're buying. On LinkedIn, and Facebook, you can type in any company's name, their page on those channels, and see what ads that they've been doing. Tip #3 - Really understand your customer. And there's an exercise that we like to do with our clients, which is to identify who your favorite customer is to work with. Try to get inside their head and you want to understand what is their biggest pain? What are their values? What's important to them? Who is it that they're trying to impress? And why is this important? Understanding the ins and outs of that ideal customer is going to be extremely important. But at the end of the day, you really want to know what is it exactly that they want from you. You can conduct this research on your own or you can find a third party. I find when we do this, we get a lot more information, if we're speaking to our clients customer, as opposed to them getting it direct. You want to understand when the third party is involved, they can ask additional questions like how they found you. Why do they keep buying from you? Do they refer you business? Why or why not? You also want to ask some non-business questions like what social media channels are you on? Do you listen to any podcasters? Do you subscribe to any newsletters and just better understand what your ideal customer is doing as an individual and a human being. The better that you can understand that customer, where they're hanging out online, what pains they have, you can ultimately craft content and position it in the right spot to attract that ideal customer to you. I want you to go back to the ideal client, because I know we kind of breezed by that and you are on point with we've got to get inside their head, but why is it important? If you're trying to help the world and help everyone, you're helping no one unfortunately. I can build a website for anybody. But we very clearly state that we pursue and target the B2B industrial manufacturer. We've done websites for all walks of life. But when you're trying to attract a certain type of person, you need to be very clear and concise in that messaging. What you want is someone to land on your site or see a post and go, this is exactly what I'm looking for. And if you're not clearly conveying that you're confusing them. You can have multiple segments that you pursue, but you just have to make sure that you're clearly communicating that you work with a, b, and c type companies. You don't work with everybody. Lori's Free Gift: My team and I have put together this Guide to Profits. It's fantastic. It's got 42 ways to help build brand awareness generate leads and nurture those opportunities online. As a printed very nicely bound booklet, or as a PDF. Free Gift Link: http://www.keystoneclick.com/profit “You want to have clarity in your message, and you want to make it easy for the right client to find you.” – Lori Highby

This week, I've got no guest, it's a solo cast. I'm going to be talking to you about building a blog that provides real value.   The Importance of having a blog? I want to dive into the importance of writing a blog. I mean, what is a blog at the end of the day? What I want to share is that a blog is literally fuel for the search engine fire. It's giving you more content to share on social media, it's providing and proving your expertise. Studies have indicated that businesses that are actively blogging acquire more customers because they have a stronger brand presence online. It ultimately allows you to level the playing field and helps you to get to know your target audience and it helps your target audience to get to know you.    The Keystone Click Blog:   I look at our Google Analytics, I often will break it up into the different segments of the site and figure out what kind of elements of our site are driving the most traffic. Historically, there is a blog post that continues to show up as one of the top-visited pages on our website. Now, what's fascinating is that this post was written in 2014. So this blog post was written by one of my team members. It likely took her maybe about three hours, that's on average, what we budget per blog post, to do a little research and writes and then published it, and now today, it still drives traffic to our site.   What Should you Write About?   First and foremost, start with the top questions that are asked of you, from your customer base when you're in that discovery phase when you're getting to know someone from a networking standpoint, even established clients that you have. Anytime someone is asking you a question, just write it down. Do that exercise for a week and it will give you a ton of ideas for what to write about. The reason you want to do this is that oftentimes, questions are what is being entered into search engines, people often are searching a question to find an answer or solution. So if you're writing questions, or answering questions as a form of your blog content, is going to help elevate your opportunity to be found in the search engines.   Conducting Interviews:   It's no different than a podcast but you could do a written interview, like if you were interviewing someone for a written publication of sorts. The beauty of doing this is one it gives you a lot of content that you don't need to really polish up because you can simply transcribe the conversation. Also if you have a guest that you are interviewing or you're highlighting someone else's expertise, they're likely going to share that content with their audience, which extends the reach of your blog, on your site.   The 80-20 Rule:   80% of the content that you create should be considered evergreen content. What that means is, it is a value to your audience today and tomorrow, and it was valuable yesterday. So it has a longer shelf life. Referencing that blog post that I talked about when I opened up, it was written in 2014, it is still relevant content today, therefore it is still providing value, it is still bringing visitors to our website. So identifying information, that is your expertise that will work for a long time, as opposed to saying, "Hey, we've got a special going on that ends on Friday," that is considered time-sensitive content.   Leveraging your Team and Partners:   If it's more than just you or even if you have resources, partners that you work with, they all have different areas of expertise. Ask them what types of questions they're being asked, and understand their expertise a little bit. Maybe you take the approach of answering the questions that are being asked, but taking the interview approach and interviewing your team and partners to get the solid answers   Identify what your Core Offering is:   Identify what your core offering is, and then make a list of the eight types of questions that people could potentially ask related to that offering. So, for example, we offer website design services, website design, and development. So that would be my core offering that I'd put here and then I'm going to look at the who question. Who am I going to be working with? Who's my main point of contact? Who's actually designing the site? Who on my team needs to be involved in this project? Then you look at the what questions. What kind of features am I going to have on my website? What kind of training Am I going to get with my website? What kind of materials do you need from me? Then look at the why questions. Why should we use WordPress content management system? Why should we have our site on Squarespace? Why should I renew my domain name for 10 years? Next up are the when questions. When is my site can be done? When do you need me to learn to sign off on things? Then come the where questions. We'll look at how questions. How do I make edits to my sites? How do I know that the site is safe and secure? Next up are the which questions. Which image is going to be better? Which color palettes? Which fines should I be using? Which content management system should I have? Which hosting provider? Then the last question is a yes or no question. So you identify that core offering product service, whatever it is, you look at the eight questions types of questions, then you just kind of brainstorm and map out what types of questions that people ask related to this offering. Every one of those 8 questions could be made into a blog post.    5 Best Practices:   Easy to Read: When you're looking at a blog or an article, it needs to include visual components that are going to help relay your message and break up the heaviness of the text. Bulleted or numbered lists, images, larger fonts to break up segments, and embedded videos are all great ways to improve the readability of a blog.  Evaluate the Strength of your Title: What you want is to make sure that it's easy for the reader to know what it is that they are clicking on. You don't want to write the blog title to be “Read our Blog,” or anything along those lines. At the end of the day, people decide to click on something because it's connecting with them on an intellectual or emotional level. A great tool to determine the strength of your blog title is the Google Headline Analyzer which will analyze the emotional marketing value of the words that are used in your title, which will give a score to that strength related to the intellectual or emotional strength. Target More Words: A best practice that we really strive for is a minimum of 800 words. You want to use words that are going to connect with your audience which means not using heavy industry jargon. Most importantly, you need to know what your audience is searching for and that's where understanding your keywords is going to be beneficial. Optimize your Posts: Your keywords should live in your title, in the body content, in the URL, in the alt tags or meta description tags, and in any links that you have embedded in your site.  Be Consistent: You have to have a plan and consistently publish content in order to maximize that exposure and maintain the trust with your audience.   Have any questions about blogging? Reach out and I’d be happy to help!   Email: lori@socialcapital.com    Join our Facebook Group: Social Capital - A Community of Trust, Reciprocity, and Relationships   Facebook Page: Social Capital with Lori Highby

Today, Lori does a solocast in which she focuses on data and analytics. She shares 3 simple rules for where you should focus your measurement efforts. Don't overwhelm yourself focus on what's easily available, confirm its accuracy, and most important is the information being collected going to allow you to make an intelligent business decision? So let's dive into available. The data you're collecting should be collected quickly, you don't want to be investing a ton of time to collect information that who knows if it's really going to help you to make some smart decisions. You don't want to expend the effort that far exceeds the value of the data. When you're looking at what you want to measure, make sure that this is something that is within an arm's reach. You can quickly export information or you're using tools that are compiling these data points. At the end of the day, you want to make sure it's available. So you've got Google Analytics or maybe you can see the number of followers on a social media channel, or subscribers to your email list, how many phone calls that you made that day. This is all data that is easily accessible. Let's look at the next one. You want to make sure it's accurate information. So we've all heard this phrase garbage in is garbage out. Well, at the end of the day, if the information that you're putting into a system is not accurate, the outcome of that information is not going to be accurate either. So much of reported marketing and sales data does not stand up to scrutiny. It's estimated, extrapolated and decimated to try and produce pertinent conclusions. You want to make sure that you have accurate information in order to be able to help tell the story that's being told with that information. Verify that your Google Analytics are set up properly and test that information. Confirm that when you have email subscribers on your list that they're not spam emails that are being plugged in. You want to make sure it's accurate information that's being used. And the third item related to data is that it's actionable. You never want to waste time collecting data of minor value. You want to make sure that the data you collect is meaningful and has the potential of moving the needle on your marketing and sales goals. I have a thing that we practice here. Ss this action going to help us move the needle? Is this information going to help us move the needle in the right direction? So are you going to analyze the information and become paralyzed and without being able to make an intelligent business decision? That's the goal at the end of the day when looking at data and analyzing the information you want to be able to make a fairly quick, I would say, but an intelligent business decision. If you need help with your data, diving into it, helping you figure out which specific items to measure, making sure they're easily available to you, confirming that the data that you have is accurate. And also, making sure that it's actionable, feel free to reach out. www.keystoneclick.com/  is my company. And this is what we do - digital marketing at its finest. This was a quick tip, fast episode, hopefully that adds a lot of value to you and your day. I'm happy to do more solo casts and if you have any questions that you'd like me to answer related to marketing, building relationships to help you achieve your business and sales goals, shoot me an email at Lori@SocialCapitalPodcast.com and I will gladly answer your questions.

Episode 64 is live!

Today Lori’s solocast is on Digital Marketing Research Fundamentals. Now this is important because networking is all about building relationships and connections and likely for more reasons than not it’s because of business. And business comes down to understanding who that audience is that you want to be communicating with. So why is research important when we're talking about a marketing strategy? Well, the definition of research, according to Wikipedia, is research comprises of creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications. So if you think about this, you're going to be spending more time and money experimenting before you're getting things done, versus moving forward and doing the research to help you focus on where should you be targeting, where should you be investing your time. A lot of the guests that we have on the show talk about being very strategic in the events that they attend or the organizations that they're a part of and in hopes of aligning themselves to get in front of the right people. Let's start with yourself, you really need to know who you are. What is it that you stand for? What problems are you solving for the world? Why should people want to connect with you? You want some sort of distinction that you don't want them to turn to a competitor. You don't want them to think twice about going anywhere else. You want them to believe that they are getting the right thing. They're having the right conversation with the right person at the right time. Ready for more? Listen in as Lori goes more in depth on how to apply digital marketing research to YOUR business!

Lori Highby owns a marketing firm, she's a public speaker, and she's an adjunct professor at a local university. All three work together giving her compounded results. She has a plan to retire early and you'll hear, she's well on her way. Contact Lori at lori.highby@keystoneclick.com https://www.keystoneclick.com For more episodes go to: https://paybacktime.pro/podcast/ For wealth coaching services go to: https://paybacktime.pro/coaching/ If you want to increase your annual returns in the stock market go to: https://tykr.pro

Join me and my guest Lori Highby as we discuss the value and power of building relationships, protecting your network and making quality connections.  Lori has some great strategies for building a personal brand, digital marketing and entrepreneurship which she shares with her client base through her marketing agency. Lori can be found here:   lori.highby@keystoneclick.com https://guidetoprofits.keystoneclick.com/guide-to-profits  (for FREE guide)  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorihighby/ https://lorihighby.com (podcast)  414.810.6650 I began my career as a teacher, was a corporate trainer for many years, and then found my niche training & supporting business owners, entrepreneurs & sales professionals to network at a world-class level.  My passion is working with motivated people, who are coachable and who want to build their businesses through relationship marketing and networking (online & offline).  I help my clients create retention strategies, grow through referrals, and create loyal customers by staying connected.   In appreciation for being here, I have a couple of gifts for you.   A LinkedIn Checklist for setting up your fully optimized Profile: http://janiceporter.com/download-checklist.html   An opportunity to test drive the Follow Up system I recommend by sending a FREE greeting card (on me): sendacardeverytime.com   Connect with me: http://JanicePorter.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/janiceporter/ https://www.facebook.com/JanicePorterBiz https://twitter.com/janiceporter   Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a note in the comment section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. You can also subscribe from the podcast app on your mobile device. Leave us an iTunes review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on iTunes, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on iTunes.  

04-04-20 Small Business Showcase: Lori Highby of Keystone Click

Lori is the big man on campus, the big kahuna, the boss lady! She keeps the team energized and on track and brings in new opportunities. Outside of the office, Lori enjoys staying active by playing ice hockey and bike riding! Golden nuggets: • Be consistent • Be ready for the unexpected • Your brand is the impression other people have of you Keys to success: 1. Relationship building 2. Have integrity Actionable tip: 1. Every business should be blogging Inspiration: “Your Gratitude will carry you to contentment” - Elzie D. Flenard III Connect with Lori: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/keystoneclick Twitter: https://twitter.com/keystoneclick LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/keystone-click Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keystoneclick/ Website: https://www.keystoneclick.com/

Summary Lori discusses the importance of connecting with others, and building relationships is a critical part of an entrepreneur. It’s all about Lori A fifteen-year veteran of marketing, branding and entrepreneurship—and founder of the Milwaukee-based digital agency Keystone Click (http://www.keystoneclick.com) —Lori knows first-hand what it is like to be overwhelmed by options in the marketing world. As a young marketer, Lori found that when it came to digital marketing, she had to connect the dots herself, on the job. This learning journey gave her a lifelong passion for helping others sort through their own bewildering array of digital promotion options and find ones that work for them. My favorite takeaways from this week’s episode: Get a mentor now! Be a connector Meeting new people is the best Connect Social Capital Podcast (https://lorihighby.com/social-capital-podcast) Lori (https://lorihighby.com/) Highby Keystone Click (https://keystoneclick.com/) Sponsors Love the podcast? Sign up for listener support (https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=meRj5eLgZJUhKpnrjgEssosEnFZmyuGnN5GDB6pvkWcXZG_tee5SDOCK2BYCnuj6tPavTW&country.x=US&locale.x=US) , you’re basically buying me a coffee each month. EXACTA Corporation (https://myexactamundo.com/WP1/) Think Possibilities Think EXACTA     Be the first to be notified of new interviews     Support this podcast

Today we have our amazing guest, Tori Highby, who we have been talking about a little this week. Our podcast will be going into what Tori does, how she got to where she is and about her life story. Few things about her, -Owner of "Keystone Click" has been doing this since 2008 -Hosts a podcast called "Social Capital" where she interviews professionals and executives across the country on the topic of networking. - She was the 2013 Bravo! Entrepreneur Award Recipient from BizTimes Magazine - An adjunct professor at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee campus, teaching B2B Marketing If you liked this podcast, connect more with Lori Highby at: https://lorihighby.com/ www.instagram.com/ljhighby www.facebook.com/socialcapitalwithlorihighby ———————————————————————————————————— Connect more with your host Samuel Knickerbocker at: https://www.facebook.com/ssknickerbocker/?ref=profile_intro_card https://www.instagram.com/ssknickerbocker/ https://howmoneyworks.com/samuelknickerbocker If this resonates with you and you would like to learn more please LIKE, COMMENT, & SHARE ———————————————————————————————————— Click The Link Bellow To Join My Legacy Builders Mastermind https://www.facebook.com/groups/254031831967014/ ———————————————————————————————————— Want to regain your financial confidence and begin building your legacy? In this ebook you will learn: - The 9 Pillars To Build A Legacy - Clarify you “why” - Create Daily Action Steps To Launch Forward Want Sam’s FREE E-BOOK? Claim your access here! >>> The 9 Pillars To Build A Legacy ————————————————————————————————————

Today and this week we are going to be pointing out, The massive issues in business development/growth and the importance of creating a successful online campaign. Making sure we are not just doing things to do them but having an end goal. How important reverse engineering is and how to do it. Wednesday: Book Review on "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" By: Stephen R. Covey That will teach us a lot about launching ourselves into things we love. Friday: We will have amazing, Lori Highby, come talk to us about her story and advice about the things we will talk about this week. ———————————————————————————————————— Connect more with your host Samuel Knickerbocker at: https://www.facebook.com/ssknickerbocker/?ref=profile_intro_card https://www.instagram.com/ssknickerbocker/ https://howmoneyworks.com/samuelknickerbocker If this resonates with you and you would like to learn more please LIKE, COMMENT, & SHARE ———————————————————————————————————— Click The Link Bellow To Join My Legacy Builders Mastermind https://www.facebook.com/groups/254031831967014/ ———————————————————————————————————— Want to regain your financial confidence and begin building your legacy? In this ebook you will learn: - The 9 Pillars To Build A Legacy - Clarify you “why” - Create Daily Action Steps To Launch Forward Want Sam’s FREE E-BOOK? Claim your access here! >>> The 9 Pillars To Build A Legacy ————————————————————————————————————

Coach Jackie is joined by business owner, podcaster, digital marketing expert, and all around awesome gal Lori Highby, owner of Keystone Click to talk all things digital marketing! Jackie and Lori discuss the ever-changing world of online marketing, knowing your audience, brand awareness and SO. MUCH. MORE. Seriously, you won't want to miss this one! Be sure to check out Lori's own podcast, Social Capital Podcast, when you have a chance!   https://keystoneclick.com/blog/digital-marketing/10-tips-write-blog-posts-show-google

Today, we chat with Lori Highby about recent changes Google favoring SSL certification and encryption. We also give listeners action items for the new GDPR laws.

Your host Lori Highby shares networking tips and tricks.

Lori Highby celebrates her 100th episode of Social Capital by recapping some of the most profound answers and advice to three of her favorite questions on the show.

On this episode, we will chat with Lori Highby, Principal, and CEO of Keystone Click, about how to utilize custom audiences in Facebook advertising and how to navigate through Facebook Live.

Stephen is the CEO of Predictive ROI and host of the Onward Nation podcast. He is the author of two bestselling books, speaker, trainer, and his digital marketing insights have been featured in SUCCESS, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and other media. Good Morning Onward Nation -- how can this be episode 188 already? My goodness. The time has really flown by. So before I jump into the lesson -- the purpose behind today’s solocast -- want to say some brief words of thanks. What an honor it has been to be able to be here with you five days a week -- for what is now 188 episodes. I am grateful to you, Onward Nation for listening -- for sharing all of your feedback -- all of which has pushed us to do an even better job with each and every episode. And thank you to all of our extraordinary guests -- for what our podcast -- this community of Onward Nation -- has become. Sometimes, I do feel like I need to pinch myself in the morning when I get ready to do an interview or I read my email -- Facebook -- the kind words on Twitter -- or a post on LinkedIn. Thank you, Onward Nation -- you help my team and I get better every day. I so appreciate your review and critique -- good or bad -- more than you will ever know. So thank you for sharing your time with me this morning. I also grateful for my amazing team of A Players who make up Predictive ROI -- they are the ones who are responsible for every Onward Nation episode day in and day out -- since the beginning. So thank you, Katherine, thank you, Louie, thank you, Erik, thank you, Alex, thank you, Matt, and thank you, Christine. I appreciate all of your hard work more than you will ever know. Being surrounded by my team of super committed A Players who want our business to succeed as much as I do is a wonderful feeling. But building a team of A Players didn’t happen by accident. A Players, Onward Nation, are going to be our focus this morning -- but more specifically -- how to attract, recruit, hire, and lead a team of A Players. I am also going to include several lessons that will help you avoid expensive hiring mistakes and then provide you with a recipe for attracting, recruiting, and hiring A Players into your business to make it a fast growth, high performing company -- or Gazelles, as Verne Harnish, co-founder of Gazelles Growth Institute would describe them as. I am going to share with you lessons I have learned during the last 23 years of working in a variety of companies, owning five businesses, and even spending six years as a full-time academic staff member at the University of Wisconsin -- at the La Crosse campus. I will also blend in some of the most valuable lessons and expertise shared by a few of our Onward Nation guests -- including one of my most influential mentors, Darren Hardy. All of these lessons -- these ingredients, Onward Nation -- shaped the recruiting and hiring recipes we use at Predictive ROI to grow slowly -- intentionally -- and to build a team that only consists of A Players. Does that mean that we have never made a hiring mistake? Good grief -- I wish that was the case. We definitely have those stories, too. But all in all -- our track record has been good because we have applied the lessons that I am going to share with you this morning. One last thing before we jump in -- as a free companion to today’s solocast -- I encourage you to go to OnwardNation.com/12download and get your copy of our free eBook, The 12 Success Strategies of Today’s Top Business Owners. It is a distillation of the best lessons we have learned from our guests and I will refer to one of those lessons during today’s discussion. Let’s start off with a definition to establish some common ground. What makes an A Player...an A Player? In my opinion, A Players are the team members who are not threatened by other super achievers in their midst -- in fact -- it is the exact opposite -- the more super achievers the better. A Players love to learn -- they seek out new challenges to push themselves mentally and want to be intellectually pushed by their peers. A Players are also the team members who have high emotional intelligence -- you will not typically find them caught up in unproductive conversations or at the center of some sort of office controversy. Instead, you will find them off solving mission critical problems -- or vital priorities -- by filling their vital functions -- and delivering on their vital metrics -- while proactivity reporting back to you when the priorities are accomplished. That’s an A Player, Onward Nation. And I am proud to say that Predictive ROI is packed full of them. Lori Highby, two-time guest of Onward Nation recently said to me, “Stephen, I think an A Player is someone who is passionate about the work being done, someone who never stops learning, and someone who is driven towards to success.” Couldn’t agree more with Lori. The passion Lori describes is essential because -- look -- work is hard -- it is demanding -- the hours are long -- and sometimes the schedule is unforgiving. And if your team members don’t have a passion for the work, and they don’t really love it, or they don’t love you and what you stand for -- they will not stay for very long -- or if they do stay -- you will not be getting their A level work. And A Players will not tolerate that type of situation for long -- they want to work with other A Players so the passion you so loved having in your company -- will also be the same passion that pushes them to move on to a different venture. And perhaps that new venture might also provide a path for continual learning. A Players want to be challenged by conferences, by seminars, by workshops, by other forums where they can meet their fellow A Player peers and be challenged in a fast-paced, compressed, learning environment. And when the education component is provided to an A Player -- it becomes easier for them to see how the time they are investing into your company, Onward Nation -- is contributing to their long-term success. Don Yaeger, also a two-time guest at Onward Nation, described an A Player to me as someone who wants to work with other A Players -- but -- and this is an important distinction that I had never heard before Don shared it with me, Onward Nation -- Don shared with me that A Players don’t frighten other A Players. A Players are not intimidated by other A Players -- INSTEAD -- they are energized by the possibilities -- they are energized by the professional competition -- by the ambitious drive to make each other better. Not to beat out the other person but in making each other better so the collective team is better, stronger, as a result. Oh, AWESOME!!! Steve Jobs famously said, “A Players hire A Players and B Players hire C Players. We only want A Players here at Apple.” I think he was really right with this. Can you think of a couple of A Players on your team who are doing that right now for you, Onward Nation -- or -- can you think of a time when you and a fellow A Player professionally competed with one another? Where you cheered each other on -- you celebrated each other’s wins -- you helped each other through the losses -- and in the process -- you made each other better. That was an awesome feeling, wasn’t it? Why not create it again inside your own company -- if you’re not currently experiencing it. And then Shane Stott -- another a two-time guest on Onward Nation -- got really specific with me and shared what he believes are four “qualifiers” that A Players fill...think of them as pre-requisites -- if you can’t put a checkbox next to each of these when thinking about a particular person -- they are likely not an A Player. First -- they manage themselves better than you could. A Players do not need you looking over their shoulders or micromanaging their work. In fact, that type of managerial style is the perfect recipe for pushing A Players out of your company. Instead -- define your expectations -- provide the resources -- and then get the heck out of the way of your A Players. They will move heaven and earth to exceed your highest expectations! Second -- A Players bring new ideas and direction continuously. A Players tend to be idea and solution machines. They are looking for new ways to challenge the status quo -- to push -- to move mountains. They are proactive, Onward Nation...love that word...it is my favorite in the English language...and it is so easy to spot on an A Player! Third -- A Players are an active study themselves -- meaning -- they are always learning like we discussed earlier. So, Onward Nation -- you need to create an education plan -- some structure -- so they know where and when you will be providing educational opportunities. If you don’t -- they may misunderstand your lack of specific direction or leadership in this area to be ambivalence -- and then your A Players will be polishing up their resumes. And Fourth -- they don’t take things personally. A Players recognize the mission and purpose of what they are working on is bigger than them -- there is no ego in the work -- and consequently, when something fails, or an idea doesn’t work -- they don’t take it personally and their confidence is shattered in the process. That doesn’t happen with A Players. Each win or each loss is simply a series of data points from which many things can be learned -- and applied -- so that future work is enhanced and better as a result. So there you have it, Onward Nation -- a complete and thorough description of A Players -- a detailed avatar if you will of the elusive team members you want to hire. And as Jim Collins, author of Good to Great famously said, “The single most important thing you need to do is pick the right people and keep them. There is nothing more important than this.” So the next step in today’s solocast that I wanted to share with you was a specific recipe for attracting and hiring A Players. How do we do this? I will give you a hint to the recipe...Jim Rohn said, “If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a quality person.” I learned this recipe directly from my personal mentorship sessions with Darren Hardy. This recipe -- although potentially painful -- will help you fill your team with A Players so your business is filled up -- wall-to-wall -- with exceptional talent. A Player Recipe Ingredient #1: Get out a white sheet of paper. Ingredient #2: Brainstorm a list of 50 attributes you want to have your employees -- or future employees -- exemplify -- to demonstrate to your customers on daily basis. Just write fast as you can. Go total stream of consciousness. Quickly make the list -- fast, fast, fast. Make a full list of 50. Okay, do you have the full list ready? Ingredient #3: Now go back through your list and give very careful consideration so you can remove the duplicates, remove anything that might be similar, and then distil the list down into what you consider to be your Vital 12 Attributes. These 12 are the attributes your ideal team members would represent and live out every day. Ingredient #4: Let the list rest for a day -- sleep on it -- then review and critique it again in the morning. Make sure your final list of 12 is ready to be shared. But don’t share the list with your team. Instead...take the 12 attributes and use them to create survey form with a rating scale of 1 to 10 -- with 10 being the highest. You could use a paper-based survey, Survey Monkey, or another tool. Something that is easy to distribute and share. Ingredient #5: Now ask your leadership team and all of your employees to anonymously rate YOU according to those 12 attributes. They do not rate themselves -- but YOU, Onward Nation. Ingredient #6: Sit down and review the data. The survey results represent how you -- as the leader -- need to improve in order to attract, recruit, hire, and effectively lead A Players representing your Vital 12 Attributes. This exercise -- and your ability to authentically recruit A Players who match the 12 -- requires you to be there yourself. Remember -- you, Onward Nation -- you -- you are the ones who set the pace within your company. The leader sets the pace -- the pace of the leader sets the pace of the pack. It is an incontrovertible fact. You can try to run from it -- to hide from it -- but in the end -- there it is. Therefore, if you want to attract and hire A Players who represent those 12 attributes -- you need to become the living embodiment of those 12 -- if you are not already. So with that...I want to thank you again for taking the time to be here with me today. It is an honor to have you here -- thank you for tuning in -- I am delighted you chose this episode to be what you listen to, study, and take with you on your morning run, or maybe Onward Nation has become part of your daily commute, or in some other way has become part of your morning routine. However our daily podcast fits into your daily routine -- I want you to know how much I appreciate you sharing some of your invaluable 86,400 seconds you have in your day with me and the strategies we learn and share each day from today’s top business owners. And please continue to let me know what you think of Onward Nation...good or bad...I always want your feedback. My direct email address is stephen@onwardnation.com -- and yes -- that is my actual Inbox. No fancy filters or filing system and I read and reply to every single email. So please let me know how you think we are doing. I look forward to hearing from you. We will be back tomorrow with an incredible interview with Diane Gardner -- she is a tax savings superhero and she shares some insights into how she saved one of her business owner clients $50,000 in taxes. You will not want to miss this discussion -- stop overpaying taxes, Onward Nation! Until then, onward with gusto! You can also find us here: ----- OnwardNation.com -----

Lori Highby is the owner of Keystone Click, an interactive marketing agency in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since 2008, her agency has seen consistent growth. Lori is the 2013 recipient of the "Bravo! Entrepreneur Award" from BizTimes Media. She has been helping businesses market themselves online for nearly 15 years. Lori speaks and blogs on the topics of social media, e-commerce, online marketing, and entrepreneurship. What do you do in the first 60 minutes of your day? Lori uses the six strategies found in "The Miracle Morning" under the acronym SAVORS -- silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, scribing. ONWARD! Favorite quote or lesson? "I dream my painting, then I paint my dream." - Vincent van Gogh How do you define success? Success is a lot of things -- I have a lot of different definitions -- celebrate the little victories. What strategy do you use to combat fear? Lori believes in doing a "power stance" and positive affirmations -- and Lori tells the reasons why here. What makes as "A player" an "A player"? An "A player" is passionate, never stops learning, and is driven towards to success.   Final Round – “Breaking Down the Recipe for Success” How can we become better mentors? Always be teaching -- approach everything as a learning opportunity Do what you're telling others to do Never stop learning How can we build an audience? Be consistent in frequency and value How can business owners reach that elusive next level? Get out side of your comfort zone Join a mastermind group and hire a coach How best to connect with Lori: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lorihighby Email: lori.highby@keystoneclick.com Website: keystoneclick.com   You can also find us here: ----- OnwardNation.com -----

Lori Highby is the owner of Keystone Click, an interactive marketing agency in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since 2008, her agency has seen consistent growth. Lori is the 2013 recipient of the "Bravo! Entrepreneur Award" from BizTimes Media. She has been helping businesses market themselves online for nearly 15 years. Lori speaks and blogs on the topics of social media, e-commerce, online marketing, and entrepreneurship.   Secret -- timesaving technique Lori stays focused and remains productive due to the allocation of a diverse Post-it note system. ONWARD! Daily habit that contributes to success Lori plans her workday every morning -- she gives herself plenty of time to focus on her vital priorities. Could have ruined your business -- but now -- an invaluable learning experience Lori decided to leave a full-time job -- and Lori tells the complete story here. Most critical skill you think business owners need to master to be successful “A business owner has to remain focused -- don’t always chase the shiny object.” Most influential lesson learned from a mentor “Honesty is the best policy -- always be forthcoming and honest with your clients.”     Final Round -- “Breaking Down the Recipe for Success”   What systems would you go back and put into place sooner? “I would have implemented a program to aid the sales funnel -- possibly a CRM system.” What one strategy or “recipe” would compound into big wins for business owners? Time -- manage your time effectively -- it’s about getting it done and out the door. How to exceed expectations and add the most value? An individual who communicates with others -- and brings value to the workplace. What strategy would you recommend new business owners focus on to best ensure success? Get outside of your comfort zone Put in the time to create a process How best to connect with Lori: https://www.keystoneclick.com/     You can also find us here: ------ OnwardNation.com ------