Podcasts about me where

Today my 6 years old goes “Papá there is a boat” Me: “Where?” Him: “There, I can smell it” Since it was the only boat around, he could smell it from the far with zero effort. The less noise, the clearer the signal. How can you reduce noise? Which signals do you want weekly? Which ones monthly?

Intro Music: Monkeys Spinning Monkeys by Kevin MacLeod Song That Brings Out The Monkey in Me: Where my Monkey Gone by Monkey Leisure Time (https://soundcloud.com/user-155862498/where-my-monkey-gone?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing)

Today's Best & your All Time Favorites From the US, Texas & Canada 1st for Weekly neo-traditonal & classic Country program Fred's Country 2022 w # 12: Part 1: - George Strait, Ace In The Hole - Beyond the Blue Neon - 1989 - Robby Johnson, If I Ever Was a Cowboy - Alive Right Now - 2022 - Francis Degrandpré, Colorado - S - 2021 - Joe & Martina, Amarillo's In The Rearview - S – 2022 Part 2: - Curtis Grimes, Ain't Worth the Heartache - Curtis Grimes – 2021 - Hayden Ha ddock, Better Than Your Memory - S - 2022 - Tracy Lawrence, Angelina - Hindsight 2020, Vol.3: Angelina - 2022 - Bobby Wills, Second Chances - Man with no Past- 2010 Part 3: - Chris Melanson & Georgette Jones, Golden Ring - S - 2021 - Zach Neil, Long Live The Cowboy - S - 2022 - Randall King, Shot Glass - Shot Glass - 2022 - Matt Castillo, Leaving Since You Got Here - How the River Flows - 2022 - Linda Ronstadt, Love Is A Rose – Decade – 1977 Part 4: - Jake Mathews, Workin' on Me - Where 90's Meets Now - 2020 - Deryl Dodd feat Cody Johnson, One Ride in Vegas - Long Hard Ride - 2017 - Randall King, Around Forever - Shot Glass - 2022 - Sammy Kershaw, Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes - Do You Know Me, A Tribute To George Jones - 2014

Paul Shimmons returns to the show to talk about the features in Apple's new operating system updates, and how we plan to use them. Patreon subscribers get a bootleg version of the recording, without the ads, and including bonus conversation about notation apps on iPad. Subscribe to the Blog... RSS | Email Newsletter Subscribe to the Podcast in... Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS Support Music Ed Tech Talk Become a Patron!   Show Notes: - Dorico for iPad: First Impressions | Music Ed Tech Talk - Sibelius for iPad, Featuring Joe Plazak | Music Ed Tech Talk - iOS 15 - macOS Monterey - OmniFocus - DEVONthink - Never Miss a Task, with Project Templates | Music Ed Tech Talk - The Class Nerd podcast - Craig McClellan and Robby Burns - AirServer - Twelve South StayGo | USB-C Hub  - The Breathing Gym - My Scale Exercise Play Along Tracks - OmniOutliner - My blog post about Safari extension on iOS - Some Monterey Features of Note - MacSparky App of the Week Paul - Ultimate Drill Book  Robby - Sofa Music of the Week Paul - Powerhouse - White Heart Robby - Cory Henry - Best of Me Where to Find Us: Robby - Twitter | Blog | Book Paul - Twitter | Website Please don't forget to rate the show and share it with others!

Antonio Buchanan is the Co-CEO and Chief Strategy Officer. He spent his career influencing some of the world's top brands. His career took off at Y&R Worldwide, where he quickly became a vice president of Strategic Planning working on American Express, Citigroup, Verizon, Evian, Disney and Club Med. He then served as a senior partner and head of Strategy and Planning at Ogilvy Worldwide, American Express and IBM Global Business with assignments in Mexico City, London, Singapore, Brazil and Sao Paolo.   In 1998, Antonio and his partner, Paris formed bang! Zoom, a global research and strategy consultancy with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and London. Their form oversaw research initiatives for 3Com, Lucent, BBC, Avaya, American Express and others before selling the company to MDC partners, (a Toronto-based communications holding company). Antonio has been named one of the top creative thinkers by AdAge, named on the top innovative thinkers list for Wall People Magazine and one of the top 100 executives on Black Enterprise’s BE 100 list.   Questions   Could you share a little bit about your journey, how it is you got to where you are today so we can get a better understanding of who Antonio is. So I can imagine strategy has been a bit challenging, maybe for you and your company during this pandemic period that the world is going through, can you share with us how that has been and how you guys have been able to navigate through this time? Do you find that it's been difficult just getting people motivated and inspired during this time, especially across cultures? Because Mexico City, would you say is a different kind of culture, a different set of mind-set people versus those in San Diego? Has it been different across the globe, in a different continent for example? Could you share with us if there is one website, tool or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? Could you share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or it could be a book that you read recently, but it has had a great impact on you. So if you were in a room with one of these managers, or business owners, and you're sitting across the table from that person, what's the one piece of advice that you would give them to improve on the consistency of having motivated human capital? Could you share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about, it could be something that you're working on to develop yourself or your people. Where can listeners find you online? Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to maybe get you refocused and just get you back on track.   Highlights   Antonio’s Journey   Antonio shared that he started in the financial services industry, he was working as a trader at Merrill Lynch, the ad agency for Merrill Lynch was coming in to do a campaign on the company. And he was one of the people that was designated to be interviewed by the ad agency. And after that experience, he kind of looked at and went, “They seem to be having more fun that I am.” And so he literally switched careers and started from the bottom again. And, mentioned in the bio, started at Y&R and moved on to Ogilvy. He spent a significant amount of his career at Ogilvy with a lot of the international assignments, and then decided to start his own. And so, they've done it, this is the second time around. The first time as mentioned, they started an agency in about three years in, they were approached to sell it. And when their non-compete was over, on the day the non-compete was over, they launched Antonio in Paris. So he’s the Chief Strategy Officer, Paris was also his wife is the Chief Creative Officer, her experience comes out of McCann Worldwide on Microsoft. And so, he kind of do the strategy side, she does the creative side and they've been having a great time doing it. So it's good to be here.   Navigating Through a Pandemic   Me: So I can imagine strategy has been a bit challenging, maybe for you and your company during this pandemic period that the world is going through, can you share with us how that has been and how you guys have been able to navigate through this time?   Antonio shared that that's an understatement. So it's been interesting, he thinks like everybody, February, March of last year, everybody kind of went into a panic mode. His clients went into a panic mode, rightfully so, not many people knew. What do I do now? Business kind of stopped over that period of time. And they made the decision to really look at it, they could have stayed with how do they continue to help companies enhance their brands?   But that wasn't the right thing to do at that particular time, he thinks the right thing to do, in hindsight, was the fact that they decided that they're going to look at when was there something like this in the past? And how was it handled globally? And what should they be thinking about?   So they decided to start a research study globally, during COVID that every six to eight weeks they would go back into the marketplace and get indication on what were consumers thinking? What were they feeling? How engaged were they? How much more engaged were they going to be as it related to streaming videos and entertainment and working from home and what were their stress points?   And all of those things that they could kind of give that information to clients, and gauge when was the right time to get back into the marketplace.   They also started presenting this to clients and people who weren't clients, companies that they would have loved to work with. They set up calls with them, Zoom calls with them, things like that, and walked them through these results.   They also talked to them about let's talk about history as he said. When SARS happened, we had a front row seat into being able to see what happened in China and how it went from China, the resurgence, the comeback happened in Asia, through Europe, and then to the United States.   So we had a roadmap of how it happened. And so they are able to talk to people about it's probably going to happen the same way, which it did, we had the bounce back in Asia first, then Europe, then the US, unfortunately, we had a second round of COVID.   This is a perfect time for companies to kind of really think about how they're going to attack, how they're going to pivot, and change maybe something small all the way to their business model. So they started talking to companies about that, if you were to start your company today, how would you change it?   Because it's not going to ever be the same again. So they started working with companies and helping them change their company from a strategy perspective, too. So it's been an interesting ride but he thinks it’s the right thing to do, because many companies responded to us helping them figure a lot of that out.   Me: Where are you exactly based Antonio, are you in the United States?   Antonio stated that they are in San Diego. Currently, he’s in their Mexico City office. They've been working out of Mexico now for probably the past six months, but their headquarters is in San Diego.    Getting Your People Motivated and Inspired   Me: Do you find that it's been difficult just getting people motivated and inspired during this time, especially across cultures? Because Mexico City, would you say is a different kind of culture, a different set of mind-set people versus those in San Diego? Has it been different across the globe, in a different continent for example?   Antonio shared that what's interesting is about five years ago they went completely virtual, so prior to COVID they went virtual, the reason why they did it was because for a few reasons. One, they wanted to get the most talented people that they could get to work for their company, no matter where they lived. And so, that meant getting more senior people but in getting more senior people, it was good that they didn't have to uproot themselves. A lot of times, you want to hire somebody and they're in another place, and they don't want to move, their kids are in certain schools or their spouses or partners are kind of trenched in where they are so they're unable to move. But they're the right candidate for your company, from a culture perspective, from a talent perspective and they wanted that to go away. So they went completely virtual five years ago. So it's funny, because they were using Zoom before people knew what Zoom was and that was one reason.   The other reason is because it's a point that you're making. They thought that and it's turned out to be true, the culture, if they brought people into our organization from around the world, no idea would be US centric, or if he’s in Hong Kong, Hong Kong centric or things like that, but the idea’s that the agency would bring to their clients would kind of be from this diverse group of people, diverse culture, different attitudes and opinion and when you sit down to try to solve a problem, and all these people come to the table, you kind of ensure that you're coming at this from a global perspective with an open mind. And then when you start to take these ideas from one country to another, they happen to have people who understand exactly the way that people look into the consumer insight from country to country.   So that's helped a lot too, in terms of that, but it's a good question because he thinks so often people come to you, you're an American company, and you come at it from an American perspective, as opposed to being sensitive to other people's ethnicities and cultures.   Me: Agreed. Do you guys do business in Jamaica?   Antonio stated that they do not, and it's funny too, his family is from Jamaica and Panama. And they don't do business there but he would not have a problem to do business there at all.   Me: So you should probably look to expand, now is a great time to expand into new markets, especially with everybody doing things virtually.   App, Website or Tool that Antonio Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business   When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Antonio shared that it's probably Zoom. Because they probably have in their organization, him alone, he doesn't even know what other people are doing, he probably has 8 to 10 Zoom calls a day. And they are with people from all over the world because they have clients in Belgium, they have clients in Hong Kong and in London and in the US and Mexico and things like that. So it's a challenge, where it used to be a challenge before, he had to get on a plane and go do all that. Now, it's a different challenge in terms of time zones and things, but it makes life easier. But he thinks that's the one thing. So, another one would be Basecamp. They use Basecamp in order to kind of give clients transparency. So when they get a new client, for instance, they just signed on new client a couple of days ago who's based in Hong Kong, one of the first things they do is open up a Basecamp file for them. It's kind of a pod, and that gives them the opportunity to drop anything that's relevant about their business into that pod. It also gives us the opportunity, anything that they do for them put into the pod, if there are schedules, they put those in there as well. And clients have the ability to go in and look at the schedules, make sure things are happening when they're supposed to be happening or if they need input from them, they can go there instead of having to deal if it's if it's 2:00 am in the morning their time, but some someplace else it's 3:00 pm in the afternoon, they can go to Basecamp and pretty much get a lot of answers before even having to speak to them. So he thinks those two are pretty valuable.    Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Antonio   When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Antonio shared that Bob Iger’s book, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, the former CEO of Disney, amazing book gives us the ability to kind of look into a lot of the challenges that he had in growing Disney. And he likes to tell people, whether you're large organization, or small, many of the challenges that you face are the same, it's just the size of the company. And so, how he handled growth and strategy and how he handled disappointments. What he loves is he puts a lot of the disappointments in there, times that Disney tried to do something and fail, that's really important to him because he wants to see how a) You can imagine it's kind of cool knowing that Disney fails at something. But more importantly, how do they handle it? So that's one.   The other one is Barack Obama's book, A Promised Land. Fascinating, but also, as a business person when you look at it, the strategy and the planning that goes into running for the President of the United States, it's very similar to in a business when you're trying to launch something and everything that he had to go through, both from a personal perspective, which we can then move over to as an entrepreneur, you go through some personal things too to get your business up and running. From a business perspective, who are the right people that you're going to build for your team. Just like he had to go through what's the team he's going to pull together to help him win the election. And so, he thinks that's a fascinating book.   And then he’s reading now, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention. And it's literally, you don't have to follow any of the rules, create what's right for you, which he did, and a lot of people talk a lot of smack about him. But now look who's laughing now, because he created an organization that was right for him and believed in it and it's worked pretty well. Those three.   Advice for Improving On The Consistency of Having Motivated Human Capital   Me: We also have a lot of listeners who are business owners and managers who feel from time to time that it's not that they have poor products, they believe they have great products and services. But one of their challenges is that they lack the constantly motivated human capital. So if you were in a room with one of these managers, or business owners, and you're sitting across the table from that person, what's the one piece of advice that you would give them to improve on the consistency of having motivated human capital?   Antonio stated that we have a tendency to break rules with our organization, and we do it not just because, we do it because we stop and we put ourselves in the situation of, before you were an entrepreneur, you worked for somebody and he’s sure you thought of the good and the bad with it and how you wanted to be treated.   It's more than motivation just from a salary perspective and a dollars and cents perspective. It's, “I'm respected, they understand that there's some other things that could help.”   So for instance, he'll give an example. During the summer, on Fridays, every other Friday they shut their business down. And the reason for that is people get three day weekends during the summer and if it's busy, and then a lot of people go, “Well, I can't do that, because I can't have my whole staff out.”   His advice would be if it's busy, split your staff in half and don't do half days because people end up not taking them. But split your staff in half and go, “Okay, this week on Friday, you guys are off and then next week, the other half is off.”   “You're giving them a head nod. In order to be productive, you need to be able to have time to think, experience, to live, to have balance. And when you give employees balance, when they feel like you trust them, a lot of times that's more important than the dollars and the sense, you can go to another company and make more money, maybe.”   But when you get the feeling that these people respect me and get it. Another thing they do don't have vacation time in their organization, if you need to take the time, take the time and realize you're part of a team. So they hire grownups and he thinks that's one of the things that you need to do is make sure you're hiring grownups, make sure you're hiring people that are passionate about what they do, and they know why you brought them in. If you hire people like that, then he doesn't care if you take days off or what you're doing and things like that, because those people overdo it anyway, those people give you their heart and soul anyway. So you need to take a day off to be with your kid, to be with your partner, whatever, go do it. And he doesn't care how much time it is, as long as your teammates are respected and they know that they're going to have to cover for you whatever that is.   So he thinks that the big thing is respect who you're working for, think about what you would want if you were a dedicated employee, a dedicated player in an organization, what are the things that would matter and he thinks these days especially with what's going on, with COVID and everything else, it's at how can you give up people work life balance, they're going to give it back to you, when they go and they have a vacation, they come back fresh and you benefit from it too. So he thinks that's what he would tell people.   What Antonio is Really Excited About Now!   Antonio shared that actually it's something that they're doing with a client that's really exciting. It has something to do with their people, too, because their people are so excited about doing this, that it's taken kind of the agency to a next level.   They have a client that is a museum, one of the largest museums in the United States, and they came to them and said, “We're about to celebrate a fairly significant birthday and we want to overhaul our brand. So the logo with the messaging, things like that.”   They went and did some consumer research, and realized that there were a couple of segments that they were missing out on and they would never get, quite honestly, because this segment is a segment that is not going to walk through the doors of a museum, but they want to deal on a digital basis more than walk through the door.   And so, they went back to the client said, “Well, here's what you asked us for in the first place. But if you're open, we have an idea.”   And they were like, What's the idea? They said, “We think that you should not see yourselves as a museum, but see yourselves as a content provider. And you should have a streaming service, like a Netflix, like a Hulu, like something like that, that is specific to the type of museum that you are.”   And that's a whole new revenue stream, that's a whole new way of looking at the customer experience. Because the customer experience is no longer when somebody walks through the door. Now the customer experience is 365, 24/7.   And they actually went, let's present it to the board, which he thought that head of marketing had a lot of nerve to be able to go Yep, I'm with you. Let's take it to the Board of Directors, and which they did.   And the board said, “We agree, go.” And so since then, for the last 2 years they've been helping them build out this streaming service and it's been really exciting. But what's happened is, is that it's pulled the team together with their team internally because it's this thing that's never been done before.   And so, when he’s done with this, he’s retired, that's it, what is he going to do that’s going to beat this after he’s done with this. And that's a good feeling that you have clients that will give him the opportunity to kind of swing for the fences.   Where Can We Find Antonio Online   Website – www.antonioandparis.com Twitter – @apbmoxie Instagram - @apbmoxie   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Antonio Uses   When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Antonio shared that he has a signature on his email that says, “Rules, I'm just not that interested.”   It reminds him of don't keep yourself in a box a lot of times and don't look at things and say, “Well, it hasn't been done before so I guess it can't be done because somebody would have done it. That's not true. We all bring something different to the table.” He likes to tell the story like Apple when they created the iPod, iPod was not the first gadget like that. There were mp3 players before and doing the pretty much the same thing. And someone would have probably looked at Apple and said, “Why do you need to do this, there's already a lot of them in the marketplace.” We hear about the iPhone. And so break the rules, if you're passionate about it, ignore the naysayers and do what you want to do.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners   Links   The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger A Promised Land by Barack Obama No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings    The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Dumb Ass Reporter: Where do you see yourself in five years? Me: Where do YOU see yourself in five years? Dumb Ass Reporter: I'm sorry? Me: I'm just curious. You asked me, so you must have thought about it yourself. Dumb Ass Reporter: I haven't really gave it much thought. Me: Funny, neither have I and yet you ask me. I'm not a f**kin oracle. I don't where i'll be in five years. Shit I could be dead in five days! 5 years... next question.

Elise Quevedo is the author of inspirational book “Creating a Kick-Ass Attitude”, keynote speaker, advisor and social/digital media marketing consultant and storyteller. She is ranked among the Top 2% most viewed profiles on LinkedIn.   Known as “The Digital Ghost Queen” for her behind the scenes work, Elise has inspired audiences around the globe and spends most of her time advising and helping businesses and individuals from C-Level executives to Hollywood stars thrive in the cyber space.   Elise often writes for MilliOnAir digital magazine where she shares inspiring interviews, personal thoughts and tech write ups. As a global thought leader, she has collaborated with Fortune 500 companies such as Amazon, Huawei Technologies, Ebay, and Paypal.   She is always keen to learn about new technologies, brands and getting the extra knowledge that keeps her on top of her game. Questions Could you share with us a little bit about your journey? Tell us how it is that you managed to get into this sphere of social media and digital marketing as well as customer experience? With the impact by Covid-19, you spoke a lot about digital transformation in that webinar and we would love if you could bring some of that loveliness that you shared with the webinar with our audience. So could you explain to us what this Social Media Emotional Quotient is? Is it connected to emotional intelligence? Could you maybe give us two or three behaviours that should be transferred or it should be very apparent interaction in a digitized space that would just has happen in a face-to-face interaction. Could you share with us how do you stay motivated everyday? Can you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? Can you share with us maybe one or two books that either you've read in the past or even recently that have had a really big impact on you? Can you share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about - either something that you are working on to develop yourself or your people? Where can our listeners find you online? What is one quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge will revert to this quote or saying and it kind of helps to keep you refocused or just gets you back on track in terms of what you're working on? Highlights Elise shared that a few years ago; she wrote a book on personal development called Creating a Kick-Ass Attitude which is all about being positive in life. And when she wrote it, nobody knew who she was. And she thought, “Now what do you do?” Because she wrote this thing which she thinks is of value. And then she started going to some seminars, getting information on social media, this was back in 2012.   And Elise being Elise, she is someone who she doesn't just do a little bit of research, she tend to go 20 hours a day trying to get as much information as possible. So, she came on to the social platform journey when there was a boom, which happened in between 2012 and 2014. So by the time 2013 came, she started travelling the world and talking about social platforms. And from there people started giving her nicknames like, “Oh, Twitter girl and Twitter queen and then the Digital ghost queen.” Because she is not always in front of the camera.   Sometimes she does a lot behind the scenes for companies or individuals that people don't know about. So, she started doing that and that is also how she got in to the customer service. Before jumping onto the online world, she was working in marketing, normal 9 to 5 job, which is what most people do that are young people.   She worked in an airport, what she got to experience a little of what it was to offer good customer service. So, put that together with the online world, she managed to be able to give value, such as the webinar where we met, which is how she is now able to give new insights. And that's pretty much the short version of her journey.   Me: Where is your book available? Is it available on Amazon?   Elise shared that her book is actually available on Amazon. But for anyone that listens to this and she is actually quite happy to give a PDF version. So, anyone that asks you for it, please, no need to buy it online unless you want, of course to buy the printed version. But the online one for just as a thank you for having her on the show today, she will give you a copy.   Here is the link to be able to get to download the PDF Version:   Creating a Kick-Ass Attitude - https://aw174737.aweb.page/p/18062eb8-8b19-4317-8232-fbed99bb2cda   Elise shared that digital transformation, especially for customer service, now needs more automated processes to be able to scale the business. And she thinks one of the key points that she wanted people to know was about artificial intelligence.   Artificial intelligence now continues to get more and more intuitive and is a critical part in the customer experience journey and it will continue to increase. So, let’s give some examples, because she thinks many of us or the people who will be listening will understand it.   Think about any cell phone company, whether it is Vodafone or T-Mobile or even an airline, because now we're going to start travelling again very soon. And we’ve all been there where we needed to complain about something or we've had a problem, and then we jumped on an online chat and as a customer service option, instead of calling, you’re being stuck for like 20 minutes on the phone.   In the past, we always had the same two sentences. For example, “You are number X in the queue” or “We apologize for the wait, a customer representative will be with you soon.” Remember when that was the only option. It was always the same. Every minute you will get the same sentence over and over again. And eventually, we would hang up and tried to call again. This was of course was the old school way.   But now, that experience has improved thanks to real time engagement provided by artificial intelligence power services. Think about it, whilst we wait, we now get courage to ask more detailed questions about our challenge and then the virtual assistants or the chatbots are searching their gazillion bits of information in their systems and they provide potential links to the solutions that might help us instead of waiting to talk to a customer service representative.   And this is now being accelerated in many companies because it saves many of us having to talk to an agent because sometimes a lot of our queries can actually be solved by artificial intelligence. This is where digital transformation comes in because they are now creating predictive personalization, because the more we shop online, the more that artificial intelligence can predict our behaviour of how we shop, how we interact, which means that it can help businesses create experiences that make customers feel like their brand experience was tailored for them.   We are talking about a world now where especially what we mentioned during Covid-19, we have become restless, we don't want to wait, people want these fast services like, “Hey, I ask you a question. I expect an answer straight away.” So digital now is playing a huge part. Also, social media.   If we think about customer service now versus 10 year ago, for example, many brands are all flying not just automated tools, but customer service through Twitter or Instagram or through LinkedIn. Because now we are so accustomed to jumping on these platforms versus calling a customer service number or e-mailing your customer service. So, digital transformation, it is a huge part of these customer service and customer experience that we're experiencing now and we will in the future.   Me: You sent me two copies of your bio, your long bio version and your short bio, but long one, there was a particular sentence that really caught my eye, it said, “That's why she created the (SMEQ) Social Media Emotional Quotient, which is the art and influence of creating, attracting and building better business relationships through digital media.” So could you explain to us what this Social Media Emotional Quotient is? Is it connected to like emotional intelligence?   Elise agreed and stated that Yanique is absolutely spot on. She believes that when people go on social media, they seem to forget that there is a human being behind every user, every person. Well, except, of course, all the bots. But most people that are using social media, such as you and me, we are human beings and we want to be treated as such. We don't want to be treated as just another number or just another person online, because the one thing that she has noticed is that when people are face to face, they behave one way and the minute they jump online, they seem to forget about that.   And she always says, “You should treat people online the same way as if you did it face to face." So when she interacts through social channels, she imagine that she’s talking to that person face to face, as if she had just met them at an event, as if she was having a coffee. So creating, attracting and building better relationships means treat people as human beings and interact and treat them as such an individual, because not every person that you talk to is going to be the same.   So although we make generic messaging on our channels, although we may put different things, when we interact, we must treat each person as if we were treating them face to face. And maybe then our customer service changes. But she thinks people we seem to have a different kind of mindset when we are online and we don't give it the same importance when we can actually reach anywhere in the world because of social now a days. And that is what the SMEQ is all about. It's about interacting more as a human and not just another social and robot kind of person.   Me: So if we're interacting like a human being, as you said, treating people as if they were physically in front of us, the same behaviours, attitudes, whatever it is that would have followed through in that face-to-face interaction, should transcend into a digital experience.   Elise shared that one of the most important would be personalization. She'll give you the perfect example. On Twitter, if we are active on Twitter, for example. We are all followed by people and she sees many people who copy a strategy from others, or she is someone that takes the time to check every person that follows her. Of course, sometimes it is people who have nothing to do with her field, “Okay, thank you for following, it’s great.”   But when it's someone that has a full profile, they have a photo and they have a bio, they're acting on social, you can see that they are making an effort themselves to be online. She always say thank you but with a personal message, meaning. Number one, she checks the name of that person, which means she has to click on their profile and see what their name is and based on their location, no matter where she is, then she wishes them either good day, good morning or good evening depending on where they are based on, again, what they say on their bio, if it says America. And she’s, for example, in Europe, that is specific time is morning for them. She will say good morning.   So, that means that she’s actually taking time out of her personal time to check who you are. And it shows that this is not just an automated tool that is saying thank you for following. Like she sees many people, she will say, “Thank you for following me, X name. Have a great morning, have a great evening.” Or sometimes she checks their links, she checks their latest posts. She will have a quick look.   So she makes it personalized and that automatically is what you would do face to face. Oh, hey, you've met someone and somebody introduces you. You call them by their name. And if it is morning, you wish them good morning, if it’s evening; you wish them a good evening. So you can transcend that from face to face to online and interact in the same way. If you were talking to someone over the phone or you were at an event face to face, how do you normally interact with people?   What questions do you ask them when you are meeting somebody new? You can easily do that through your social channels. It is always about putting ourselves in the customer's shoes as well. How do you want to be treated? It’s another thing that she feels we forget, we are all customers first and we're all human beings first. So, how do you talk to people? Don't change just because it's online. Those are two of the most important ones for her.   Me: And it's so important that we bring across the human aspect of our interaction when we're talking to people. Because as you said, yes, we're communicating digitally but there is a human being behind that with feelings and emotions, fears, anxiety, all the things that a human being experiences, worse in this time when things are not so stable, people don't know what to expect, tomorrow's never guaranteed. So, that's why you really need to live in the moment but even so with all of the things that are happening.   Elise agreed and stated that there are everyday solutions, for example, that we can do to improve customer experiences or service, because she thinks, like she mentioned earlier, above all, we are all customers first. So ask yourself, would I be happy with a customer service that I am providing to others? And if the answer is no, then rethink. What are you doing? We could probably talk hours on this so she’ll give you a couple of pointers.   To provide a good customer experience, you must know who your customers are because we mentioned it’s different of course, dealing face to face than online. On face to face we can understand if this person is young, is this person old, we can understand who someone is. So, if you have a team of people, this is something that is done a lot when you train or create a strategist which is, create different personas or create a different type of customers and then train people on how you would deal if you were dealing with someone like that.   For examples, in one hand, you can have Lola, who is like 30 years old and she’s young, she’s savvy, she knows how to click on every link you send her, she knows how to follow a video, a tutorial. But on the other hand, you have Jonas, who is 50 or 60 years old and needs a little bit more clear instructions on what to do on each step of your customer journey.   So, don't assume that every customer has the same knowledge you do and that other customers do. This is where personalization comes in, care about who each of your customers is. Don't give the wrong information to someone that already knows everybody. This is why creating that emotional connection with customers is so important. That's why she created the Social Media Emotional Quotient and she always talks about, remember behind every platform, behind everything we do digitally, there is a human being. Customers become loyal because they're emotionally attached and they remember how they felt or how they feel when they use a product or a service.   So, a business that optimizes for an emotional connection, they can actually outperform competition by 85% in sales growth. If she remembers correctly, there was a Harvard Business Review study called The New Science of Customer Emotions, you can go and Google that and it talks about these things as to how they are at least three times more likely to recommend your product or service. They are three times more likely to repurchase, all because they feel emotionally connected to your product. So, there are multiple things that we can do to keep our customers engaged. And of course, if you are brand new, please research your competitors and then create goals and objectives for you. Competition is a good thing no matter what product or service we have, we're not unique.   There are many people doing podcasts, there are many people doing social and digital like her. There are many people who have restaurants; there are many people who have every service and that is right, competition is good because it helps us do our best.   So, get inspired by those that are in the same industry as you and then look up back at what you're doing, improving the areas you feel you're lacking. She always think when she was very young somebody told her one thing, on the left, we have people that always look up to us and they go, “Oh, wow, I wish I was like Elise or like Yanique.” And then us too, we're always looking to someone on our right that we go, “Oh, wow. I wish I was like X and Y.” Because no matter where we are in life, she remembers one of her former mentors, Jim Rohn always taught her, “You will never stop learning until the day you die.” If you say you know everything, then that's just too egotistical. Nobody knows everything in life. One of the keys to stay humble, have integrity and keep on learning, because no matter what we do, there was always someone on our left and there's always someone on our right. Me: Agreed. Since this lock down, I've learned so much Elise and I'm so excited. I've been doing more videos and I've been watching YouTube videos of other people who do videos, what they're doing, how they've done jump cuts to kind of make the videos a little bit more engaging and adding captions and subtitles.   And I mean, I feel like a video star just watching what they do on and actually going into the application I'm using and applying the same methodology and seeing that come to life in my videos. It's just been amazing to me and I feel like I'm learning more now than I learned in my traditional learning platform of going to school like getting my degree or going to high school, because these are actual things, practical activities that you can do and you see the engagement and the impact that it’s having in the lives of other people. Elise agreed completely because back in the day, nobody taught us any of these. Plus, back in the day, the jobs that we're doing now didn’t even exist and that’s another part of it. And now, there are going to be jobs in 20 years that we don't even know they exist just yet. So, with the power of social and YouTube and Vimeo and all these platforms, you can learn anything, you don't even have to have a mentor if you can’t afford one. Just go on social media, go on YouTube, go on Google and click what you want to learn.   And then you will get excited and the key role is to always keep on doing this stuff for yourself. Back in the day, we used to have this little joke of all these people that will keep on buying personal development books and instead of self development, they were called shelf development because they could buy lots and lots, but they never actioned anything.   And she thinks that’s the difference, it’s okay to watch videos and to get inspired by others as long as you take action on your own goals and dreams, because if you don’t that, you're helping somebody else getting more popular and part of the key either talk, talk, talk or talk, talk and walk the walk, there's a big difference.   When asked how she stays motivated, Elise shared that for her, it's all about having the right attitude. Like she mentioned nearly a decade ago, she wrote that book Creating a Kick-Ass Attitude, and there are still many tips from there that she uses on a daily basis, and it's all around being positive and never letting anything bring you down as an individual.   For example, before she gets out of bed every day, she looks up to the ceiling and she reminds herself of three things that she is thankful for and these three things are not material. So, for example, it could be her health being alive, having a roof over her head, having had a great meal with a friend that week or a great call. Anything that has meaning and reminds her of what life is all about.   And before she goes to bed, no matter how good or a bad day she may have had. She also does a grateful moment for something that has happened to her on that day. She is a very big believer about everything in life is either a blessing or a life lesson. And she now gets to do what she loves. So, for her is staying motivated is easy but it took a while to get there. So she thinks the key is that we should all aim to do something that we're good at and that we're passionate about.   Because when you do that, then you don't really consider it work. If you find it hard to be motivated, for example, she used to do this in the past. You could write your thoughts on a personal journal or just like a big piece of paper, like an A4, and then read it back to yourself the next day and find out what it is that is making you frustrated. Taking a time-out out of the day is so very important for her.   She spends a lot of time on her laptop, on her cell phones, for example, since she’s digital nomad. So she has reminders throughout the day to stop, to close down her technology and to look up to the sky, to go for a little walk or to simply listen to maybe one song that she really likes.   And she also has mantras and some of her favourite quotes lying around so that she always has something positive to look at. And one of the things that many people find silly but is actually to keep hydrated, you'll be surprised that the effect of what not drinking enough water in the day can do to your body and your mind. So, she’s share some of the things that she personally do.   And sleep is very important. She will contradict you there because anyone that knows her, she doesn't know why for the last few years. She is a little bit like Thomas Edison, she sleeps between 3 and 5 hours a night and then she will have a little catnap during the day sometimes. It’s not as the normal person but normally the sleep is good.   Me: Most of the research that I have done says you should be getting between 7 to 9 hours of sleep but if you're getting your 5 at an average per night but then you’re capturing the difference in a day catnap then maybe you should be good.   She (Elise) did research on that because she thought it was weird that she was okay after 3 or 4 hours sometimes. So there are times she will sleep for 8 or 9 and then she came across this little research on how there were people such as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and some of the great minds who didn’t sleep in the average pattern. So, she thinks a lot of people will say, you can't say that Elise because you are meant to sleep 7 to 10 hours. But that is her personal story and she’s not telling anyone to do the same, she’s just sharing.   Me: At the end of the day, you have to know your body. Just like with exercise, sometimes you you’ll exercise when you feel you're doing some form of a workout that is too intense for you. You almost feel like your body's giving out. So, you know when it's your limit and you have to stop. I think with sleep it's the same thing. If you rest and the next morning you wake up, you don't feel like you are fully rested or you have the energy, then you probably need to look into your sleep pattern.   Or maybe it could be dietary requirements, maybe you need to change up what to eat or as you said, maybe we need to be drinking more water because I think all of these things work together to ensure that you feel energetic and you don't feel lethargic and tired. And it's almost like you have to be pulling yourself through the day to get activities done. So, you have to know your body, everybody's different.   Elise agreed and shared that she had stopped asking herself many questions and it comes from the same mentor she had back in the late 90s, which was Jim Rohn and there were many questions that he would say, “Some things are a mystery.” He goes, stop asking and same with the sleep, he goes like, “Your body knows when enough is enough, don’t question it. One day you will need 4 hours, another 7, another 6. If you feel okay and your body and mind feel okay, who is anybody else to tell you to go back to sleep.” And that's what she did for herself and she continues to do that to this day.   She gets fuelled by energy, good conversations fuels her. She has had conversations with friends where they're up until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and then she goes, “Oh, no, but I'm supposed to be asleep.” And then an hour later she’s like, “Oh, well, it's already 4:00; you’re not going to sleep tonight.”   And then her body just completely goes on to the next day and people go, “Elise, are you not tired?” And she’s thinking that yesterday sleeps already but she’ll sleep later because that is something that she has trained her body to do because she gets fuelled by energy a lot. And unless you understand how that works, many people think, “Elise, you're just crazy. That’s just not normal.” Who are we to say what's normal and what's not? So again, if it feels right for you, please don't listen to anybody else. We are the best listeners to who we are, and that's all we can do.   When asked about an online resource that she cannot live without in her business, Elise shared that for her, she cannot name one but she has to say social media platforms, all of them. She would be lost without them because for her, they are the tools that help her express who she is and they allow her to share my thoughts and insights freely and at any time without any constrictions. She gets to be her no matter what anyone else says. And so, if all platforms went down, “Oh, please.”   For her, she would say in the order of preference because she started with Twitter. Twitter will always be very close to her heart. But she is actively on Twitter, on LinkedIn as her main two business platforms. Instagram is more for social, so she will share when she’s travelling and motivational quotes.   And she also uses WeChat and Facebook. Snapchat and TikTok not so much. She didn’t get on to them for business and when it comes to social, she doesn't focus so much on personal sharing because for her, they're both together. Then she focuses on the platforms where she can do both business and personal. So she would say Twitter, LinkedIn equally followed by Instagram, Facebook, WeChat.   When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Elise shared that she loves this question because she thinks there are so many books out there that people get inspired by.   But she would say Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill was one of the first ever books that she read in the late 90s. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, that's an incredible book. The Art of War, for anyone who dares reads the book by Sun Tzu, it's a book that she would recommend to everybody. It has so many teachings from the military, but in an inspirational way.   And one more which is How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie. These are books that she doesn't read just once; she will probably read them once a year because they're great and she uses them as references all the time.   Anything that makes you learn. One of her dreams was to have a big library like you see in the movies with a mixture of old books of history. But then all the modern books of inspiration and real business and life stories.   Me: So we will have all of those books that Elise just shared with us in the show notes of this episode and links to them. If it is that you have not had the opportunity to engage in any of these books and as Elise said, now is a time to be filling your mind, your body and your soul with all of the positive, enlightening information that can help you to be more productive, that can help you to be more innovative, and that can definitely help you to grow on a personal and professional level.   Elise shared that she gets excited about pretty much everything that she does, but especially now during this time the world has gone through and we are still going through, she’s excited to be alive. So, she’s very excited to continue sharing her knowledge with new clients and some podcasts like yours.   Because if one person gets a little bit motivated based on something that she has shared, then her job is done. So, she is eager to continue doing this and getting back on a stage face to face, although she has loved doing Zoom videos and Zoom has become her best friend over the last few months.   She is excited to get back on the real face to face kind of events where you can also interact and see people's expressions, which of course is very different. She grew up without technology until she was 19 years old. So, she’s one of those people that can appreciate both the new reality, our new world of digital. But no matter what, there is nothing like a face to face meeting and being able to see someone's excitement or when somebody says thank you, it is not the same face to face as when it is online.   So, that is what she’s really excited about. She has been invited to a few events already in Turkey and in Spain. So those are the first two that she’s looking forward to the most. As long as, of course, COVID-19 allows us to have these events over the next few months. And she is releasing a new edition of Creating a Kick-Ass Attitude this summer, so she is very excited to be doing that.     Elise shared listeners can find her at – LinkedIn – @elisequevedo Twitter – @EliseQuevedo Facebook – Elise C Quevedo Instagram - @elisequevedo                                                   When asked about a quote or saying that she reverts to, Elise shared that the most relevant right now is, “Remember that the journey of a 1,000 miles, it starts with a single step.” She believes that we're in a time of uncertainty; people don't know how to continue or how to restart. So remember, everything begins with that one single step, one step at a time. That's all we have to do. Me: So, we just need to start, just take that one step. And I think sometimes people get crippled by fear, they think about all of the things that they don't have and how are you're going get it done. But as you said, you take one step and it may not be perfect, but then you go again and you take another step.   It's funny. I interviewed a young lady, she's on LinkedIn as well, and her name is Cher Jones. She's a Social Corporate Media Trainer and she was the first Facebook live that I was ever doing in my life. So I've been podcasting for 4 years now, so I think I'm pretty much really good at podcasting.   But video is a little bit different because with the podcast, I can drop it into an editing software and I can add some music and of course, jazz it up, I can cut out stuff like errors that I would have made but with live, that's it. There's no editing, there's no cutting out, it's just live and direct at that moment in time.   And I was very fearful to take that first step and she said something to me that was so powerful. She said, “Yanique, the first thing you need to do is start because you'll realize that by your tenth episode in, you are so much better at episode 10 than you were at episode 1 and all it took was just for you to start.”   And when I think about my first podcast episode, May 24, 2016, how I was then to how I am now. I really feel like I've come a very far way, I'm so much more comfortable doing it. And you're right; you just need to take that first steps. I recommend anybody listening to this podcast. If there's anything out there that you are fearful of doing, as Elise said, just take that first step.   Elise shared a simply start. Remember when we were kids, just because we fell the first time we wanted to walk or tried to ride a bike, we didn't stop, we kept on going. But the older we get, the harder it is to start and the more fear we get. There is a very thin line; she was talking about this with someone the other day.   The same thing that makes us have fear is a similar feeling to the adrenaline of adventure and wanting to do things. So, sometimes the same adrenaline that makes us go, “Yes, let's do this.” is the same that then deviates to us fear that goes, “No, no, no. Let me go back.”   So, all you need to do is just have faith. And remember, it's not about how many times you fail; it's about how many times you get up. So, keep on going, take one step at a time and remember many of the great people out there, any one that passed on something great, everybody started at zero. Nobody ever woke up and became Yanique and had a podcast that was amazing.   Nobody got up and was Tony Robbins from day one or Richard Branson or Warren Buffett, it was a journey. If you believe in your product, if you believe in who you are, then you will always keep going.   There is one more thing that she’s going to share is that she like to talk to people about the magic that we all have. She always says that on one side you have the magic of your product or the idea that you have. And on the other side, you have the magic of you, the magic of what you have inside of your mind. The knowledge that you have, the passion for your product, your idea, the story, how you start it, you know yourself and your idea or product inside and out.   There is no one better to explain it than you. Hence the importance of sharing what you're passionate about. We are all unique human beings and we should focus on what we can do best, not our flaws or our fear, because nobody's perfect. It is always about how we react.   So, if you believe in yourself, then the right people will too. There are about 7.7 billion people on this planet; it is not about being liked by everybody or everybody buying our product, it’s just that the right ones who get who we are, then they will be around us. So that's the magic inside of you. What's your mantra? What is your personal gift? Figure that out and that will always drive you forwards no matter how many times you fall.     Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners Links Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy The Art of War by Sun Tzu How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC’s of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Lesson 1.5:在机场At the Airport状况一Situation 1:办理登机手续Check inMe: I would like to check in.我：我想要办理登机。Ground Staff: Passport, please.地勤人员：请给我护照。Me: Here you go.我：在这里。Ground Staff: Thank you.地勤人员：谢谢。Me: I would like a window seat.我：我想要靠窗的座位。Ground Staff: We can do that. Put your baggage on thescale, please?Here is your boarding pass and your passport.地勤人员：我们可以做到。把你的行李放在磅秤上好吗？Me: Where is my gate?我：我的登机门在哪？Ground Staff: To the right. Go through the securitygate and custom. It's gate 69.地勤人员：在右边。请走过安检门还有海关查验。是69号登机口。Me: Thank you. By the way, where is the nearestrestroom?我：谢谢你。顺便问一下，最近的洗手间在哪儿？Ground Staff: Down the hall to your left.地勤人员：直走就在你左手边。Me: Thank you! Have a good day!我：谢谢！祝你有个愉快的一天！

Lesson 1.5:在机场At the Airport状况一Situation 1:办理登机手续Check inMe: I would like to check in.我：我想要办理登机。Ground Staff: Passport, please.地勤人员：请给我护照。Me: Here you go.我：在这里。Ground Staff: Thank you.地勤人员：谢谢。Me: I would like a window seat.我：我想要靠窗的座位。Ground Staff: We can do that. Put your baggage on thescale, please?Here is your boarding pass and your passport.地勤人员：我们可以做到。把你的行李放在磅秤上好吗？Me: Where is my gate?我：我的登机门在哪？Ground Staff: To the right. Go through the securitygate and custom. It's gate 69.地勤人员：在右边。请走过安检门还有海关查验。是69号登机口。Me: Thank you. By the way, where is the nearestrestroom?我：谢谢你。顺便问一下，最近的洗手间在哪儿？Ground Staff: Down the hall to your left.地勤人员：直走就在你左手边。Me: Thank you! Have a good day!我：谢谢！祝你有个愉快的一天！

Build a website in just 5 days (even if you're not techie) at www.free5daywebsitechallenge.com Already have a website? Take the Free "Jumpstart Your Website Traffic" marketing mini-course at www.jumpstartyourwebsitetraffic.com Leave a Review! So you want to start a freelance web design business, but you’re just getting started so you haven’t had a paying client yet. Which means you don’t have a portfolio… So how are you going to get someone to pay you to build a website for them when you don’t have any client work to back you up? And since you haven’t had any paying clients, how can you even call yourself an actual web designer? You don’t have much experience, what if you mess something up? You shouldn’t charge that much when you’re just getting started. You definitely need to spend more time learning, because what if someone asks you for something you don’t know how to do? You just need more expertise, and the only way to get it is to work for free for friends and family until you have a good enough portfolio. And then you can slowly start charging for your work as you learn more. Eventually, you will know everything there is to know about web design, and then people will be lining up to give you their money! No. No. No and no!!! This is what most new freelance web designers think, and it’s so overwhelming that most of them never get started, or they quickly burn out before they ever start to make any real money. What if there was another way? A way to build your credibility without having a portfolio or having to work for free? I’m here to tell you that there is another way. I found it, quite by accident, and I’m gonna break it all down for you today. So back in 2014, I was working at a nonprofit doing a hybrid job of marketing and IT support. I had been at the company for about 7 years and I was making great money… but I was miserable. Every week sitting in the same rush hour traffic, listening to the same garbage morning radio show, rotating between the same two pairs of Express Editor pants, 5 New York & Company tops, and rotating between the black or brown pair of sensible Franco Sarto booties. Every day, doing the same pointless busy work, listening to the same complaints, navigating the same office politics. Every night, coming home too stressed out and exhausted from the drama of the day to think about what to make for dinner which led to the inevitable conversation with my husband: Me: “Where do you want to go for dinner tonight?” Him: “I don’t care.” Me: “Me neither, I just don’t want to make another decision, my brain is fried.” Him: “Okay, how about Flanagan’s?” Me: “Eh, I’m not feeling it…they don’t have anything healthy…” Him: Annoyed look. Me: “Okay, fine, whatever, that’s fine. I’ll find something I can eat there.” And then I eat a quesadilla washed down with a few Miller Lites for good measure, and now I’m finally feeling relaxed. Go home, go to bed. Sleep like crap. Wake up, start over. Waiting for the weekend. Wash, rinse, repeat. The one thing I loved about my job was WordPress. It’s not something I learned in college, it was a skill that came from me being a natural problem solver (and honestly a little bit of a rebel). I discovered WordPress around 2005. I worked at a law firm, and there was a guy who had scammed thousands of people out of money in a Ponzi scheme. Our firm was tasked with auctioning off all of his assets and distributing whatever they recovered to the victims – and they needed a way to be able to quickly communicate updates on the asset recovery to thousands of victims. Our website was not that nimble and required paying a ton of money to our web developer to update, so I did some research and discovered WordPress. I pitched the idea to my boss, offered to roll up my sleeves and figure it out and that’s when I fell in love with the power of WordPress. And then as I moved forward in my career and listened to people complain about how much time they spend doing ridiculous things that should be easier, I realized… WordPress can do that. There’s a plugin for that. We can automate that. We don’t have to spend tens of thousands on fancy software and hire web developers because I can totally build that. So that’s what I did, and I loved it. What I didn’t love is all the red tape involved. The meetings. The chain of command. The slow pace of progress – or the complete reversal of progress when people felt threatened by change. Then one day, I’m sitting in my beige office and I hear someone say, “Have you ever had 7-Up Salad? It’s got lemon jello, lime jello, marshmallows…” and I started to feel all panicky and I thought, “This cannot be it! There has got to be more to life than this!!! I cannot do this for the rest of my life!” And the panic was quickly replaced by the guilt because I made good money and great benefits and I should be happy with what I have so stop complaining because there are people less fortunate than you in this world, now get back to work! Around the same time my best friend had asked me to read Chalene Johnson’s PUSH with her, where you figure out ten life goals, and then the PUSH goal is the one that when accomplished makes all of the other goals easier. So here’s the conversation I had with myself as I was trying to figure out my PUSH goal: Okay, so I want to eat better, exercise more, lose weight, be less stressed and spend more time with my husband. What’s going to get me there? Being in control of my time and schedule. Okay, how will you do that? By being my own boss. How can you be your own boss? Start my own business. What are you going to do? Build websites with WordPress. Bingo. So I’m at the gym one day trying to exercise my way out of that quesadilla/Miller Lite habit I mentioned earlier, and this girl asks me what I do for a living. “I’m in IT. Oh, and I do web design on the side.” I immediately feel my face get hot. Why did you just lie to her? You’re not a web designer! You’ve never had one client, liar!!! “Ohmigosh, do you know WordPress? We use it at work and our developer ghosted and I’ve got this event coming up and I need major help.” Wait, so I can come to your rescue? She had said the magic words. We set a coffee date up, and I had my first client. A few weeks later, I mention this side hustle to a friend. “You know WordPress? My dad’s site got hacked and he doesn’t know what to do. Can you help?” Um, yep. I’ve cleaned a hack or two in my day. I can help. The following week, I get a phone call from a vendor at my day job. “Hey, who built your website? We have to move all of our clients to WordPress and we need help!” And before I know it, I’m working an extra 40 hours a week outside of my day job. But I’m not the web designer I always imagined – a creative genius who is building gorgeous, innovative websites that I’m proud to show off. I’m a pixel-pusher, taking orders and barely charging for my time because I feel bad that I’m not an expert certified web designer who can code a website from scratch with a degree in computer science – and these people really need my help! I can’t ask them for more money when they ask me for more changes – but I’m super resentful when they do!! Blend all of that with a family emergency and I was perfectly poised for a breakdown – which came in the form of me losing my ish on a coworker, sending a poorly written apology email, and taking the rest of the day off. This is too much. I’m wrapping up these client projects, and then I’m done, I thought. My dream of becoming a freelance web designer had died. Or so I thought. Because if you’re anything like me, once you REALLY want something, you’re not going to stop until you figure it out. I was on my way to work, and instead of listening to garbage morning radio I had started listening to podcasts, and this particular morning Chalene Johnson was interviewing this guy, Pat Flynn, who makes money by giving away everything he knows about creating passive income online, and he earns affiliate commissions on the plugins and themes and hosting and services people bought to implement what he taught. Wait, what??? It’s like I heard a record scratch in my own mind. This is a thing? You mean, I can create videos teaching everything I’ve learned about harnessing the power of WordPress over the past several years and make money from it – AND I won’t have to work with clients? Um, SIGN ME UP!!!! At that moment, everything changed. In my spare time, I started researching affiliate programs and was astounded at how many there were for products and services I already used. I began to outline my tutorial videos and scheduled time to record them. In the evenings worked on building my website and signing up for affiliate programs. On the weekends I recorded my tutorials and added them to my website. In just a couple of months, I had created the 5 Day Website Challenge, a free 5-module video course that teaches how to build an entire WordPress site, the same exact site I built for paying clients with no steps left out. It had a few affiliate recommendations in it for tools that I used myself and were teaching inside of the training, but 90% of it could be done at no cost to the Challenger. Okay, it’s done… now how do I get people to find it? Which led to the bigger question that I had failed to ask myself before diving in a building the thing… Who is this actually for? There have got to be more people out there like me, I thought. Women in their mid-thirties who just looked up one day and thought, is this it? Is this all there is to life? I had a different dream, and now I’m just trapped and I want the freedom of being my own boss, being in control of my time and taking the glass ceiling off of my earning potential. Women who want to start an online business like that B-School thing I kept hearing about or like Chalene teaches in her Marketing Impact Academy. I want to help those women build their websites so that they can have their dream too! The other thing that I knew from listening to Pat Flynn and Chalene Johnson is that I needed to build an email list. And so I set my WordPress training up to be something that I’d give away for free in exchange for an email address so I had that part down, but I wasn’t quite sure how to go about building my email list. So I just Googled “how to build an email list” and I found Nathalie Lussier’s 30 Day List Building Challenge – and the strategies I learned in that training are what led me to my very first subscriber and my very first affiliate commissions, and the realization that I had created something that people really, really need. So I put my head down and focused on list-building. Get as many people as possible to sign up for the 5 Day Website Challenge so I can earn affiliate revenue and not be an order-taking pixel pusher (outside of my day job anyway). What I did not expect is that my dream clients started asking me to build their websites for them. Powerful women building life-changing online businesses wanted me to build their websites. And at first, I told them no, I don’t work one on one with clients. I just teach you how to DIY. And I was also very CONFUSED –  why would you want to pay me when I’m showing you exactly what to do – for free? But then it hit me. I had earned their trust by peeling back the curtain on my process. I had built credibility by freely giving away my knowledge. And people felt like they already knew and liked me because I shared stories like this one about why I was giving it all away for free to them because I didn’t want them to be held back by the tech. I didn’t have to “sell” my services, people were asking me if they could BUY from me. It’s a business owners’ dream! And I said no!!! Can you believe it? And I said no because I was afraid. I didn’t want it to feel like how it felt before when I had no systems, no processes, no boundaries and no help and placed no value on my skillset or my time. Plus I still had a day job and I wanted to have somewhat of a life outside of it! By then, I had released a paid WordPress training course that was not making the millions I had expected it to make, so I set up a consultation with a sales expert who had taken my 5 Day Website Challenge. She had reached out to me for some advice and when I read her website copy I knew she was the person who could help me sell this course! That free twenty-minute conversation changed my life. I walked away realizing that it didn’t matter how I had learned what I knew or whether I knew everything there is to know, my years of knowledge and experience MATTER! The fact that I know how to find the answers quickly MATTERS. The fact that I want to help people get what they want MATTERS, and it all has value. And when I decided to put systems and processes in place and create a web design package together that I knew I could deliver while still working full time at a price that felt good to me, I started to say YES to people that asked to work with me. And every time I worked with a client, I learned something new that would lead to a change in my process or my pricing. Oh, that took WAY longer than I thought it would. I need to charge more for that next time. We got off track here, how can I prevent that from happening with the next client? I need help, I’m going to bring in some subcontractors so that I can get all of this work done on time. And over the next two years, I consistently grew the passive income I was making from courses and affiliate marketing, and the time-for-money income I was making building websites for clients. When I got to the point where I was completely maxed out on time and the amount of money I could make while still having a day job, I put in a 7-month notice at work. I gave them 7 months because I’d also been promoted to an executive role and I wanted to give them plenty of time to find a replacement. I quit my day job on January 2, 2018, and I’ve consistently earned between $8,000 – $10,000 month since becoming self-employed. So here are five things that I want you to take away from my story: You don’t need a portfolio to build credibility. I still don’t have a portfolio on my website! Simply give away everything you know for free by creating tutorials, training, and content. It positions you as trustworthy and as credible to people that need what you have to offer. You can call yourself a web designer whether you’ve had paying clients or not. If you know how to build a website (code or no code), then you can call yourself a web designer. Or if you’re not ready to say that just yet, you can offer web design services. Or say you build websites. It’s not like being called Doctor. No one has to bestow the title upon you. You are definitely going to mess things up, but like Marie Forleo says, everything is figureoutable. Something is not going to go as you expect on every single project, but if you’re a problem-solver, if you’re persistent and you’re willing to dig in and figure it out, you’ll be fine. Yeah, you might lose some time, but you’ll know for the next time you come across that same problem! You are never going to know everything there is to know. You just aren’t. There’s no better way to learn than as you go in real-life situations. Yes, it might take you longer. But are you confident in your ability to find the answers as you go? If you’re not confident, there’s no amount of learning or schooling that can get you there because you will always run into something you don’t know how to do. Please don’t work for free or barter for experience or exposure. You’ll end up working for that client for free (or super cheap) forever. How do you draw the line between what you’ll do for free and what they have to now pay for? And once you get some paying clients, who is going to come last? Yep, the client who doesn’t pay you. And then they get resentful because now they are in a bad spot and you’re not available to help them. When you work for free, you also start getting referrals of clients that also can’t afford to pay you for your services. Your time and knowledge are valuable, even when you’re just starting out, and it gets even more valuable over time. You have got to start right out of the gate setting firm boundaries on your pricing, otherwise, like me, you’ll feel resentful, burnt out and at risk of giving up on your dream! If you’re going to spend any time doing something you aren’t immediately getting paid to do, spend it on creating free content that builds your credibility and putting together packages of services you feel confident you can deliver! So how do you start a web design business without a portfolio or having had a single client? Start by building the best website you’ve ever built for your own business. Pretend you are your own dream client and just knock your own socks off. Then, start creating content that helps other people get what they want and positions you as someone who knows her stuff. And give it all away for free to attract traffic to your website. You’re not giving away your time for free, you’re giving away your knowledge. There’s a difference. Then go create something extra awesome to build your email list, build trust over time through consistency and then let people know when you have open development spots on your schedule and set up free consultations. You’ll be closing sales with confidence in no time, and you’ll look back at the days where you worried about not having a portfolio with fond memories.

In today’s show:Rapid-Fire News New “Pilot” Earbuds will translate languages in real time Phones are more expensive than you think Boston Red Sox use Apple Watches to cheat Hurricane #Irma Airlines lower prices ahead of the storm Beau’s “Now You’re Smarter” Segment Beau Went to Daddy Boot Camp to get ready for his coming progeny The instructor let everyone practice Dad’ing on his own kid! Captain's Ready Room with Johnny From Colin Powell’s “It Worked for Me” Where are you making your decisions from? The “Point of Decision” Pop Culture Segment #Inhumans Flopped Johnny gives a mini-review of #Baywatch Should police arrest people at hurricane shelters #SwordArtOnline How does love work in the virtual world? #Norsemen is good Taylor Swift got booed at her friend’s wedding The #IT movie is coming out Jaden Smith is producing an Anime for Netflix #NeoYokio Support Junto Show by donating to the tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/junto-show

In Isaiah 66, the Father asks, "Where is the house that you will build for Me? Where will my resting place be?" The Father is looking for the Body of Messiah to be a habitation for His presence and His glory. Let us prepare ourselves to be His resting place in humility and brokenness of spirit. Only rent hearts will rend the heavens.