Podcasts about monetization nation

From the archive: This episode was originally recorded and published in 2021. Our interviews on Entrepreneurs On Fire are meant to be evergreen, and we do our best to confirm that all offers and URL's in these archive episodes are still relevant. Nathan Gwilliam is a serial entrepreneur who created and sold 3 digital ventures. He is the host of the Monetization Nation blog, podcast, and YouTube channel, and created and runs Adoption.com. TEDx speaker. #digitalmonetizer Top 3 Value Bombs 1. One of the ways we can identify and leverage tectonic shifts is to follow content and media channels talking about these shifts. 2. Passion marketing is identifying what our ideal customers are most passionate about. What are those highest level passions that drive the lives of your customers? 3. There are so many "good" choices that being good is not good enough anymore. Figure out how to make your business a top priority so you can stand out against other options. Passion Marketing - Learn more about Passion Marketing by downloading a FREE e-book from Nathan! (Sorry! These links were active when this episode was first published in 2021. These resources are no longer available.) Sponsors HubSpot HubSpot's all -on -one customer platform can make growing your business infinitely easier. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today FranBridge Many EOFire listeners have launched franchises in a variety of industries outside of food – and FranBridge Consulting has guided them to these premier opportunities! Sign up for a free consultation with Jon - or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising - at FranBridgeConsulting.com

From the archive: This episode was originally recorded and published in 2021. Our interviews on Entrepreneurs On Fire are meant to be evergreen, and we do our best to confirm that all offers and URL's in these archive episodes are still relevant. Nathan Gwilliam is a serial entrepreneur who created and sold 3 digital ventures. He is the host of the Monetization Nation blog, podcast, and YouTube channel, and created and runs Adoption.com. TEDx speaker. #digitalmonetizer Top 3 Value Bombs 1. One of the ways we can identify and leverage tectonic shifts is to follow content and media channels talking about these shifts. 2. Passion marketing is identifying what our ideal customers are most passionate about. What are those highest level passions that drive the lives of your customers? 3. There are so many "good" choices that being good is not good enough anymore. Figure out how to make your business a top priority so you can stand out against other options. Passion Marketing - Learn more about Passion Marketing by downloading a FREE e-book from Nathan! (Sorry! These links were active when this episode was first published in 2021. These resources are no longer available.) Sponsors HubSpot HubSpot's all -on -one customer platform can make growing your business infinitely easier. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today FranBridge Many EOFire listeners have launched franchises in a variety of industries outside of food – and FranBridge Consulting has guided them to these premier opportunities! Sign up for a free consultation with Jon - or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising - at FranBridgeConsulting.com

Today is one of the very last episodes of season one of Monetization Nation. As you've heard over the last two episodes, I've talked about 30 different key lessons that we've learned from publishing every day for a year. In today's episode, I'm going to talk to you about the application of those principles in our show and how it will affect the future of Monetization Nation.  Read more here: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/the-future-of-monetization-nation/

I started the Monetization Nation podcast nearly one year ago and when I did, I made a commitment to publish content every single day for the year. As we're finishing up, me and my team came up with 30 lessons we learned from publishing for a year. In the last episode, I shared the first 15 lessons we've learned and in this episode, I'm going to share with you the final 15 lessons that we've learned from publishing everyday for a year. Read here: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/30-lessons-i-learned-from-publishing-for-a-year-part-2/

On February 5, 2021, when I started the Monetization Nation podcast, I made a commitment to publish content every single day for a year. As we're finishing that year up, I have spent some time reflecting on my experience. In many ways, it has been much more time consuming than I expected, but I have also received a lot more out of it than I expected. Read more here: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/30-lessons-i-learned-from-publishing-for-a-year-part-1/ 

Hello, Monetization Nation. Welcome back to another faith episode. Today we're going to talk about profiting with a purpose. Corporate social responsibility has become extremely important. Statistics have shown that it can actually drive greater employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and profit.  Read more here: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-to-profit-with-a-purpose/

Nathan Gwilliam is the Founder and CEO of Monetization Nation and the host of the Monetization Nation Podcast. We discuss the concept of Monetization and how you can better monetize your assets. Action Items: Access our FREE Resources Subscribe to The Biz Sherpa Newsletter Follow The Biz Sherpa on LinkedIn Follow The Biz Sherpa on Instagram Follow the Biz Sherpa Facebook Page Subscribe to The Biz Sherpa Youtube Channel Subscribe to The Biz Sherpa Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast or Stitcher. Connect with Craig on LinkedIn

Nathan Gwilliam is the Founder and CEO of Monetization Nation and the host of the Monetization Nation Podcast. We discuss the concept of Monetization and how you can better monetize your assets.   Check out Monetization Nation at the links below: Monetization Nation Website Youtube Channel Apple Podcast   CLICK HERE to access our free resources, social pages, and website!

Nathan Gwilliam is a serial entrepreneur who created and sold 3 digital ventures. He is the host of the Monetization Nation blog, podcast, and YouTube channel. He created and ran Adoption.com and is a TEDx speaker. 0:00 - 0:35 Nathan's bio0:35 - 1:06 Schedule Once https://www.peppershock.com/product/schedule-once-offer/1:06 - 3:33 Marketing Essentials Moment: Automate What You Hate: Marketing Automation Explained3:33 - 4:06 Welcome to Peppershock Media's Marketing Expedition podcast4:06 - 5:05 Nathan's Background5:05 - 9:22 Tectonic shifts in business9:22 - 14:32 Testimonials from previous clients14:32 - 18:33 Passion Marketing18:33 - 20:20 More about Nathan20:20 - 23:55 How Nathan reimagined Adoption.com23:55 - 25:33 Monetization Nation 25:33 - 27:24 Passion Marketing27:24 - 28:58 Nathan's influences and resources28:58 - 30:35 If Nathan wish he knew what he knows now30:35 - 32:07 Nathan's goals32:07 - 35:02 Credibility marketing35:02 - 36:24 How to reach Nathan https://monetizationnation.com/ https://passionmarketing.com/ebook36:24 - 36:54 Thank you for watching36:54 - 37:24 Join https://themarketingexpedition.com today!#passionmarketing #credibilitymarketing #marketing #marketingtips #marketingstrategies #digitalmarketing #onlinemarketing #branding #business #advertising #entrepreneurship #marketingstrategy serialentrepreneur

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathangwilliam https://www.instagram.com/nathangwilliam https://twitter.com/NathanGwilliam https://passionmarketing.com/ebook

Funnel Hacking Live is a four day live conference hosted by Russell Brunson and the ClickFunnels team, and packed with incredible speakers. I attended Funnel Hacking Live for Day 1 and I will be attending during the additional days. Each day I will host a live stream at Monetization Nation to share with you the most impactful points. In today's episode, I want to share my key takeaways with you.  Read more at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/funnel-hacking-live-2021-day-1-key-takeaways/

This a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation.  The Pride of Lord Voldemort In J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, pride is one of the defining characteristics of many of the characters, but it leads to the downfall of Lord Voldemort. Voldemort is so proud, he can't imagine not living forever. In his quest to prolong his life, he destroys the lives of others. In the end, his pride causes him to underestimate Harry, who is able to defeat him. Voldemort only lived to about 71 years old—well under the life expectancy of wizards; Dumbledore lived to 116. If it weren't for his pride, Voldemort could have lived much longer.  Though our pride likely won't lead to our death, it could lead to the destruction of many things including faith, relationships, or our business. To combat pride we must choose humility.  

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I'm Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today's episode, we're going to talk about patriotism through entrepreneurship. Publix in the Great Depression During the Great Depression, there was a 22-year-old man named George Jenkins. Jenkins was the manager of a Florida Piggly Wiggly, but he quit his job and started his own grocery store chain next door. The store not only survived, but it has grown to be a 1000-store chain today that is known as Publix. President Ronald Reagan said, “Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.” That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but America's 31 million small businesses generate nearly half of all US economic activity. The nominal GDP (gross domestic product) of American small businesses comes out to roughly $6 trillion—more than the entire GDP of Japan, the world's third largest economy (Source: Independent.org).  Read more at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/patriotism-through-entrepreneurship/

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I'm Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today's episode, we're going to discuss an article written by clinical mental health counselor, Rod Jeppsen. In his article, Jeppsen teaches us how we can more effectively communicate with our spouses.  It can be hard to be the spouse of an entrepreneur. We often get sucked into projects and responsibilities or have to work long and odd hours, especially when we're first starting our businesses. We're asking a lot of our spouses; that's why it is important to continue to put effort into our relationships and learn how to communicate more effectively with our spouse.  Read more at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/together-or-apart-how-to-effectively-communicate-with-our-spouses/  

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I'm Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today's episode, we're going to discuss how to be a stonecatcher. What is a stonecatcher? There was once a man who had been falsely accused of murder and was condemned to die. His attorney, Bryan Stevenson, was dedicated to defending the wrongly accused. Stevenson asked the man's local church for support even though the man wasn't active in the church and was scorned in the community because of a widely-known affair. Stevenson reminded them of the story of the woman accused of adultery, and surrounded by a crowd who wanted to stone her to death. Christ said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (KJV John 8:7) Read more at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-to-become-a-stonecatcher/

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I'm Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today's episode, we're going to discuss mental health and reference a sermon given by educator and religious leader Jeffrey Holland called “Like a Broken Vessel”. In this sermon, Holland talks about mental health and the need we all have to care for our own mental health and the mental health of others. This is a topic that's particularly close to my heart. In one of the previous episodes, I told a story about my business partner who committed suicide, and I want to retell that story because I think it's particularly appropriate for this episode. Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-entrepreneurs-can-care-for-their-mental-health/ 

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I'm Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today's episode, we're going to discuss the attribute of patience based on a sermon given by American scholar, educator, and religious leader Neal Maxwell. Maxwell explained, “Patience is not indifference. Actually, it means caring very much but being willing, nevertheless, to submit to the Lord and to what the scriptures call the ‘process of time.'” As entrepreneurs, we often have to be patient for success. According to Freshbooks.com, most small businesses take at least two to three years to become profitable and only become truly successful once they've hit the seven to the 10-year mark. Seven years is a long time to wait for success. We may get discouraged and want to quit. However, we should trust in the Lord's timing. “When we are unduly impatient we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than [God does]. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His,” Maxwell said. Read at:

This is a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. In today's episode, we're going to discuss how to determine our priorities and make good, better, and best choices.  Good, Better, Best We all know the difference between a good choice and a bad choice. But while it may seem easy to identify and avoid the bad choices, how do we make the best choices? There aren't just good and bad choices. There are also better choices and best choices.  In 2007, Dallin H. Oaks, a former university president, and state supreme court justice, and a religious leader, gave a sermon titled, “Good, Better, Best.” In his sermon, he explained that as we make choices, we need to carefully reflect on the good, better, or best choice.  Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/5-ways-to-establish-our-priorities-at-work/ 

Dave Ruel is a former competitive physique athlete turned into a serial entrepreneur, speaker, leadership mentor, and author of the best-selling book, Done by Noon: How to Achieve More by Noon Than Other Entrepreneurs in a Full Day.    In today's episode, we're going to discuss Dave's entrepreneurial journey and a few lessons he learned about freedom in the process.    Dave's Entrepreneurial Journey   Dave's journey started with his passion for fitness. In 2007, he competed in a bodybuilder show in Newfoundland, Canada, and he met Lee Hayward, a competitive bodybuilder, and owner of Total Fitness Bodybuilding. Hayward told Dave he was making six figures a year from his fitness blog, inspiring a drive and desire for Dave to do the same.    Dave traded his passion for fitness for an obsession with business. He learned as much as he could about starting a digital business until he could go full-time with his own blog and business, Muscle Cook, in 2009. His business aimed to help fitness lovers with meal plans and nutrition.    “Becoming an entrepreneur is like becoming an athlete,” Dave said. “You can start with natural tendencies or natural talent but eventually you need to acquire the skills to become a champion.”   Dave launched cookbooks, and from there he started getting attention. Dave explained that his biggest home run was creating that first product, the cookbook since it was the first thing that helped propel his career forward. Since then, he has helped found and grow multimillion-dollar online companies in the field of health, fitness, and sports nutrition for nearly a decade.   However, Dave saw the dark side of entrepreneurship, and the side gradually robbed him of his freedom, leaving him burned out and unfulfilled. Refusing to conform to a broken business culture that promotes workaholism and non-stop hustle, Dave created sustainable structures and systems for his life and business to reclaim his freedom without sacrificing the growth of his companies.    Fueled by his passion for entrepreneurship and human performance, he launched Ethic, an innovative leadership development company that helps busy entrepreneurs maximize their impact and freedom.    5 Truths About Entrepreneurship   As entrepreneurs, it can be easy to get buried in our workloads and overwhelmed with to-do lists; we get lost and burnt out. In the process of trying to find our freedoms with entrepreneurship, we end up losing them, just as Dave did in his fitness businesses. In his book, Done by Noon, Dave shared five truths about life and business as entrepreneurs we should be aware of to help us avoid burnout.      All Entrepreneurs Want Freedom     Dave explained that entrepreneurs want one thing: freedom. We want the freedom of time, the freedom of creation, and financial freedom. That's why we do what we do.   The freedom of time allows us to do what we want to do when we want to do it. With the freedom of time, we can choose to spend more time with our family or choose to go on frequent trips. We want the freedom of creativity to work on whatever we want. Instead of working for someone else, we can choose to design new products or create new services to help others. And we want financial freedom. We want a business that can provide enough income for us to live the lifestyle we want.    However, in order to achieve these freedoms, we need to work hard. In Dave's book, he explained that we need to learn to juggle our skills and use our time and energy as fuel for our businesses.      Entrepreneurs Love to Work      Entrepreneurs love to work. In his book, Dave explained that when he asked entrepreneurs what they would do if their business made them enough money to never work again, true entrepreneurs said they would still continue to work. That is because our work and our businesses give us creative freedom. If we aren't working, we miss an important link. We may have the freedom of time and money, but we won't be able to be as creative as we'd like.    In his book, Dave wrote, “In the early stages of your entrepreneurial journey, the truth is that you'll be focused on earning enough money to support your lifestyle. Then, once you've achieved financial freedom, you can start enjoying the freedom of time and freedom of creation.”    Deep down inside, we are creators. The desire to create and have momentum and growth fuels our desire to work.    “You could be a great business owner . . . who has amazing, fantastic business management skills, . . . [but] this doesn't make you an entrepreneur necessarily,” Dave said. “An entrepreneur is like a practical artist.”      Drift Happens     Even though we want freedom, we will eventually start drifting away from that freedom because business happens. At one point or another, we will find that we wander off the path of our main goal.   “The truth is along the way drift will happen,” Dave said. “Why? Because of business habits. You will do things that you never thought you would do. You will do things that will prevent you from working. . . . It happens to every single entrepreneur.”   When we start a business, our main goal is often very clear to us. We know our expertise. But, as things get busier and busier, we may find ourselves doing other tasks that lead away from our main goal. We begin to drift. This will often lead to wasted time and energy as we slowly move away from focusing on our area of expertise.    To avoid drifting, we should constantly check in on our daily tasks and make sure we are focusing on our superpowers, strengths, and what we are best at to maximize success.      Work and Life Balance Doesn't Work     “Work/life balance doesn't work,” Dave said. “And the reason being is that when you look at it from a perspective that work and life are two different things, they compete against each other.”   Instead of trying to balance two separate lives, our work life, and our personal life, we can strive to merge them together. Dave's entrepreneurial journey started by forming a business around his lifestyle. He had a passion for fitness and began to share fitness and health information with others. His life's passion became his business.      Our Priorities Will Change     Over time, our priorities may change. As entrepreneurs, we could start off with one goal but slowly shift to something else as things change. This isn't a bad thing. It's okay for us to make new goals and start new projects.    We talk a lot about business tectonic shifts on this show, and if we aren't willing to change or switch our priorities when we see business tectonic shifts, our business may suffer.    3 “S's” of Leverage   In addition to the five truths of entrepreneurs in business, Dave shared the three “S's” of leverage. These three things will help us beat out our competition.      Strengths     We need to understand our strengths. What are our superpowers? What are we the best at? We should focus our time, energy, and resources on working in areas we are the expert in.    “Using your strengths is the best way for you to manage your resources properly,” Dave said. “Every single time you're going to do something that you're not that great at, it's going to take quite a bit of effort, quite a bit of energy, and more time.”    By focusing on using our strengths to grow our businesses, we become more efficient. It may not be easy to understand what those strengths are at first, but we can start to review our work and performance to determine what areas we are the best in.    When I asked Dave to share a secret for entrepreneurs to achieve sustainable performance and productivity, he said it is to manage our resources effectively, and one of the best ways we can do this is to understand our strengths. Efficiency is the ability to produce something with the least amount of resources.    As we manage our time, resources, and attention based on our strengths, we will find more success.      Structure     “If you don't have structure, you will not get the results that you want. Leverage a good structure that is sustainable, that is solid and that obeys efficiency,” Dave said.    In order to be successful in our business and maintain efficiency, we need to establish a strong structure that will help us run the overall goals of our business. To start building a strong structure, we need to set clear goals and objectives.    “What's the desired outcome? What do you really want to accomplish? Be very, very clear on that,” Dave said. “And based on that, look at your input and say, ‘How can I manage my three finite resources: my time, my energy, and my attention? Those are resources that I have as an entrepreneur. How can I manage that to make sure that the machine has a long life?'”     Systems     The third “S” we need to focus on is our systems. How can we efficiently use systems to work within the structures we have in place? “Understand that you will need to implement different systems in your life and your business in order . . . to optimize what you're doing,” Dave said.    The systems in our business help the day-to-day tasks run smoothly. We should have clear communication within and between systems so that everyone can stay on the same page and do their job effectively.    “It's [about] understanding . . . what my strengths are, understanding what's the best structure for me and my business, understanding what the best systems are for me and my business, and using that as leverage to really create what you want,” Dave said.    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Dave for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:     Entrepreneurs want the freedom of time, the freedom of creation, and financial freedom, and entrepreneurship can often help us achieve those freedoms.   Entrepreneurs love to work their craft because it gives us creative freedom. The desire to create and have momentum and growth fuels our desire to work.  Instead of trying to balance two separate lives, our work life, and our personal life, we can strive to merge them together in a healthy way. Over time, our priorities will probably change. That's normal. When that happens, we can set new goals. We should develop and leverage our strengths, structures, and systems to create and manage a successful business.    Connect with Dave   If you want to learn more about or connect with Dave you can: Connect with him on LinkedIn  Visit his company website at effic.co or his personal website, DaveRuel.com     Next Steps   Do you want to take your digital monetization to the next level?   Get a free ebook about passion marketing, and learn how to become a top priority of your ideal customers at PassionMarketing.com.  Subscribe to Monetization Nation on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, our Facebook Group, and on your favorite podcast platform.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/5-truths-about-life-and-business-as-entrepreneurs/ 

Welcome back to another episode with Dr. Leigh George. In the last episode, we discussed what branding is, why it's important, and some of the benefits along with Leigh's career, failure, and value-based pricing. In today's episode, we'll discuss the steps for creating a successful brand along with knowing when our brand is working, being in control of our brand, mistaking branding for visual identity, and some examples of successful brands.   Steps for Creating a Successful Brand   Here are two steps to create a successful brand.     Know Our Audience and Brand Narrative     The audience is arguably the most important part of having a successful brand. Leigh recently met with a startup that needed branding help. She asked them some questions and learned that they didn't have a problem they were solving for. They had a business idea, something they thought would be cool and useful, but they didn't know how it was going to make their audience's life easier.   “To be a successful brand, there has to be something at stake for your audience, some challenge that they're faced with that you can help them overcome,” Leigh said. We have to find the intersection between what is motivating the founders and what the audience cares about. That intersection is the brand narrative; it is the story of how our business can help our audience.     Create a Brand Manifesto     Once we know the narrative of how our business will help our audience, it is time to do our brand manifesto. A brand manifesto, purpose, or mission statement acts as an emotional representation of our brand purpose. It's a rallying cry that crystalizes why we're here and what we're here to do.    Nike has a great example of a brand manifesto. It reads, “Nike exists to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. Our purpose is to move the world forward through the power of sport—breaking barriers and building community to change the game for all. *If you have a body, you are an athlete.” (Source: purpose.nike.com)   Anyone who works at Nike could read this and be excited about what their company is doing. They likely feel like they are helping bring inspiration and innovation and are helping break barriers and build community.   Our manifesto should unify our company and our brand, so we're all working towards the same purpose. It should bring us together to accomplish the same goals. It should also resonate with our audience and be something they want to support.   How do we know if our branding is working?   To know if our branding is successful, we have to talk to people, customers, and non-customers alike. We need to survey them to learn what they think of when they hear our name. We need to ask them to tell us about their last experience with our company.    Through getting out there and talking to people, we'll be able to learn about the general perception of our brand. What do people think of us? How do we come off? What are we known for?   Once they answer these questions for us, we can determine if their answers are in line with the vision we had for our brand. Are we aligned with our manifesto? Do our customers see us working towards our purpose?   If their answers match the vision of our brand, great; we can keep doing what we're doing. If not, we likely need to do some rebranding. Rebranding must happen when there is a disconnect between how the company sees itself and how the world sees it. It usually happens when there is new leadership or a new vision for the company.   Do we want to be in control of our brand?   There are some people out there who think that branding doesn't matter. They think we can just throw some text up on our website without creating a real logo or thinking about the company's image. They think we can make just as much money without worrying about any of that.   Perhaps we can make just as much money, but that isn't the important part. Leigh said, “Even if you commit no resources to a logo or colors or messaging, you will have a brand. Because if you don't create it, the public will.”   The question then is do we want to be in control of the brand? It will be created regardless of what we do, so do we want to have a say in how our company is perceived? Do we want our brand to just be black text on a white background? If we're going for a minimalist image, then that might be a good option, but if we want to be known for something else such as creativity, it won't be a good option.   Our branding and our design choices create expectations in our audience's minds. If we don't control our branding, we don't control what our audience expects from us. We want to take charge of those expectations and tell our audience through our image and communication what to expect from us.   Mistaking Branding for Visual Identity   One of the biggest mistakes Leigh sees companies make is treating their branding like a cosmetic exercise. In 2021 many companies such as Pfizer, GM, and Burger King have come out with new logos, colors, typography, etc. This can make it feel like a fashion trend or a seasonal look.   To Leigh, branding is more about what you stand for. It can be expressed in visuals, but Leigh said, “You shouldn't reduce your company to a look and feel because then that sort of cheapens your value to a certain extent.” Instead, we should focus on the narrative behind our business and manifest that story in our design.    Examples of Well-Done Branding   Here are a couple of brands Leigh and I discussed that do their branding very well.   Uncle Terry Smells   Leigh recently got a candle from a company called Uncle Terry Smells. She usually doesn't buy candles because she isn't really a candle person. She doesn't like clutter, and she isn't sure what the point of candles is. However, when she saw Uncle Terry Smells' social media posts, she became obsessed.   The company has a blue and orange color palette and they curate images from pop culture, kitsch culture, and high and low culture with the same color palette. Leigh said, “The brand was so much about identity and appealing to a certain kind of person. And I was clearly that kind of person because I was just totally drawn to that imagery. . . . This brand ostensibly sells candles, but they could sell anything because the brand is so clear and so strong.”   This brand speaks to a very particular audience. They're not trying to appeal to everyone. Their voice is very specific, and it's like a beacon to their people. You either get it or you don't. We don't have to try to attract everyone into our audience. In fact, it is better if we focus on a specific group of people who we know will love our products or services.   Apple   Apple is all about creativity and innovation, and they just happen to sell computers. The strongest brands have a very distinct point of view and we're never going to confuse them with another brand. Apple is very distinct; they aren't afraid of being different. Just like Uncle Terry Smells, they've committed to who they are and they are never going to waver. They don't care that there's a whole group of PC buyers out there because they know who their audience is.   When Leigh was in college as soon as she could save enough money, she bought a Performa Apple computer. She's bought Apple computers ever since. To write her dissertation, she bought the Apple Cube computer, which she still has because she thinks it's beautiful even though it doesn't work anymore.   Apple has created an audience that may even be loyal to a fault. We're counting down the days until the next MacBook Pro comes out. We're willing to pay more even though we could probably get better computing power for a cheaper price somewhere else. Leigh said the number one reason to have a brand is that we can charge more. People are willing to pay more for the brand they love.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Leigh for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   The first step to creating a successful brand is knowing our audience. A brand manifesto should unify our company and resonate with our audience. If our audience's perception of us doesn't line up with our vision then we may need to rebrand. If we don't actively create our own brand, it will be created for us and may not line up with what we want it to be. Branding is more than visual identity, but it can be expressed visually. We should focus on the narrative behind our business and manifest that story in our design. Many successful brands don't try to appeal to everyone. They pick a specific audience and focus on them.   Connect with Leigh   To learn more about or connect with Leigh: Connect on LinkedIn or Twitter Visit her website at Find-Freedom.co.    Next Steps   Do you want to take your digital monetization to the next level?   Get a free ebook about passion marketing, and learn how to become a top priority of your ideal customers at PassionMarketing.com.  Subscribe to Monetization Nation on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, our Facebook Group, and on your favorite podcast platform. Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-to-create-a-successful-brand/ 

A huge chasm has opened up between companies and consumers. Many businesses think we're still in the 20th century in an attention economy; they think they're competing for as many eyes on their company as possible. They think they can gain sales from simply blanketing the media with enough messages.    Technology, customers, and businesses have moved past that splatter approach to marketing. Instead of trying to catch the attention of every consumer we can, we should create a personal brand to target our products and services towards a specific niche audience. We need to be designing our products and services to bridge the gap between business and people.   One thing that can help us bridge this gap is branding. But what is branding and why is it important? In today's episode, we'll discuss this and other things Leigh George has learned in her career such as the small moments, failing forward, and value-based pricing.   Dr. Leigh George is the founder of Freedom, a strategic branding and marketing un-agency. She worked as vice president at Ogilvy for over 20 years, and she helps marketing teams eliminate noise, gain clarity, build consensus, and develop actionable strategies to reach and persuade customers. Leigh has a Ph.D. in branding, making her one of the very few people in the country with that distinction.    What is branding?   Branding is often confused with visual identity: logo, colors, typography, etc. Leigh explained that a brand is more than that. A brand is why we started our business in the first place, answering these questions: Why are we doing this? What do we stand for? What's the purpose of the business?   The reason we started our business can't be that we want to make a million dollars because our customers don't care about us making money. The purpose doesn't have to be a social purpose, but our customers should be at the center of our purpose.   Once we know the purpose, our brand should be the story around that aim. Our brand should show how our purpose relates to what matters to our customers, a central challenge that they face, so we can show the impact we can have in their lives.   Our brand should be there from the very beginning of the business. It isn't something we tack on later to make selling easier. Once we know our brand we can express it through things like logo, colors, tone, products, services, etc.   Why is branding important and what are the benefits?   “Your brand should act as a foundation and a touchstone for every business decision,” Leigh said. Should we develop a new product? Is it in line with our brand? Should we open an office? Is it in line with our brand?   A brand helps us differentiate from someone else who's selling the exact same thing. It sets us apart from the competition. Customers have many alternatives to choose from, including alternatives that aren't in the same space.    For example, if someone is shopping for a car, an alternative could be taking public transportation, riding a bike, walking, carpooling with someone, or living somewhere they don't have to worry about transportation. “If you don't have a brand, then it's very difficult for someone to weigh why and how you're valuable to them versus an alternative,” Leigh said.   Branding is also important for our company internally. If our purpose is just to make a bunch of money and our employees are making minimum wage, they won't have anything to believe in, and they'll feel like they don't have a purpose within the company. Branding creates something our employees can be excited about. It can give them a reason to wake up and come to work every morning. It can help them feel like they're making a difference because they have a greater purpose in their work than just a job.    Customers are the Disruptors   Sometimes in companies, we are so focused on our own products or services, but customers are the ones who are able to disrupt industries. “If you think about Apple, or Blockbuster, or any of these case studies that people tend to turn to as examples of big technology, innovation, or disruption, what's behind that is really a change in customer behavior that was just accelerated by technology,” Leigh said.   This is an idea that Leigh is super passionate about. In everything she does with the companies she works with, she strives to develop a deep empathy, understanding, and interest in her clients' customers to really understand how the customers' passion intersects with what is unique and special about the brand.   Leigh's Entrepreneurial Journey   When Leigh was in graduate school, she thought she was going to be a professor. However, over the course of her studies, she became fascinated with the branding work of the companies she was studying. She also felt that academia could be isolating and separate from the rest of the world, so she redirected her career towards branding.    Leigh made a big pivot, working at many different agencies, big and small. She got to a point where she felt the agency model was not keeping up with the needs of clients. Agencies were more interested in their awards, their egos, and talking about themselves. “To me,” Leigh said, “my job is to help clients improve their business, help them change the perception about the brand, help them get more attention, help them attract and engage and spur action among customers. So it's really more about clients than it was about me.”   One night, Leigh was complaining about this to her husband, and he said, “Why don't you just do something about it instead of just complaining?” So Leigh started her un-agency, using that word on purpose to show that it is different from traditional agencies. For example, unlike most other agencies, she doesn't bill by the hour so that she can focus on the value of the work and build strong relationships with her clients without either of them worrying about tracking time.   The Little Things   The moments in Leigh's career that she's most proud of are when she is able to see the difference she's made for her clients. One of Leigh's clients was a global company. One day, she was presenting to the company's president and board, showing them the findings and analysis from some customer research she'd done with the marketing department. The presentation went well, and as Leigh was leaving, the president ran down the hall after her. He had a look of wonder on his face, and he said, “Thank you so much. That was so valuable.”   Leigh also remembers a time when she was working with a different company, and a member of the marketing staff told her, “You've hit the nail on the head. It's like you reached inside our brains and you intuited exactly what makes us us. I'm already imagining how I'm going to be using this.”   For Leigh, these small moments are the best moments in her career. She can see that she's helping people and making a difference in their companies. Sometimes we get caught up in having big results or making big changes, but we need to remember to appreciate the small things too.   Failing Forward   Leigh believes in what she calls failing forward. She said, “Anytime something doesn't go as planned or goes sideways, to me it's a moment to reflect and say, ‘Hmm, why did that happen? What does that allow me to do or not do?'”   One of the biggest mistakes Leigh made was with managing her time and energy. Because she runs her own company, she has a lot more control over her time than many other people, but she often gets caught up in the needs of others.    She had to learn how to schedule things for her and her clients' benefit. Her creative thinking is better in the morning, so she blocks that time off. Her energy is lowest in the afternoon, so she tends to schedule meetings then. She doesn't have meetings on Mondays and Fridays because she knows she's either recovering from the weekend or exhausted from the week and getting ready for the weekend.    From her failure, Leigh has learned to not overpromise or overextend herself. Failure has been stigmatized in our society; it's viewed as negative and shameful. Failing forward is a concept trying to destigmatize failure. Instead of thinking of failure negatively, we can turn it into a learning opportunity. “Failure shows that you tried,” Leigh said. “It's about experimentation, and not every experiment will be successful, [but] it gives you feedback and input and learnings that you can apply next time.”   Value-Based Pricing and Customer Loyalty   Leigh's best monetization strategy is to use value-based pricing rather than billing by the hour. Value-based pricing is billing based on the perceived value of a product or service, no matter how much time it takes.   This kind of pricing helps maintain a stronger relationship with our clients because we're not having to nickel and dime them for every minute, and they're getting a great result. They don't have to pay a bill with perhaps not much to show for it.   It is a great way to create loyalty with clients and customers because it shows them that we care about them and that we'll be there for them. Being there for our clients, especially during the hard times, is one of the best ways to foster deep loyalty.    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Leigh for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Our brand should reflect the purpose and story behind our company, our why, and the reason we started it in the first place. Our brand should inform every business decision we make. A brand helps us differentiate between our competitors or alternatives. With a brand, our employees will feel like they are working for something bigger. Customers are the most important thing. They are the disruptors. Often the small moments are our biggest successes. We should look at failures as learning opportunities. Value-based pricing is a great way to build strong relationships with our clients.   Connect with Leigh   To learn more about or connect with Leigh: Connect on LinkedIn or Twitter Visit her website at Find-Freedom.co.    Next Steps   Get a free ebook about passion marketing, and learn how to become a top priority of your ideal customers at PassionMarketing.com.  Subscribe to Monetization Nation on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, our Facebook Group, and on your favorite podcast platform.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/what-is-branding-and-why-is-it-important/ 

Real Bricker is a professional speaker, mentor, and coach with a diverse work background. His career ranged from being 6,000 feet underground in a mine to start an education business that grew to have more than 4,000 students to spending years working in venture capital. Real has listed multiple companies on international stock exchanges, and his financial services group has settled more than $3 billion in loans for the last seven years.    Real is also the author of Dive in Lessons Learnt Since Business School. In today's episode, we're going to discuss some of those lessons and how we can foster a healthy company culture.    Bottom-Up Culture   Real believes company culture is driven from the “top” and the “bottom” of the company; however, while executives and CEOs have an impact on company culture, he believes the staff is the members who really define what the culture is.    “The truth of it is, the actions of the majority of staff are what define the culture,” Real said. “Culture only makes sense if it's actually reflected by the actions of the team. And that's what bottom-up culture is. The management and the C suite have to be defining the course of action, but really have to take dramatic steps to make that [happen] to get the team to come along.”   If we want to have a healthy company culture, we need to make sure every staff member reflects the values and morals we want to be known for.    Real interviewed 87 companies in over 25 countries about what makes their company culture great. To his surprise, he found that 25 of those companies talked about how toxic their culture was, while the rest of them talked about how great their culture was. So what was the difference between a healthy culture and a toxic one?   Real found that the two driving factors that make great cultures are purpose and values, not a mission or vision statements.   “It's [about] having a purpose that's greater than the organization and the set of values that drives the actions of the team,” Real said. “The actions of the team drive the culture (bottom-up). And if you have a set of values that everyone buys into, then that defines the actions of the team, and therefore creates a rich and robust culture.”   If we want to foster healthy company culture, we need to make sure everyone on our teams has aligned their values with the values of the company. We shouldn't be so focused on our mission statement that we neglect our values and central purpose. As we work with everyone on the team, our companies will see greater long-term success.    Value Each Team Member   In 1962, John F. Kennedy visited the NASA space center for the first time, just seven years before the first man landed on the moon. While he toured the halls, he noticed a janitor carrying a broom. Kennedy paused the tour, walked over to the janitor, and introduced himself. He asked the janitor what he did for NASA and in response, the man said, “I'm helping put a man on the moon.” (Source: The Business Journals)   While the janitor may have been cleaning the building, he understood the bigger picture. He knew he was helping make history in his small role. “At NASA, they created a culture where everybody felt that they were part of the machinery in getting a man to the moon,” Real said.    Every team member has an important role. In our businesses, we should strive to create a culture where every team member understands the impact they can have on our business as a whole.    Though Real worked in management consulting, venture capital, financial services, education, and coaching and speaking, he learned one of the most important business lessons while he worked in the mines as a junior engineer. In the mines, he realized he needed to be a part of the bigger picture. Instead of solely focusing on his personal role, he learned how to focus on the impact of his role in the grand scheme of things.   “The defining thing of my life is understanding that everybody has an incredibly important role in the business, no matter what their role is in the business,” Real said.    One of the best ways to foster a healthy company culture is to help every employee understand the purpose of their role in the main goal of the business. Every employee should feel valued and important. If we can give every employee and team member a purpose in our business, our employees will stay longer, have greater satisfaction, and be more efficient and productive.    Build Relationships    The biggest monetization secret Real has is to go back to the basics and focus on relationships. In our company, we should create a healthy culture by making sure every employee, partner, and team member know the importance of our customers. Our customers are our best asset and we should treat them as such.    “The truth of the growth of my business and how we've monetized our business is through referrals and not being afraid to ask for referrals when a client is happy,” Real said.    Real never had to focus on advertising for his mortgage business because he had customer referrals. When his customers were happy with his service, he would reach out to them and ask if they could refer him to others. “How do we monetize that happiness?” Real said. “[By] asking them to refer other people.”   We can ask our customers, “Who do you know that would benefit from our services?” If we are spending all this time and money to gain a customer and make them happy, we should take it a step further to gain some return on investment. Statistics have found that people are 4X more likely to make a purchase when it is referred by a friend (Source: Extole).    Building strong relationships with our customers is essential in today's digital world. Our customers want to feel like they are buying from someone who knows their needs and wants. Even in the digital business world, Real still sends out birthday cards in the mail to his customers instead of emailing a digital card. He goes out of his way to make his customers know they are valued.    We should make sure every member of our team prioritizes the customer. While it is important to have healthy customer relationships, we should also make sure we establish healthy relationships within our business. As we go out of our way to make sure every team member and customer is valued, our success rates will increase.    Give Up Control    In Real's book, he said, “Give up control to gain control.”   When Real started his education business, he did everything. He sat on the phones, he did the marketing, he answered emails, he stood at the photocopier, etc. He had control of his entire business, but he needed to give that up. Real explained that entrepreneurs are often control-freaks and so it takes a lot of courage to give up control, but it is necessary.    As soon as Real employed staff, he empowered them to make decisions and he gave up his own control. However, by giving up control of the simple day-to-day tasks, Real gained control of his time. Instead of focusing on the small things to keep the business running, he could focus on the bigger picture and invest his time into what was really important.    “It's about empowering your team members to know that they're allowed to mess up. It's not about standing there with a whip saying, ‘You'd better get this right.' It's actually [giving] enough space for them to get it wrong. That's how you give up control,” Real said.     As we give up control and show our staff and team members we trust them, we will see more growth in our business. Instead of relying on our ideas alone, we gain the thoughts and ideas of everyone that works with us. As we do this, we actually gain more control of the important things as it frees up our time.    “It's about . . . empowering people with the ability to make a mistake, whilst you go out and generate more business because you are the most passionate advocate of your own business,” Real said.   Create an Atmosphere of Inclusion  “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” - Nelson Mandela It is so important to make sure everyone feels included and valued. No one should feel like a lesser person because of their background, race, skin color, religion, role, gender, etc. In our businesses, we should strive to understand others. Real explained that it is only by reflection that we learn things, and if we don't take the time to reflect and understand our employees or partners, we will never learn.    “You can't have diversity without inclusion. A lot of companies just go for diversity, but don't do anything to build the inclusive nature of their organization,” Real said. “If I've learned anything over the last 30 years in business, . . .  [I've learned] it's about having diversity and inclusion together. You can't have one without the other.   In Real's business, he had team members from six different country backgrounds, six different places of birth, and three different religions. He made it a priority to not only promote diversity but to also promote inclusion. We should make sure everyone feels comfortable in our business. As we do so, we will create a healthy company culture our employees will feel safe and valued.    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Real for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   The actions of the entire team drive the company culture. While management needs to define the course of action, they have to get the team to come along. Every member of our team has an important role. We should strive to create a culture where every team member understands the impact they can have on our overall purpose.  If we can give every employee and team member a purpose in our business, our employees will stay longer, have greater satisfaction, be more efficient, and be more productive.   We should make sure every employee, partner, and team member knows the importance of our customers. As we give up control and show our staff we trust them, we will probably see more growth in our business. We can't have diversity without inclusion. We should make sure everyone feels comfortable, safe, and valued in our business no matter their background.    Connect with Real   If you want to learn more about or connect with Real you can find him on LinkedIn or visit  RealBricker.com.    Next Steps   Get a free ebook about passion marketing, and learn how to become a top priority of your ideal customers at PassionMarketing.com.  Subscribe to Monetization Nation on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, our Facebook Group, and on your favorite podcast platform. Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-to-foster-a-healthy-company-culture/ 

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I'm Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today's episode, I want to share with you a couple of stories that are on my mind and scripture that goes with them.    Aaron and Amie Cook   Over a decade ago, I did a lot of consulting work in Brazil. I spent about half of three years in Brazil; I would go to Brazil for about two weeks, come home to the United States for about two weeks, and then go back. During that time, I was blessed to help build Azul Airlines and several ventures to provide for my family.    Being so far away from my family for extended periods of time was very difficult for me, so I would call home as often as I could. One night when I was talking to my wife on a video call, in the background I heard a huge shattering of glass. In my mind, as the over-protective husband and father, I imagined that someone had just come through a glass door or glass window.    My wife was very, very tired, and she was done for the day. She didn't even want to go check out the glass-shattering sound. Being on the other side of the world and not being there to help protect and take care of my family, I was really worried. After some cajoling, she finally went and checked it out and showed me on the video camera what it was.   In our master bathroom, we had a very large mirror that spanned two sinks. That mirror had not been attached to the wall very well; they had glued it on in an insufficient way. And so with hot showers and steam, that huge mirror fell off the wall and completely shattered that night when I was on the phone with my wife.    My wife has some serious health conditions and it was just too much for her to deal with that evening so she closed the door, we finished our conversation, and she went to bed. The next day, some of our dear friends from the neighborhood, Aaron and Amie Cook, came and cleaned up the mess for her. And that wasn't the only time they helped our family. I believe, while I was traveling on business trips, Amie and/or Aaron came and helped multiple times when water flooded in our basement.    It was very hard for me to have these emergencies as I was traveling and to not be there to provide and protect my family as they needed it. However, I'm eternally grateful for Aaron and Amie Cook who were there for my family, along with many others. Even though I was doing what I needed to do and I was where I needed to be, it was still hard to not be there for my family and I am so grateful that there were other people who loved my family to help out when I couldn't.   Josh Clark   I want to tell you another story about Josh Clark. While I was on a business trip in Texas, my daughter was driving to school and her car broke down on the side of the road. As I mentioned before, my wife has some serious health conditions. She's in a wheelchair and is not able to drive so she couldn't go help our daughter.    My daughter called me and asked me to help her. I was on the other side of the country, and couldn't get there physically. So, I stepped out of my meeting and called a tow truck to help her in the best way I could. Just after I'd called and scheduled a tow truck to come, she called me back because a friend of ours from church, Josh Clark, had pulled up behind her. He opened her car's hood, diagnosed the problem, fixed the issue, and my daughter was able to get her to school on time. I will forever be grateful to Josh Clark for being there for my daughter when I was unable to be there.    I recently heard Josh tell a story of a time where the tables were turned on him. He had taken a job in North Dakota and was driving a truck in the oil fields. His wife was pregnant and while she was on a trip, she went into premature labor. They took her to a hospital and she and the baby were not in great condition. When his parents and his wife's parents heard about this, they immediately got in their cars and drove to meet Josh's wife at the hospital. They were able to be there for Josh's wife and his new child, to pray for them, bless them, and do the things that Josh wanted to do, while he was on the other side of the country.    Josh was doing what he had to do to provide for his family, but it was tearing his heart out that he wasn't able to be there when his family needed him. He was so grateful for those extended family members that we're able to be there for his wife and child when he could not be there. It's interesting to see how good works are often returned to us.    Luke 7:47: Much Love   There's a scripture in the Bible I have been thinking a lot about this week in Luke 7:47.   This is the story of the woman who came to Christ and washed his feet. She kissed Christ's feet, anointed his feet with ointment, and washed Christ's feet with her hair as well. While she did this, there was a man there with them named Simon. Simon was critical of what Christ had allowed this woman to do. He essentially said, “If you knew the sins this woman had committed, you would not have let her touch you and do this to you.”    To this Christ said something very profound. He said, “Her sins which were many were forgiven because she loved much.” (Source: KJV Luke 7:47)   That gospel principle resonates with me. The woman was forgiven because she loved much. As we love, serve others, and bless the lives of others, we do what Christ would do if He were here and we often receive grace in our lives. We don't earn it, it doesn't come because we do X or check some box. It comes because we are seeking to love much; we are seeking to be like Jesus Christ.    I think heaven is going to be filled with people like Josh Clark and Aaron and Amie Cook, who have shown much love to so many people around them. I'm grateful to have those kinds of people in my life and I'm grateful for their examples. I'm striving to be more like them and to love much.    Thanks for joining me for this episode. I wish you success as you strive to love much.   Key Takeaways   Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   When we love much we are coming closer to and becoming more like God. When we love much, we will often receive grace and forgiveness. As we love, serve, and bless the lives of others, we do what Christ would do if He were here.   Next Steps   Pray to see opportunities where God would like you to love and serve others. Decide on someone to whom you are going to show much love today. Subscribe to the free Monetization Nation emagazine, and on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, our Facebook Group, and on your favorite podcast platform so you can receive future episodes of Monetization Nation.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/love-much/ 

Jim Cathcart is the author of 20 books, including The Acorn Principle and Relationship Selling, which are both international bestsellers. His TEDx talk “How to Believe in Yourself” is in the top 1% of all TEDx talks with more than 2 million views. Jim was inducted into the Professional Speaker Hall of Fame and the Sales and Marketing Hall of Fame. He's a university professor, teaching in an executive MBA program.   In today's episode, Jim and I will discuss his journey to become a wildly successful speaker. Jim will also teach us the acorn principle. “The seed of your future successes already lives within you. . . .”   Jim's Passions and Advice About Speaking   Jim is passionate about many things—homemade ice cream, barbecue, fitness, and music among them—but he also loves helping people succeed. When someone says to him, “You're just a speaker because you love the applause,” he says, “No; the applause is just a sign that it went well.”   Jim loves when a person walks out of one of his speeches or seminars and thinks, “Wow, I never thought about it like that before; that makes perfect sense. I can do that.” Often people send him a note a few months later, saying it worked. He loves when he can help people.   Jim said the key to good speaking is audience improvement. His advice for someone who's nervous about speaking is to change their point of view. “Stop thinking about you, and think about the audience. Start thinking about how your message is going to help them, and help them understand it. Then you won't be nervous about giving your speech,” he said.   Thinking about the audience will shift our point of view and can relieve our nerves, and we'll likely give a better speech because we're trying to help them.   Jim's Entrepreneurial Journey    Jim grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. His father was a telephone repairman, who often had to be on the road, and his mother had her hands full taking care of Jim, his sister, and his grandfather. Growing up, there weren't any high expectations for him. Jim thought he would be a good person, get decent grades in school, get a job, and live a pleasant but ordinary life.   By 23 years old, Jim was married and had a new baby at home. He was working a dead-end job as an assistant for someone who didn't need one. He'd dropped out of college, he'd had about every job imaginable, he was overweight and smoking two packs a day, and he was bored to tears because his boss didn't need him.    One day at work while Jim listened to the radio, a five-minute, motivational show called Our Changing World with Earl Nightingale came on. Jim heard Earl say, “If you will spend one extra hour every day studying your chosen field, in five years or less, you'll be a leading authority in that field.” Jim did the math and figured that would be 1250 hours.   He asked himself, “What do I want to be an expert at?” He didn't want to be an expert in urban renewal, his current job. A week or two later, it occurred to him that he wanted to do what Earl Nightingale was doing: personal development and applied behavioral science. Jim didn't have any experience in the field, but he did have plenty of time at his job.    He became a fanatic, reading every book he could find, listening to audio recordings, going to whatever seminar he could find. For the next several years it was all he wanted to talk about, all he wanted to think about. As he studied, his mindset changed, and he got better at his job and received many promotions. Eventually, he had the chance to move into the field of training and development, and after a few years, became a full-time speaker and trainer.   Jim wrote a book with Tony Alessandra, and they formed a corporation together. One day, Jim sat at the desk, and the phone rang. It was Earl Nightingale, the man from the radio. Earl told him he'd just read an article of Jim's and thought it would make a great audio album.    Jim sent Earl his and Tony's audio program. Earl liked it, so they published this program called Relationship Strategies for Dealing with the Differences in People, the first widely published audio program on personality types. In the next two years, it made $3.5 million and led to speaking engagements all over the world.   Jim progressed in his career, becoming president of the National Speakers Association. Jim called Earl, asking him to join him speaking at a convention on the evolution of the personal development industry. Earl said he would consider it. Unfortunately, Earl passed away before it could happen. They decided to do a memorial at the convention. Earl's wife asked Jim to speak. He didn't feel like he was worthy, but Earl's wife told him, “Jim, you are the product of what he was teaching. That's why you should speak at his memorial service.”   He and Earl's wife were the only speakers at the memorial. Jim is truly a testament to the principles he and Earl taught. He went from a clerk to a worldwide speaker and author of 20 books using the principles he and Earl taught.   The Acorn Principle   Jim's book The Acorn Principle dives into many subjects such as the reader's type of intellect, their personality, their personal velocity, the values that motivate them, along the acorn principle itself.   “The acorn principle is, the seed of your future successes already lives within you. . . . An acorn is the universal symbol of potential,” Jim said. He explained that an acorn has three parts: the stem, the cap, and the seed.   The stem represents the legacy between us and all the people in our line that have ever existed. Their DNA imprint has been passed along the chain to us, and we carry it with us—the good, the bad, and the ugly—it's all part of who we are genetically.   The cap represents all the guides and mentors we have in our lives: our parents, teachers, role models, coaches, heroes, and mentors. They have also had an impact on us.   The seed represents the potential that lives within us. Jim said, “An acorn will never be a racehorse. It'll never be cedar or pine, it will only be an oak tree. But whether it's a wonderful mighty oak or whether it's a little scrub oak . . . depends on what happens with that acorn.”   Unlike an actual acorn, we can choose what we do with our seed. The seed that's within us is destined to be exceptionally impressive at something, or multiple things, but not everything. We may not have the talent to play basketball like Michael Jordan, but everyone has a unique potential. “Every one of us has a gift in that seed, waiting for us to give it the opportunity and the attention so that it can grow fully into what it's capable of,” Jim said.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Jim for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Thinking about how we can help our audience will shift our point of view, relieving our nerves, and we'll likely give a better speech because we're trying to help them. If we spend one extra hour every day studying our chosen field, we can become a leading authority in that field in five years or less. We all have the potential inside of us to become something great, like a mighty oak tree. If we effectively nurture our potential, we will grow into something exceptional.   Connect with Jim   To learn more about or connect with Jim: Connect on LinkedIn Visit his website at Cathcart.com  Check out his book The Acorn Principle   Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Download the free Passion Marketing ebook at PassionMarketing.com. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast. How can we shift our marketing to be more human-centered? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers. Need help with your digital monetization strategy? Visit MonetizationPartners.com to schedule a free consultation. What is the seed of potential within you that needs to be nurtured? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/the-acorn-principle-the-seed-of-your-future-success-already-lives-within-you/ 

Welcome back to another episode with Mark Schaefer. In the last episode, we talked about Mark's book Marketing Rebellion and the need for human-centered marketing. Today, we will continue the discussion of Mark's book by discussing four strategies for human-centered marketing: constant human truths, values-based marketing, customers as our marketers, and honesty and consistency. We'll also discuss tectonic shifts and fractures in the status quo.     Focus on Constant Human Truths     Many companies Mark consults with feel overwhelmed. There are so many options and things to do. He often tries to emphasize the constant human truths, which he discusses in his book. These truths are that people want to be loved, belong, be acknowledged, and be respected.   Mark said we are too focused on technology. We need to put these human truths first, and then we can think about how technology can help us provide for these needs. “I'm not anti-technology. [But] I'm anti-technology when it creates barriers with our customers. When we do things like spam them or send them robocalls, that will just tarnish our brand,” Mark said.   Being acknowledged is one of these important truths. In Mark's book, he discusses statistics that say 50% of young people said, “It's important for me to be acknowledged by my friends on social media,” but 60% said, “It's important to be acknowledged by my favorite brands.” It is more important for them to be acknowledged by their favorite brands than their friends. There's a longing to be acknowledged.    The pandemic has made a lot of these needs more prevalent. People are feeling more lonely, isolated, and depressed. Mark believes companies have a role to play in this. Customers are telling us there's a way to engage with them: give them a place where they belong.     Consider Values-Based Marketing     There is a lot of research from companies like Deloitte, Accenture, and McKinsey that shows loyalty has been declining over the last 20 years. 87% of our customers are “shop around” customers. Research by Harvard shows that almost all of our traditional marketing activities are not building loyalty except for one: demonstrating shared meaning or shared values.   A well-known example of this is Nike and Colin Kaepernick. Some people think Kaepernick is a patriot and a hero and others think he's not. Nike made a deal to do a line of clothes with him. When they did that, Nike's value went down by about $4 billion in one day and people were burning their merchandise in the streets. Two weeks later, however, Nike's valuation was even higher than it was before.   Mark had a friend who said he was so mad he was never going to buy from Nike again. Mark told him, “They don't care.” Nike realized that in order to earn their audience's trust, they have to show what they stand for.    Nike also knew that Adidas was trying to make a deal with Kaepernick. They had both looked at research to find out what their customers believe, and they were looking for ways to align themselves with those beliefs. It was a race for shared values.   This is a very, very effective way to create loyalty, but it's not for everybody and it's not necessary for every company. We don't all have to express our political or other views. If we think about all the products we've purchased in the last two weeks, how many of them do we know where they stand on political or other issues? For me, it's none of them. Values-based marketing can work very well, but it isn't necessary for every brand and many brands do well without it.      Embrace Customers as Our Marketers     In the past, we were the markers; we viewed ourselves as the marketing team and the marketing agency, and we decided how to market our brand. There is a fundamental shift happening as our customers become our primary marketers. As we discussed in the last episode with Mark, two-thirds of our marketing is occurring without us.   As Mark found this research for his book, he was overwhelmed by how wrong we were in the past. He thought, “I don't know what it means to be a marketer anymore,” because the customers have control now.   Instead of trying to hold on to this control, we should embrace it and earn our way into being part of the dialogue. We shouldn't bother, annoy, or interrupt our customers. We should let them speak and then join the narrative.   Many people are in love with content marketing, but the content has no value unless it's seen and shared. Mark said, “The value is in transmission. It's getting that story, getting that content, to move in that two-thirds. That's where the marketing is occurring.”     Be Honest and Consistent     A long time ago, Mark realized he can't depend on social media, Facebook's algorithms, Google, or SEO. There are thousands of other digital marketing consultants out there, so he's never going to have a number one ranking on Google or beat out the richest competitors. He can only depend on himself.   Mark creates content that is so honest, it's unmissable. People know from his content that he doesn't have an agenda. He's just trying to find the truth; he's on the journey with them through the good, the bad, the success, and the failure. He's consistent through it all.   We often think that success will happen overnight, but most often success comes from consistently showing up.    Mark shared the example of a band called the Black Keys. Before the band was big enough to play arenas and sell out Madison Square Garden in 15 minutes, Mark had the chance to talk to them when they were playing shows for about 1,000-2,000 people. Mark asked the drummer, “What was the catalytic point that took you to the top?” The drummer said, “There wasn't one. We've been touring for seven years, we've made seven albums, and every year we do a little bit better.”   Hard, consistent work will eventually lead us to where we want to be. Mark said, “There is no overnight success. You just [have] to keep on working, working, working [with] patience. Consistency is more important than genius.”   Gain Momentum through Fractures in the Status Quo   On this show, we talk a lot about tectonic shifts or changes in the business landscape we can leverage to help us grow. Mark talks about a similar idea that he refers to as fractures in the status quo. Like tectonic shifts, these fractures can lead to great success.   Fractures in the status quo create new and unmet or underserved customer needs and provide opportunities when we can meet them with our core competencies. When our initiative meets that fracture, we can burst through it with all our might and speed to create winning momentum.   Bill Gates was able to leverage one of these fractures. He had access to early computer prototypes as a teenager, allowing him to learn how to code—his core competency. When the fracture came, personal computers, Gates leveraged that competency to build software and find success.   We need to be aware of our own core competencies and the fractures or shifts happening in the world. Then we can leverage them and gain momentum.   Mark's Manifesto   While Mark was writing Marketing Rebellion, he reached about the halfway point and realized there was no way people would be able to remember everything he was covering. Mark challenged himself to write a 10-point summary of the first half of the book. This summary became the Manifesto for Human-Centered Marketing. A hand-drawn copy of this manifest is available here. We should also create manifestos to communicate our core mission in a way that will inspire our audience and help them remember what we're about.    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Mark for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   People want to be loved, belong, be acknowledged, and be respected. We can help fill those needs for our customers by acknowledging them and creating a place where they belong. Almost all of our traditional marketing activities are not building loyalty except for one: demonstrating shared meaning or shared values. Customers are in control of our marketing now. Instead of trying to hold on to this control, we should embrace it and earn our way into being part of the dialogue. Consistency is more important than genius. Being authentic and consistent with our customers will help us gain big success little by little. Fractures in the status quo provide great opportunities for us to gain momentum. We need to be aware of these fractures.   Connect with Mark   To learn more about or connect with Mark:  Connect on LinkedIn  Visit his website at BusinessesGrow.com  Check out his book Marketing Rebellion   Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Download the free Passion Marketing ebook at PassionMarketing.com. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast. How can we shift our marketing to be more human-centered? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers. Need help with your digital monetization strategy? Visit MonetizationPartners.com to schedule a free consultation.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/4-strategies-for-human-centered-marketing/ 

Mark Schaefer is a globally-recognized author, speaker, podcaster, and business consultant who blogs at Grow, one of the top five marketing blogs in the world. He teaches graduate marketing classes at Rutgers University. Mark has written eight bestselling books, and his newest book is called Cumulative Advantage. Mark has many global clients including Pfizer, Cisco, Dell, Adidas, and the US Air Force. He's been a keynote speaker at prestigious events all over the world. He's also appeared as a guest on CNN, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and CBS News.    Today, we're going to talk about one of Mark's books, Marketing Rebellion, and the need for human-centered marketing.   Why We Need Human-Centered Marketing   Mark was recently on a Zoom call with a client and an agency that's working with them. He was on mute during the call, but they could see his face was getting more and more disturbed because they were proposing spamming customers. “The first thing we need to do in our marketing is to stop doing what people hate. We need to treat each other like human beings and treat our customers like we would like to be treated,” Mark said.   Those old strategies used to work, so many people still lean toward them today, but they aren't working well anymore, and eventually, they're going to go away. Our customers won't put up with it; if we do something that annoys or interrupts our customers, the customers will rebel and they'll win. So we have to adapt to a more human, customer-centric model.   If we want to keep our customers and get ahead of the curve, we need to market in a new way, a way that respects our customers, their lives, their time, and their privacy. This is why Apple is updating its privacy features and why Google is trying to figure out how to protect its customers in regard to third-party cookies. These companies are trying to position themselves with the right side of the rebellion; they want to be on the customers' side. They don't want to be who the customers are rebelling against.   This is the time for traditional marketers to be humbled and listen to the newer people who may be more in tune with what the customers want and how to better market to them.   Treating Our Customers as Humans   Mark greatly admires Seth Godin, an author, and former dot com business executive, but he disagrees with something Seth said in his book This is Marketing. In that book, Seth says that marketing is about changing and manipulating people. Mark thinks that maybe this was true in the 1970s, 80s, or even 90s, but customers are different than people were back then.   We have the world at our fingertips. We have the accumulated knowledge of the human race in the palm of our hands. Customers can make really good decisions by looking at reviews or seeing testimonials; they can go down the rabbit hole on any product out there.    Mark said, “Marketing is not about trying to manipulate people. It's about coming alongside them at their point of need and saying, ‘You know what, we respect you. We respect your intelligence. We respect your privacy. What can we do to help you?'”    We should be asking “How can we help you save money? Make money? Have a more healthy life? A more entertaining life?” It doesn't matter what we are selling, the role of our company should be to help them in whatever our field is. We shouldn't view them as just the people who give us money. We should treat them as human beings who have real lives and real problems.   Helping them may not be enough. We talk a lot about passion marketing on this show because it is such a relevant topic. Our customers have so many options to choose from, so we have to show them why they should choose us by building our products and services around the things they are most passionate about. If we don't, we will never become a priority or differentiate ourselves from a sea of good options.   Being In vs. Being Part of the Community   To be a successful brand today, we can't just be in a community, we have to be part of a community. Being in a community is donating money to a charity for example. Being part of a community is something more.   For example, a few months ago, an ice storm hit the US, impacting many places not accustomed to that kind of weather. In Texas, many people lost their power and their heating. There was one furniture store that didn't lose its power. They told people to come to their store if they were cold. They brought in food, set up a play area for children, and had more than 500 people sleeping overnight on the mattresses in their store.   That store was part of the community. They asked, “How do we act like human beings? How do we act like friends?” If our friend is cold, we say come warm yourself. If our friend is hungry, we say come and let me feed you.    “In this era right now where so many people are suffering, there are so many unmet and underserved needs, we have this opportunity to not only be memorable but to be legendary. I can guarantee you there's no one in the city of Houston that will ever buy furniture from anyone again, other than Mattress Mack. . . . You're just acting like a human being. You don't have to be a marketing wizard, you just have to be a good person,” Mark said.   The companies that get down in the trenches, roll up their sleeves and become part of the community will thrive. The companies that are wed to the old ways and advertising agencies' scripts are going to become irrelevant.   In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this change. There was a video on YouTube called “Every COVID-19 Commercial Is Exactly The Same”. It has taken the ads from many large companies and edited them together to show that they all had essentially the same script.    These companies that couldn't break through the old ways became laughing stocks, but the companies that act as part of the community and do things that mean something to their customers will become legendary.   The End of Control   In Mark's book, he discusses some research done by McKinsey. Over 10 years, they looked at 200,000 customer journeys across 90 different industries and found that two-thirds of our marketing is occurring without us. A brand used to be what it told us. Customers didn't have a choice. They didn't have the internet or social media. If they wanted to learn about a company, they had to engage with their ads.   Now a brand is what people are telling each other. They're in control. They're defining the message based on their experience. We don't have a choice. We have to understand how we get invited to that conversation.   Mark got sick with COVID-19 at the end of March 2020. His business crashed to almost zero. He had to pivot and work in different ways. He had to connect to the opportunities and needs that were present right then. He stopped his marketing and asked himself, “How do I help people? How do I help my community?”   Mark is a teacher, so he started teaching how to handle things like anxiety, disorientation, and uncertainty in his blog posts. The traffic on his website doubled, so he turned those blog posts into an ebook and gave it away for free. He turned that into a speech to inspire people at leadership meetings. In June, July, and August of 2020, Mark had record-breaking months because he let the people's needs control his business.   We shouldn't try to control our brand or our messaging. We need to come alongside our customers and listen to their needs. They have to invite us to that conversation.   Just like in a marriage, we can't trick someone into loving us. We can't trick someone into marrying us. If we trick someone, even if we're successful, it's not going to work long-term. Our goal is the long-term, lifetime valuable relationship with that customer. If we trick someone into marrying us, how well is that marriage going to work out? How happy is that marriage going to be?    We can't change our customers just like we can't change our spouses. A marriage only works well if there is respect, love, and understanding. We must do the same thing with our customers. We must accept them and love them for the unique person they are.   A chef needs many different spices in a kitchen to make many different kinds of food. If their only option was cinnamon, their food would be pretty boring. Some foods call for cayenne pepper or oregano. Each spice brings value to the kitchen just like each unique person brings value to our life.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Mark for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Customers won't put up with annoying or manipulative marketing anymore. We need to shift to a human-centered approach. We must treat our customers as humans, think about their needs, and build our brand around their passions. To be part of the community, we need to serve our customers during the good and the bad times. We need to treat them like friends. Two-thirds of our marketing is happening without us. Customers control our messaging, especially with the internet. We need to listen to them and join the conversation, but not control it. Now a brand is what people are telling each other. They're in control.  We can't trick our customers into loving us. Like a marriage, long-term relationships with customers will only work when there is respect, love, and understanding.   Connect with Mark   To learn more about or connect with Mark:  Connect on LinkedIn  Visit his website at BusinessesGrow.com  Check out his book Marketing Rebellion   Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Download the free Passion Marketing ebook at PassionMarketing.com. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast. How can we shift our marketing to be more human-centered? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers. Need help with your digital monetization strategy? Visit MonetizationPartners.com to schedule a free consultation. Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/why-we-need-human-centered-marketing/ 

  In today's episode, I interview an inspiring entrepreneur named Rebecca Clyde. Rebecca and I will be discussing how women influence technological advancements. She also shares great advice for any entrepreneur, such as finding opportunities in crises, artificial intelligence, trusting our instincts, and building a team.   Rebecca Clyde is the co-founder and CEO of Botco.ai, a company that is modernizing healthcare with intelligent chat for patient engagement. Rebecca is on the 2020 list of most influential women in Arizona. She was listed as a Most Admired Leader by Phoenix Business Journal and was a recipient of the ATHENA Businesswoman of the Year Award. She has also been recognized as one of "35 Entrepreneurs 35 and Younger" by the Arizona Republic.    Rebecca's Entrepreneurial Journey   Rebecca moved to the US to go to college. When she was graduating, she was recruited by Intel. She stayed there for about eight years learning important business fundamentals and going through their management and leadership development program.    She left Intel to start her own company, a marketing agency. She was able to take everything she'd learned at Intel and consult clients with that knowledge. The business grew, turning into a thriving marketing agency.   Rebecca is now working on her next company, Botco, which is a software product aimed at solving a problem she saw in her last two jobs. She noticed marketing automation platforms were no longer suited to today's modern customer and modern expectations. She wanted to bring that technology up to date, making it easier for people to accomplish the task they went to a website for or get the information they need, and then complete the next step in their journey. Botco just raised $2.2 million of seed capital.   Digital Shifts and the Role of Women   Digital engagement and the transition to remote business is a huge tectonic shift happening in the business landscape right now, especially in the healthcare industry. People are no longer willing to sit in waiting rooms for hours to see a doctor, so the healthcare industry must embrace digital technologies to accommodate for that shift.   One thing that is driving this change is women. They are saying, “I can't wait on the phone for 45 minutes to make a doctor's appointment. That's not worth my time; my time has value. You need to improve your systems so I don't have to waste my time doing that.”   Rebecca is passionate about women and their roles in technological advancement, along with women in business in general. She said, “Technologists need to listen to what women have to say, understand that their time is valuable, and start to create solutions that actually deliver on the promise of a truly frictionless engagement experience. When we do that, we will realize that we will jump ahead leaps and bounds, or we can fail to listen at our own peril.”   How Women Influence the Creation and Consumption of Technology   When Rebecca worked at Intel in the early 2000s, they had a discussion about mobile computing. Francine Hardaway, who worked at Intel at the time, said she was sitting in a meeting trying to explain to the executives that they needed to pay more attention to mobile for one reason: women don't like to carry large bags and they want more computing power that they can fit in their purse. She told them women make up half of the world's economy. Women played a big role in the shift to mobile, and Intel missed the shift to mobile because they didn't listen.   Women have been a contributing factor to many technological changes and advancements. Cars started to change when they shifted to make them appeal to women more. In 2001, the first all-female team designed a car; on their wish list was better visibility, practical storage, parking assistance, and smoother ingress and egress (Source: Vice.com). Women influence many products for families and households.    They are conscientious and think about the waste we generate, the value to the community that something may or may not contribute, being good citizens, adverse effects of certain products or ingredients, etc. They tend to approach things with a little bit more of that holistic thinking and put pressure on companies to pay attention to those sorts of things.   Rebecca's Advice to Female Entrepreneurs   Rebecca said, “Don't be afraid of making mistakes or failing. . . . That goes with the territory.” There's a lot of risk that comes with being an entrepreneur and some of those risks aren't going to work out. It is important to bring people along and find great mentors to help avoid roadblocks and pitfalls.   “There's a lot of socialization that women or girls deal with even from a very young age that we have to unwind in our minds,” Rebecca said. “Realize your job isn't to make people comfortable, your job isn't to be the nice one in the room, your job isn't to be the amenable one. Your job is to know your truth. Speak it.”   Rebecca said one of her biggest mistakes has been not listening to her intuition sufficiently and allowing too many outside voices to prevail. One of her investors told her he's never met somebody with better instincts and she needs to listen to them more. Rebecca has noticed when she doesn't let her instincts be the driving force, things don't go as well as they could have.   Never Waste a Great Crisis   Rebecca started both of her businesses right before big crises. She started her first business going into 2008. When the market crashed, Rebecca's clients' budgets were reduced to almost nothing. She was faced with the harsh reality that she had just left her reliable Intel job to start a business during a terrible time.    Rebecca discovered that being small, nimble, and unattached to any big overhead company allowed her to navigate the white spaces and find unique opportunities and solutions she would have never been able to see had it not been in a crisis. “That moment taught me to never waste a great crisis,” Rebecca said.   Hard times can be horrible, but they can also give us opportunities and perspectives we wouldn't have had otherwise. I remember when the dot-com bubble burst in 1999, most of the funding for dot-com companies dried up and they pulled their advertising. There was a company called Classmates.com that saw this happening and did the opposite. Advertising became crazy cheap so they bought hordes of advertising. They launched their company, became mainstream, and achieved a huge valuation because they saw the opportunity in crisis.   During this worldwide pandemic, we've seen companies that pulled back are now really struggling to regain their momentum and pick up where they left off. Rebecca was in the early days of her new business when COVID-19 shut down the world. Her entire pipeline was made of fitness and wellness businesses, but they all went dark. Rebecca was left in a moment of panic. She'd worked so hard to get the software ready and wanted to see it succeed.   Then a couple of old relationships reignited. She knew some people in healthcare who reached out to her with a need, and her business could fill that need. Pretty soon they had a really great business from the opportunities that came with those connections. It was hard, but Rebecca and her business got through it. She considers getting through 2020 to be one of her greatest home runs.   Crises can be terrifying, but if we keep our heads we may be able to see many great opportunities that come from them.   How to Leverage AI   Rebecca's current business works with AI. She said the best thing to do is train the AI to answer all the questions our customers and employees might have and train the AI to help us find things faster. Then we can be more available to do the high-value work.    AI shouldn't replace us because humans have a great ability to think complexly and creatively. We should let the machines do what they're good at, the rudimentary things, and leave the human mind to take care of the exciting, rich problem-solving.   To learn more about AI, we can check out conferences like AI World or groups such as the AI Consortium. There's a misconception that we need to be good computer programmers to do AI. There are many great programmers and scientists working on it, but they need more people who are creative and humanistic to help apply the applications to human problems and real-life situations.   Building a Team   Rebecca's best monetization strategy is building a great team and multiplying herself with that team. “All the work ethic and time in the world that I can put into something will never be sufficient. . . . My dreams are much bigger than my time allows,” she said.   With a great team, we can accomplish more than we ever could on our own. Not only does a team help with timing, but we can also fill a team with thought leaders and learn and improve from their ideas. Great team members can expand on what we've started and through them, great things can happen.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Rebecca for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Women have played a large role in technological advancements such as the shift from desktop to mobile. We need to be listening to them to keep up with these tectonic shifts. Mistakes are a normal part of being an entrepreneur. Learn from them.  Rebecca's advice to young female entrepreneurs is to know the truth and speak it. Crises can provide us with great opportunities to look at things from a new perspective. If we're using AI, we should let the machines do the rudimentary tasks, so we can focus more on the creative side. We should listen to our instincts when we're making decisions. With a team, we can achieve more than we ever could alone.   Connect with Rebecca   If you want to learn more about or connect with Rebecca, you can: Find her on LinkedIn or  Visit her website at Botco.ai.     Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Passion Marketing ebook and learn how to be a top priority of your ideal customers. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter. Share Your Story    How have you made money off your podcast? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/the-role-of-women-in-technological-advancements/ 

In the last episode with podcasting expert Dave Jackson, we discussed podcasting hacks we can use to create and grow a successful podcast. In today's episode, we're going to discuss five ways we can monetize our podcast from Dave's book, Profit From Your Podcast.      Products     One of the easiest ways to make the most money from our podcast is to sell our own products. Chances are, our listeners are listening to us because they like what we have to say. According to research done by PodcastInsights, podcast listeners are “loyal, affluent, and educated” and 80% of podcast listeners listen to all or the majority of each episode (Source: CreativeFixAudio.com).    If we have listeners, we have an audience who likely feels connected and loyal to us, especially if they are downloading our content each time we release an episode. And if we have a loyal audience, we have buyers. We already deliver value through the episodes our audience likes, why not add additional value through products?   If we can make a product our audience can't get anywhere else, they will love it. For example, Dave knew a podcaster who was a chameleon breeder, and that's what he talked about on his podcast. He had an incredibly hyper-niche so he could target his products to his audience in a very specific way. He sold chameleon cages and his listeners wanted to buy from him because they trusted him and had already developed loyalty.    The bonus of already having an audience is we can figure out what they want before we create a product. We can ask for their feedback and advice, and then create a project targeted directly to them, something we know they will like. Here are just a few examples of products we can sell:   Books Products we manufacture Swag Consulting/coaching  A service Membership site  Courses   Of these options, Dave said membership sites are the best. Instead of relying on a one-time purchase, recurring revenue allows us to make money each month. With School of Podcasting, Dave makes a lot of money on recurring fees from his membership site, and it provides great value to his audience.    “I still have a guy who's been [a member] for probably 10 years,” Dave said. “He [said], ‘When I send you an email and I have a question about podcasting, I know I'm probably going to get an answer.' . . . They come for the content but they stay for the community if you're doing it right.”   While we can produce valuable content on our membership sites, our customers also stay because they build a community. They build a relationship with us. This is the same reason they will listen to our podcast episode after episode. They feel connected to us and build a community.      Affiliate Marketing      The second best way to make money from podcasting is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is when we promote another company's product or service and make a profit based on a percentage of each sale we generate. While many people can find ads to be annoying, 40% of people find podcast ads to be less intrusive than other types of ads (Source: SemRush). This can be a very effective way to make money.    The best way to find success with affiliate marketing is to find something we love. We should only promote a product we have used and liked. This will help us sound genuine and retain trust with our customers. If we promote a product our listeners buy and don't like, it can damage the trust we have developed with them.    “I switched to using affiliate marketing, and I'm blowing it out of the water because I found something that fits my audience. It really does come down to [choosing] the right product for the right audience,” Dave said.    Dave explained that, whatever market we are in, we should find a product we'd love to talk about that our audience will also love. We can reach out to the companies and brands we like and ask if they have an affiliate program for us. Even if we don't have thousands of listeners, brands will want to work with us if we have a specific niche audience.    As part of finding something we love, we also need to find a product we think our audience will love. What product or service will resonate with our audience? With affiliate marketing, we don't get paid until we've made a sale. Even if our listeners are loyal to us, they aren't going to buy something they don't want or need. If we can find a product we love and a product our audience will love, our sales and profit will increase.    While affiliate marketing can be slow at the beginning, it often grows in the long run. One of the best parts of affiliate marketing with podcasts is that it creates permanent ads. Podcasts are not radio. People often don't listen to podcasts live, or even when they first become available for download. Sometimes a listener may listen to our podcast a week after it became available, or even years after. When we talk about a company's product on our podcast, it is there forever and can be watched forever. This increases our chances of making more sales and more money.      Sponsorships     A sponsorship is similar to affiliate marketing, except we don't make money based on the sales we make. We make money for simply promoting the other business. We get paid for the ads or promotions we run and based on the number of listeners we have on each episode, regardless if we make a sale or not. On average, a 30-second ad will bring in $18 CPM (cost per 1000 listeners) and $25 CPM for a 60-second ad (Source: PodcastArticles).    As with affiliate marketing, for sponsorships, we want to make sure we only talk about a product we'd use ourselves. We want to keep our trust with our audience, and they aren't going to trust us if we promote a product that doesn't work just because they know we are getting paid.    Dave believes that sponsorships aren't as effective as people may think and prefers affiliate marketing. Dave explained that at Libsyn, an official podcast launch partner, they get an average of about 1200 downloads per episode, but their median number is about 300 downloads. This means 50% of their episodes get below 300 downloads and 50% get more than 300 downloads. Potentially, we may only make $10 or less off an episode we put a lot of work into, and sometimes it doesn't pay off.    Dave also mentioned that sponsorships can be extra work as we have to send in reports of how many downloads we get with each episode. However, if we have a lot of listeners, sponsorship can make us a lot of money. We can even charge more than the average price of a 30- or 60-second ad based on how popular our show is.      Crowdfunding     Another great way to monetize our podcasts is through crowdfunding. We can ask for donations to help support our podcast content.    Dave has seen a lot of podcasters use Patreon, a membership platform that allows creators to run a subscription service. We can charge a monthly membership fee for exclusive content on our podcast, access to a community, and additional behind-the-scenes content.    If we have a very loyal listener base, our audience will pay us just because they want more content and want to support us. Chapo Trap House, an American political podcast, has generated more than $170,000 in a month from their subscribers with nearly 40,000 patrons, and as of 2020, the podcast was the highest-grossing user on Patreon (Source: SFGATE). For every two free episodes they release, they also offer two additional podcasts for a fee and people are willing to pay for that because they love their content.    We can also start charging people who want to pitch ideas for us to talk about on our show. We can charge even more for people who want to be interviewed on our show.    “It's a matter of figuring out what my audience wants,” Dave said. “In some cases, . . . the podcast is the product.”      Events      We can also host events and charge our audience for tickets. These events could be hosted in person, or through an online platform such as Zoom. Not only can we earn a profit off our events, but we also build relationships with our customers and bring in the value of a community. Events can be great ways to grow our email lists.    We can also use our events to build our membership sites. A virtual summit is a great way to create content. We can take the recordings and split them into different video segments. These videos can stand on their own or be turned into a series of videos for an online course.    Above all else, if we want to monetize our podcasts, we have to be focused on the needs and wants of our listeners.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Dave for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   One of the easiest ways to make the most money from our podcast is to sell our own products. If we have a loyal audience, we will probably have buyers for our great products and services.  Our listeners often come for the content but stay for the community.  While affiliate marketing can be slow at the beginning, we often make more money in the long run, especially if the affiliate programs pay us a recurring affiliate commission. On the other hand, sponsorships can provide better short-term profit for each ad. To be successful with affiliate marketing and sponsorships, we should only promote products we love and products we believe our audience will love.  If we have a very loyal listener base, our audience may pay us just because they want more content and want to support us.  We can host events and charge our audience for tickets, while also reusing the content on our membership sites and other places.    Connect with Dave   If you want to learn more about or connect with Dave, you can: Find him on LinkedIn Listen to his podcasts School of Podcasting or Profit from Your Podcast    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Get a free Passion Marketing ebook and learn how to be a top priority of your ideal customers. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  How have you made money off your podcast? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/5-ways-to-monetize-a-podcast/ 

Nathan Gwilliam is a serial entrepreneur who created and sold 3 digital ventures. He is the host of the Monetization Nation blog, podcast, and YouTube channel. Created and run Adoption.com. TEDx speaker. #digitalmonetizer Top 3 Value Bombs: 1. One of the ways we can identify and leverage tectonic shifts is to follow content and media channels talking about these shifts. 2. Passion marketing is identifying what our ideal customers are most passionate about. What are those highest level passions that drive the lives of your customers? 3. There are so many "good" choices that being good is not good enough anymore. Figure out how to make your business a top priority so you can stand out against other options. Learn more about Passion Marketing by downloading a FREE e-book from Nathan - Passion Marketing Sponsors: BrandCrowd: Take control of your business's branding with BrandCrowd. Get 55% off your logo at BrandCrowd.com/fire! ZipRecruiter: When you post a job on ZipRecruiter, their matching technology finds qualified candidates and invites them to apply! Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com/fire.

Dave Jackson is a podcast consultant who helps people plan, launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts. He began podcasting in 2005 and launched the School of Podcasting, which has more than 2.7 million downloads. He's the author of the book Profit From Your Podcast and is a featured speaker at events. In 2016, Dave joined Libsyn, which is one of the largest podcast hosting companies.    In today's episode, we're going to discuss Dave's journey to podcasting and three of his key strategies to hosting a successful podcast.   Dave's Journey to Podcasting    Dave began his journey as a teacher and taught in the corporate world for about 20 years. “The great thing about being a teacher is you get to help people all the time,” Dave said.    While he loved teaching, he wanted to find a new way to help people beyond the corporate world. A friend told him about podcasting, so he googled it to find one and a half pages of results. Podcasts weren't big at the time, but as he continued to do his research, he realized the shift towards podcasts was going to be a tectonic shift in the future.    Dave went back to school to get his degree and started a podcast, while also working other side jobs to help support himself until he could build a big-enough audience to make money with his podcast. What really got him hooked on the idea was his first voicemail from an audience member. Someone from Germany reached out to him to let him know how inspired he was from his podcast. That's when Dave realized he could teach through podcasts and help people from around the world.    “I got to help people, and I [thought it was] the best thing ever,” Dave said. “That's when I decided I was going to launch the School of Podcasting. I just knew if I waited long enough, it would catch up.”   Since then, podcasting has grown exponentially with more than two million active podcasts and more than 48 million episodes as of April 2021 (Source: Podcast Insights).    In 2016, Dave joined Libsyn where he helps customers with questions about building their own podcast. He'd been a customer for Libsyn for 10 years when he gave them a call. He told them he had bad news and good news. He was out of a job, but it meant he was available to work for them. He also told them about his podcast, School of Podcasting.   His podcast wasn't just a way for him to make a profit or to help his listeners. It also helped him get a job. He has been hired three times because of his podcast. His podcast gave him an opportunity to show people he knew what he was talking about. “Our podcast isn't, in many cases, our business, it's our business card. It's what allows people to get to know you without making a giant commercial,” Dave said.    While Dave works at Libsyn, he continues to host his own podcast at the same time. With years of experience in the podcasting world, he has learned many lessons and key strategies we should implement in our own podcast. Here are three of them.    Focus on a Specific Niche   The biggest mistake Dave sees podcasters make is trying to be everything for everyone. People often want to start a podcast with a very vague goal in mind. For example, someone may start a podcast with the idea to interview people with interesting stories. But what are those interesting stories? What is going to make someone want to listen to us over others?    If we don't bring in an audience, we don't have a podcast. Generic and wide-ranging goals don't work 99% of the time. If we want to host a successful podcast, we need to focus on a specific niche audience.    Dave said that people often come to him with a goal to get sponsored, but sponsorships only happen if we have a large audience and can get massive downloads. And we only get massive downloads, if we are speaking to a specific group. We want to appeal to the needs and wants of a target audience. If we aim to meet the needs of everyone, we will end up meeting the needs of no one.    Even if we host a great podcast with a specific audience in mind, it can still be really difficult to get enough downloads to actually make money off a sponsorship. Instead, Dave recommends going even further and directing our podcast to an ever-smaller audience. “You don't have to have a ton of listeners if you have a hyper-niche show,” Dave said.    If we have a very direct, niche audience, we can get sponsored by other companies who have a similar audience to us. They will choose to sponsor us over others because we have such a specific audience that their product or service will resonate with.    For example, Dave had a client who ran a podcast called Special Mouse, a guide to the Disney Parks for guests with health issues and special needs. She didn't even have a thousand downloads in an episode, and yet she got a sponsor. Why? Because there was somebody in Florida that specialized in transporting people with special needs. The sponsor knew Special Mouse would reach their audience because it was such a hyper-niche.    Get Personal   In our podcasts, we should get personal.    Dave explained that one of the biggest business tectonic shifts that have happened over the last decade is the shift towards podcasts. Podcasts have become easier and easier to create. Technology exists that allows anyone to create a podcast. This is both good and bad. While podcasting has gotten easier, it also means the number of podcasts out there has increased. We can find a podcast on just about anything so why is someone going to choose to listen to our podcast over the millions of others out there?   “Why are you doing this? How are you going to be different [from] the other people you know?” Dave asked. “You have to have [something] that's going to set you apart, that is going to make a difference. You have to share a little bit about yourself if you really want people to connect with you.”   This doesn't mean we have to reveal our darkest secrets or tell our audience everything that goes on in our days. It means we have to show our personality. We have to show what makes us unique. Sometimes this means sharing our hobbies or a funny story that happened during our day, but it has to be something that relates to the topic of our episodes.    “If you can share stories about your life that help accentuates whatever point you're trying to make, you do two things: you make your point, and you allow your audience to get to know you. You start to build that relationship,” Dave said.    Talk to One Person   We should talk to one person when we talk on a podcast. This means referencing our listeners as “you” instead of referencing a group of people as if we are speaking at a live event.    Most people don't listen to podcasts with others. It's often an independent activity. They don't sit down with a group of friends on a couch to listen to an audio-only file while staring at the wall. They listen to podcasts while they're driving, cleaning, or they slip in headphones and listen to a podcast while they are at the gym.    64% of podcast listeners listen to podcasts while on the road (Source: Semrush Blog) and 76% of Americans drive to work alone every day (Source: Brookings.edu). 59% of people listen to podcasts while doing housework or chores, and 87% of podcast listeners said podcasts are enjoyable because they can listen to them while doing other things (Source: Semrush Blog). This means, when someone is listening to our podcasts, they are often alone. Our podcast episodes can feel a lot more personal because of this as it will feel like we are talking directly to the listener.    “When you do a solo show, number one, do not follow the advice of a YouTuber and start off with ‘Hey guys,'” Dave said. Instead, we should talk to the listener as if it is a one-on-one conversation with them. At the end of the podcast, we can thank them for listening, not “thanks, everyone.”   “I have people tell me all the time, ‘I always kind of feel like you're talking to me' and I would say, ‘It's because I am,'” Dave said. Podcasts are a great way to connect with our listeners since it is such an independent activity. We can take advantage of this personal “conversation” and make sure we talk to them specifically, not a general group of people.    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Dave for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Our podcast isn't just our business, it can also be our business card. If we want to host a successful podcast, we need to focus on a specific niche audience. We don't have to have thousands of listeners to be successful if we can really narrow down our target audience and serve them well. In our podcasts, we should get personal. There are millions of podcasts out there so we need to find what makes us unique and share it so our listeners will choose us. We can share stories about our life to help get our point across and allow our audience to get to know us and connect with us. We should talk to one person when we talk on a podcast. This means referencing our listeners as “you” instead of referencing a group of people.   Connect with Dave   If you want to learn more about or connect with Dave, you can: Find him on LinkedIn Listen to his podcasts School of Podcasting or Profit from Your Podcast    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Passion Marketing ebook and learn how to be a top priority of your ideal customers. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  Do you have a podcast? If so, what strategies have helped you find success? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/3-podcasting-hacks/ 

Nathan Gwilliam is a serial entrepreneur who created and sold 3 digital ventures. He is the host of the Monetization Nation blog, podcast, and YouTube channel. Created and run Adoption.com. TEDx speaker. #digitalmonetizer Top 3 Value Bombs: 1. One of the ways we can identify and leverage tectonic shifts is to follow content and media channels talking about these shifts. 2. Passion marketing is identifying what our ideal customers are most passionate about. What are those highest level passions that drive the lives of your customers? 3. There are so many "good" choices that being good is not good enough anymore. Figure out how to make your business a top priority so you can stand out against other options. Learn more about Passion Marketing by downloading a FREE e-book from Nathan - Passion Marketing Sponsors: BrandCrowd: Take control of your business's branding with BrandCrowd. Get 55% off your logo at BrandCrowd.com/fire! ZipRecruiter: When you post a job on ZipRecruiter, their matching technology finds qualified candidates and invites them to apply! Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com/fire.

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I'm Nathan Gwilliam, your host. I was named after an inspiring business leader named Nathan Tanner. When I went to college, the building that housed the business school I attended was the Tanner Building, named after Nathan Eldon Tanner.    Nathan Eldon Tanner was known as a man of outstanding executive ability and unquestioned integrity. Throughout his public career, he was known, even by his political opponents, for his rugged and undeviating honesty. His high moral standards were said to be constant, undeviating, and immovable. I have a long way to go to live up to Nathan Tanner's example. However, in today's episode, we're going to tell Nathan's story and discuss how to build a business with integrity.    One of Tanner's favorite sayings was, “The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight; but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upwards in the night.” Tanner's wife said. “And he tried to accomplish what he set out to do by doing just that: By rising at five A.M. to teach himself typing when he was running the store in Hill Spring.” (Source: ChurchofJesusChrist.org) Tanner's Life   Nathan Eldon Tanner was born on May 9, 1898, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and he grew up in Canada in the small town of Aetna, near Cardston, Alberta. On his family's farm, he learned how to work hard, driving a four-horse team at the age of twelve, caring for livestock, and nursing his entire family back to health when all but him had smallpox (Source: rsc.byu.edu).   In Alberta, Tanner worked as a teacher and school principal before being elected to the Alberta Legislature, where he served as speaker of the Assembly. He was chosen as Speaker of the House, but before he had never even attended a session of the legislature and was elected to act as chairman of sixty-three members. On the subject, his wife said, “We were given an elegant suite of rooms in the legislative buildings, to use as we liked, and … it seemed that he had fallen into the ‘lap of the Gods,' but only he and I knew the hours, day and night, that he spent studying parliamentary procedure. This was the beginning of jobs which he was given, which he said were far beyond his ability to cope with.”   When Tanner was acting as Minister in the Alberta government, he earned the well-deserved nickname of “Mr. Integrity” because he refused to compromise by accepting gifts of any kind and was strictly honest in his dealings. The affectionate title followed him through a lifetime of success based on principles of fairness and integrity (Source: ChurchofJesusChrist.org).   Later, he served as president of Merrill Petroleum Ltd. and director of the Toronto Dominion Bank of Canada. In 1954, he became president of Trans-Canada Pipelines. As president, he directed the construction of a $350 million, 2,000-mile pipeline from Alberta to Montreal (Source: NYTimes.com).   Tanner later moved to Salt Lake City and quickly established himself as a business and civic leader. He served on the board of directors of First Security Corporation and Mountain Fuel Supply Company. He helped plan, develop, and promote building projects in Salt Lake such as the Salt Palace, Symphony Hall, the Fine Arts Center, and the restored Capitol Theater (Source: NYTimes.com).   Decision-Making and Concentration   Tanner was said to have near flawless judgment when he was making decisions. Religious leader Victor L. Brown said, “He gathered all possible facts before making a decision, never making an impetuous or off-the-cuff decision. He had an unusual talent for setting bias and prejudice aside if such existed. He did not make the mistake of having pet projects that would tend to warp judgment.”    Another of Tanner's favorite sayings was, “I'd much rather be part of the solution to a problem than a part of the problem.”   Tanner used his power of concentration to help him make quick and well-informed decisions. For example, one day a group was making a very detailed and technical presentation that lasted over two hours. There was little time for discussion. At the conclusion of the presentation, Tanner said something like this:    “Recommendations one and two can be implemented with little difficulty. Recommendation number three needs more study, and your chart covering this portion of the presentation needs to be redone for the following reasons (which he listed). Recommendation number four will require much more study and appears to be untimely at the moment.”    This experience occurred after Tanner's eyesight had been seriously impaired, so he hadn't seen the chart—it had only been described to him.   Tanner was able to concentrate for the whole of the two hours and concisely relate his conclusions at the end of it. He didn't let his bad eyesight become an excuse for him to not be part of the solution. (Source: ChurchofJesusChrist.org)   Service and Caring for Others   “Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.” - Nathan Eldon Tanner   When Tanner was still living in Cardston, he led a group of boys in his church's youth program. Some of the boys hadn't been coming to meetings, and Tanner went to their homes to find out why. He discovered that some of the boys didn't have the right clothes and had been too embarrassed to attend church meetings without them (Source: rsc.byu.edu).    Tanner and the rest of the boys in the group all agreed to wear overalls to meetings on Sunday mornings. Because of Tanner, all the boys became active in attendance, and they grew to love their sensitive and dauntless leader (Source: rsc.byu.edu).   Tanner was willing to forgo a formal look to make all the boys feel comfortable. He cared about the boys and it was more important to him that they were all there than looking a certain way. He kept the important things in mind and pushed aside the worldly focus on the image.    “It is easy to do things for our own families and loved ones, but to give of our substance for the stranger who is in need is the real test of our charity and love for our fellowmen.” - Nathan Eldon Tanner   Keeping Our Commitments   “Self-discipline is doing what you know you should do when you don't want to do it.” - Nathan Eldon Tanner   As Tanner was asked to serve as president of Trans-Canada Pipelines, the backers of the company planned to set up headquarters in Toronto. Tanner was living near Calgary at the time and had committed to a leadership role in his church. Because of this duty, Tanner refused to move to act as president of the company. Instead of finding someone else, the company owners set up their headquarters in Calgary (Source: rsc.byu.edu).   This shows not only how much they valued his leadership, but also how committed Tanner was to keep his commitments. He was willing to risk losing a job because he wouldn't back out of a commitment. Tanner often had to take the time to travel to eastern Canada since that's where much of the company's business was transacted (Source: rsc.byu.edu).   Tanner stood his ground with his promises. We must do the same thing with our commitments. When we take a stand for what we know is right, it shows people we can be relied upon and we're not going to give in when outside influences pressure us.   “To meet the serious issues facing us in our respective communities today, we must be examples of virtue and righteousness ourselves and choose today to take our stand on the moral issues which threaten us.” - Nathan Eldon Tanner   Enduring through Hardships   When Tanner was about 15, he was herding cattle when he was thrown from his horse. Getting to his feet, he looked down to see three fingers on his left hand were broken. They had snapped at his knuckle joints and were twisted back against his hand, the bones of his middle finger sticking out of his flesh. Tanner took hold of his fingers, put them back in place, got back on his horse, and rode to a doctor. The doctor marveled at him; all the bones were in the right place and he only had to stitch him up.    This is the kind of attitude Tanner had throughout his life. When something unexpected happened, he didn't complain. He didn't give up. Instead, he took care of the situation as best he could, got help if he needed it, and kept going.   Tanner also tried to be grateful for what he did have. He was working as a schoolteacher during the depression, and the teachers weren't very well paid. Instead of moping about his situation, the Tanners sold their only valuable possession: a new Ford sedan. They used the money they got to purchase a small general store.    He also supplemented his income by selling insurance and suits of clothing. The family had milk cows and his two oldest daughters delivered milk daily, often wading through heavy snow with the milk strapped to them. The Tanners kept their household too busy to dwell on the negative. One of his daughters even remarked, “During those depression years all the other kids seemed to feel poor, but we never did; we were too busy.” (Source: ChurchofJesusChrist.org)   Like the Tanner family, sometimes the best thing to do in hard times is to find ways to keep busy and focused on good things to solve our problems. Dwelling on our trials won't make them go away.    “As we express our appreciation of our many blessings, we become more conscious of what the Lord has done for us, and thereby we become more appreciative.” - Nathan Eldon Tanner   Key Takeaways   Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Having true integrity builds credibility and trust, and opens doors. Sometimes we must put the care of others before other things such as keeping up appearances.  We can often show charity best when we serve those we don't know very well. Self-discipline is doing what we know we should do even when we don't want to do it. Tanner was willing to give up a job to keep his commitment. We must also be willing to do what it takes to keep our word. When we go through hard things, it can help to not dwell on the hardships, but keep busy and focus on filling our life with good things, such as working towards solutions.   Join Entrepreneurs of Faith If this episode of Entrepreneurs of Faith resonated with you, please subscribe for FREE to Monetization Nation so you can receive future episodes of Entrepreneurs of Faith.   Subscribe to the free Monetization Nation eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter. Share Your Story    What is your strategy to make it through the hard times? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-to-lead-a-business-with-integrity/ 

Welcome back to another episode with email marketing expert Brittany Bayley. In the last episode, we discussed how to grow our email lists and essential email sequences. In today's episode, Brittany answers common email marketing questions.   How often should we email our list?    How many times per week should we email our list? For nurture emails, Brittany said we should be emailed at least twice a week. She recommended sending one email highlighting something external such as an interview or podcast episode we've done. This trains our readers to open the email and click to go somewhere else.    If a YouTuber, podcaster, or blogger publishes something daily, it is usually best not to send an email every day because we may overwhelm our audience. We can send something like a weekly summary or highlights for all the episodes we've published that week.    There are some situations where a daily email would be acceptable. If “daily” is in the title of our show, our audience members will likely expect to get daily emails. Or if we set it up so they know it will be daily emails, then they may not be overwhelmed. If we aren't sure what will work well for our audience, we can test different frequencies and see how they respond.   We can also give our audience options for how often they want to receive emails or which kinds of emails they'd like to receive. When they sign up we can ask if they'd prefer highlights or daily emails or perhaps they only want to hear from us when we have a new product or a sale. Brittany said, “Segmentation is . . . a great way to show that you respect your subscriber and that you respect their time.”   How do we find the best incentives or lead magnets?   To find the best incentives and lead magnets, we need to turn to our audience and be aware of what they are going through. What experiences are they having? What's going on in their world? How can we help them get through that?   Brittany saw many successful lead magnets related to COVID-19. She saw things like “How to deal with stress in a pandemic” or “How to take your business online in a short period of time.”   “It's much more about the intention and what you're teaching versus the container like a challenge or an ebook,” Brittany said. We need to be offering incentives and lead magnets based on what the customer needs, not based on what we want to offer or sell.   The most successful lead magnets Brittany has seen relate well to their audience. Instead of using techie business jargon, they use simple terms their customers use and understand, making it clear for the audience.   How do we write subject lines?   Subject lines should be eye-catching and pattern-interrupting without being unclear. We don't want to just put something random in the subject line that has nothing to do with the email's content just to get people to open the email. When we do the random eye-catching thing but don't give them the context behind it, our audience will feel tricked and they may not continue reading our emails.   Asking questions, having statements, and using emojis can be great ways to draw attention. We can also use things like caps, parenthesis, or brackets to draw attention to the subject line. Anything that varies from the typical subject line can be eye-catching. Depending on our audience and what they're expecting from us, lists such as “5 Ways to…” can also work.   Brittany recently received an email with the subject line, “Brittany, do you have time today? I want to run something by you?” Brittany is acquainted with the sender, so she was immediately intrigued and opened the email. The sender had written a great email and wanted responses from her list, so it was a great way to pull her readers in.   Everything with emails should be based on our benchmarks. To get benchmarks, we need to make sure we're emailing one to two times a week for 60 to 90 days to see what they are, then we can go from there and test to see what works well for our audience.   How do we improve our calls to action?   Calls to action (CTAs) can be tricky because we want our readers to take the action but we don't want to be annoying when we give them that CTA. Though we may want to pack everything into one email, we should only have one clear and concise CTA in each email. It should be set apart from the rest of the email, not buried in a block of text.   Brittany usually writes her emails out of order. She writes her CTA first, then she'll write the hook. Last, she bridges those two together through the middle or main body of the email. When we're writing our hooks, we need to keep the CTA in mind, so every word should be leading to that call to action. When we write the email in reverse it is easier to carve the path leading to the CTA and our readers will have a better time following it.   How long should emails be?   The length of our emails can also vary depending on our audience and what they're expecting from us. If we promise them content-heavy, blog-style emails then we should be giving them those kinds of emails. If our audience wants something shorter and more to the point, we can try that kind of email.   What are the best ways to personalize an email?   One of the best ways to personalize an email is by adding the reader's name. People love to hear people say their names and it is the same way in emails. When we are collecting their information, we need to make sure we have space for them to put their name so we can do this.   Another great way to personalize is to show them we know who they are, what action they took, and where they are in their journey. We can do this by asking them in our onboarding sequence how they are liking the specific product they purchased or the lead magnet they received.   Many technologies like ConvertKit have these personalization options built into them, so we need to ensure we are taking advantage of those.   Should we use a tactical or humanistic approach?   Email marketing is often a combination of tactical and humanistic approaches.    Through a tactical lens, we can think about things like personalization or inserting the audience member's name at the beginning of the email. We can also focus on concision and make sure our emails aren't full of big blocks of text that are hard to read.   We can also come at it from a more humanistic standpoint by thinking about the person we're writing to and what kinds of stories they are telling in their mind that are stopping them from taking our call to action. What is their belief system? What questions are coming up for them?   To create great, successful emails, we need a combination of these approaches.   Why should small brands use email marketing?   Brittany recently did an order bump with one of her services. She emailed her list to let them know about the bump and then went to the gym. While she was there she got all these notifications about purchases. That day she made $500 just from emailing her list.    If we have a small brand like that and we're used to spending money on ads or in other places or we're used to jumping through hoops to get sales and doing big launches, there is great power in being able to just write an email. Email marketing gives us a line directly to our customers, so we can avoid all the hassle of other advertising.   What do we need to know about spam laws?   Spam laws can be tricky because they can change depending on the region. We must make sure to check the laws for whatever area we live in. Brittany said the bottom line for these rules and regulations is do we have permission to email them promotional or marketing material?   One thing to note is that when asking for permission it can't be a conditional part of the purchase. The checkmark to receive promotional emails can't already be checked even if we're using it with a lead magnet.   What are the biggest mistakes with email marketing?   Two of the biggest mistakes Brittany has seen with email marketing are having a cold list and only emailing when we need sales or are launching something.    We need to be consistent with our email list, having a long-term nurture strategy in place. We shouldn't freeze and not use our lists at all, and we also shouldn't do a burst of emails, then stop, then do another burst. Brittany said, “Know what you want to say to your person, understand what they're asking from you, understand what questions they have on their mind, nurture them, and have a long-term strategy in place so that they feel supported.”   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Brittany for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   We should probably be emailing our list with value at least twice a week. Subject lines should be eye-catching and clear. Each email should only have one call to action and everything should lead to it. We can personalize by adding readers' names and referencing their specific experiences with us in the emails. Email marketing should combine tactical and humanistic approaches. Every company can benefit from the direct connection to customers email marketing provides. We should understand and comply with anti-spam laws in our countries.   Connect with Brittany   If you want to learn more about Brittany or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn, Instagram, or visit her website at BrittanyBayley.com.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Passion Marketing ebook and learn how to be a top priority of your ideal customers. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story    What questions do you have about email marketing? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/answers-to-10-questions-about-email-marketing/ 

In today's episode, I'm joined by Brittany Bayley, and we're going to discuss the ins and outs of email marketing including how to grow our lists and the essential email sequences.   Brittany Bayley is an email marketing expert, coach, and copywriter who helps her clients monetize their email lists and create unstoppable marketing channels for their businesses. She has penned successful campaigns for some widely recognized brands such as Russell Brunson. She's the founder of the popular email template system Swipes That Sell. She focuses on making email marketing simple, so it's easy to stay consistent and get ongoing and sustainable results.    How to Effectively Grow a List   Here are a few strategies for growing our email list.   Focus on the Customer's Point of View   We can grow our list by thinking about things from the customer's perspective. We can ask questions about their perspective and what they are dealing with to attract them to our list. We can do things like low ticket offers, freebies, or other hooks to invite the ideal reader onto our list.   A lot of people come at it from, “What do I want to offer?” But they don't see great results from this kind of approach. If instead, we say, “Here's my person. What do they need from me?” our list is going to grow significantly faster because we're coming at it with them as our focus.   Paid Advertising   The same mindset will work with paid advertising, we just have to put some money behind it. We do need to be careful with trying to scale it and putting a bunch of money behind it before we've proven and tested it. We should test it organically to make sure it works before we start paid advertising.   To test this, Brittany recommends split testing one thing at a time. Generally, the three things we will be testing are the subject line, calls to action, and our story. When we do this we should be watching our open rates, our click rates, and our conversion rates to see how they change. Brittany personally uses ConvertKit to do this, but she said she thinks ActiveCampaign is great and she's heard great things about Mailgun.   Networking   Getting on other people's shows, or Facebook Lives, or having other people talk about us on their email lists is a great way to bring in traffic. Brittany was recently in a mastermind bundle called Digital Insiders and her list grew by about 1,500 people. They all got together and were sharing each other's audiences. “It's a really good way to jumpstart your list and to get some fresh people onto your list and then get that ball rolling,” Brittany said.   3 Essential Email Sequences   Here are three different email sequences we should implement and how to get a start on setting them up.   Nurture Sequences   Whenever someone gives us their email address, we should start with a nurture or onboarding sequence. This is an introduction to us and our brand. It should tell our audience about who we are as an expert or coach, and it will set the foundation for the rest of our relationship with that new subscriber.    Typically, this is a five-part series that will tell our story and set us up to coach them and give them some of our resources. Once we've done this sequence we can drop them into our main list.   “That's an example of a core sequence that every coach, every single online coach, should have. There [are] no exceptions. We all need a nurture sequence to onboard our customers, to onboard our new subscribers, to set ourselves up for success with every other aspect of the email list,” Brittany said.   Launch Sequences   Launch sequences introduce a new product or highlight a product we already have in existence that we haven't brought up for a while. This can be a 5-10 part email sequence saying, “Here's what it is, here's why I created it, here's how it's gonna serve you.”   Abandoned Cart Sequence   We can set up an abandoned cart sequence by having them enter their name and email address before they get to the order form. Then, if they do that but they don't complete the purchase, an abandoned cart sequence would remind them of their cart and ask them if something went wrong on our end. It's a great way to save some sales.   How do we set this up?   It can be overwhelming to try to figure all of this out and expensive to hire a copywriter to do it for us. Brittany offers a more affordable way to at least get a start on our email lists called Swipes That Sell. The product has templates for the core sequences and training to teach us how to infuse our stories into them so they don't look or sound like templates. Swipes That Sell is just $37 compared to the thousands of dollars an email copywriter will charge to set this up.   Brittany's Journey to Become an Email Marketing Expert   In college, Brittany studied journalism and wrote for the paper. She started writing more for herself, doing blogs. A woman came to her blog and told Brittany that she liked what she was writing; she asked if Brittany would ghostwrite for her. Brittany didn't know what that was, but she accepted the job, figuring out freelancing as she went.    Brittany wrote for her for years, and she did some of her landing pages, registration pages, and other pieces for her. She started getting referred more, finding herself in a place that wasn't corporate that she really enjoyed.    One day a client came to her, asking her to do her email campaigns. It was a great moment for Brittany because things started coming together. She could use what she'd been learning with freelance writing and one of her passions, psychology. She loved it, and from there she worked her way to exclusively doing emails for online coaches.   Her greatest home run was the opportunity to write a campaign for the Mastermind.com launch with Dean Graziozi, Tony Robbin, and Russell Brunson. She said it was one of the coolest experiences she's ever had to write the campaign and to see the sales coming in live.   Narrowing Your Niche   When I asked Brittany what the biggest failure or mistake of her career was, she said it was not being specific enough in her niche. She didn't specify what kind of emails she would be writing and for whom; she just said emails. She realized that emails for webinars and follow-up sequences for sales calls are significantly different from emails for infopreneurs.   “I made the mistake of assuming that just reaching into email marketing would make me an expert in all email marketing when really you have to know your industry,” Brittany said.    Narrowing our niche is one of the secrets to how we can become number one in the world at something. As we narrow it down, there are fewer people that are experts in something so specific, so we become the expert of a niche within a niche within a niche. When we do this, we can become one of the best people that our clients could possibly hire to do that and we're worth a lot more.   Long-Term vs Short-Term Monetization   Brittany said one of her favorite monetization strategies for email marketing is focusing on long-term and short-term monetization. For long-term monetization, we want to have strategies such as ongoing content going out, ongoing nurturing of our list, funnels that fire a couple of weeks after someone buys, etc.    But we can also monetize in the short term. We can do flash sales or if someone came through our funnel and didn't buy the bump or the OTO, we can say, “Hey, how are you liking this product? Here's something that you might have missed in the haste of buying this.”    These are a couple of easy ways to monetize long-term and short-term. We should always be leveraging our list to the max, not just focusing on one side or the other.   The Best Way to Provide Value   We need to make sure we are nurturing our list. Brittany said, “If all we're doing is . . . hopping in and doing these little sales, we're never going to nurture them. We're going to have a lot more unsubscribes. We're not going to build loyal customers or loyal brand credibility. We're just going to be those people who are hopping in when they need money.”   If we make sure we're consistently providing value to them and nurturing them, then when we do come back with a short term offer or short term sale, they're much more likely to realize that we're bringing that to them for the best interest because we've been investing in that relationship in the long-term.   “It all comes back to who you're talking to,” Brittany said. “Sometimes we get really over-complicated with how to nurture lists or how to do these things. It all comes back to . . . the person in your list. What can we do for them? When you come from that standpoint, all of the strategies, everything else, makes sense when you come from a place of, what do they need from me?”   We should be thinking about what we can do to improve their circumstances. What questions are running through their mind at night? What things are they coming up against based on current events? What is coming up for them that we can solve or answer? What resources do we have that you can give to them? It can be as simple as what they need and how we can fill that.   Owning Our Database   Brittany sees an increasing need to build our list, own our database of customers, and have a way to directly contact them. There is so much going on with social media, with algorithms, with changes to how we're able to relate to our customers, and with what we're able to stay in our ads. This isn't to say we shouldn't be on social media, but it is important to be able to have a direct-to-customer line in case something happens with social media that negatively impact our business.   This is an example of the tectonic shift of building a “skyscraper” on “land” we own. In this case, the skyscraper is our business and our customer database, and the land we own is our email list. If we don't own the land, someone could come in and disrupt things for us. However, if we do own it, we can control what goes on on it.   It is important to sell in a way that we can get their contact information and permission so we can build that relationship through our list. The long-term value of a business comes in the ability to have that list and continually be able to sell new products to that list.   “Until you have a list, you don't have a business.” - Russell Brunson   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Brittany for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Focusing on the customer's point of view will better attract them to our email lists. Before we do paid advertising, we should test it organically to make sure it works. We can grow our list through networking and leveraging other people's audiences. Everyone should have a nurture sequence to introduce customers to us and our brand. Abandoned cart sequences are a great way to save a sale. When choosing our path, we should narrow our niche, so we become an expert in that specific thing and increase our value. We should focus on both long-term and short-term monetization. The best way to provide value is to look at things from our customer's perspective and ask, “What do they need and how can I give it to them?” It is important to be able to control our connection with our customers and have a direct way to contact them.   Connect with Brittany   If you want to learn more about Brittany or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn, Instagram, or visit her website at BrittanyBayley.com.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Passion Marketing ebook and learn how to be a top priority of your ideal customers. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story    What email marketing strategies have worked best for you? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/?p=8787 

Dave Woodward is the CEO of ClickFunnels, the premier sales funnel software that generates more than $100 million per year, and has been used to create more than 1,000 million-dollar funnels (This page contains affiliate links and we may earn a commission if you click on the links and buy).    In the last episode with Dave Woodward, we discussed the benefits of using sales funnels to monetize a business. In today's episode, we're going to discuss how we can create a value ladder for our business to guide our customers on the buyer's journey.    The Value Ladder   Part of creating a sales funnel is creating our value ladder. A value ladder is a lineup of value we offer to our customers at each step of their customer journey so they move from a visitor to a repeat, loyal customer. At each step, the value and cost increase. For example, the bottom of our value ladder may be a free newsletter or downloadable workbook while the top of our value ladder maybe a subscription to our software.      Determine What Value We Want to Offer     The first thing we need to do is figure out what our offers are going to be. What are the steps of our value ladder? “I always look at trying to create the offer before you create the funnel, and then from that determine what type of funnel you're going to create,” Dave said.    There are many different ways to provide value to our customers, and we certainly don't need to provide them all. The best way to determine what value to provide is by first determining our core offer. What are we trying to get our customers to buy? A product? A software? Tickets to an event? The best offers aren't usually just one product, but instead are a bundle of products and services that are related and make our offer very valuable and unique. Whatever the case, once we have our main offer, we can work backward from there. What will lead our customers to buy our product or service?   Here are many different ways we can provide value to our customers in our value ladder. And, the concept of a value ladder is that we pay to acquire a customer once, and then we nurture that relationship and help them progress up the value ladder to buy more and higher value offers from us. Here are a few examples of different types of products and services we could provide on our value ladder to our ideal customers: Books/eBooks Workbooks Webinars Events Courses Challenges Free trials  SaaS products Coaching Podcasts Reviews Products Newsletters Blog content Videos Pictures Inspiring quotes Social media posts Speeches/talks Seminars  Memberships Programs Communities   At ClickFunnels, their value ladder includes books, software, virtual summits, live events, challenges, coaching sessions, a membership site, virtual summits, webinars, and more. I've purchased all of those products and services from ClickFunnels. Within those steps are additional steps. For example, they offer different coaching bundles for different prices. One of the programs they offer is a five-day challenge where they teach their customers how to generate leads.    They look at their audience and create many front-end offers to attract them to their business. After ClickFunnels customers receive the initial value, ClickFunnels tells them how they can get access to their software. ClickFunnels offers a free trial and additional access to a bunch of great content and training to help their customers make and be excited about a purchase decision.    While creating a value ladder can seem overwhelming as there are so many different ways to provide value for our audience, there are tools to help us create our own value ladder. ClickFunnels is a software that lets people design and creates sales funnels, landing pages, order forms, and membership sites to help businesses with their sales funnels and customer journey so we don't have to do it on our own. By signing up today, you can get two months free at ClickFunnels.com.       Design Our Offers     Once we've mapped out our value ladders, we can start designing and developing our offers. If we want to use a book to attract our customers, we need to write it. If we want our customers to subscribe to weekly newsletters, we need to design them. On top of that, we also have to determine how we will present our offers to our audience.    We can design our value offers as one-time offers (OTOs) or give them away for free in exchange for an email address. Dave explained that he sees a conversion rate of about 10% to 20% with his one-time offers. On top of OTOs, we can also consider recurring revenue models. Instead of making a single purchase, customers can subscribe to a software, membership site, coaching, or other product or service for which we charge a monthly fee.    Dave sees 85% of his revenue coming from monthly recurring revenue plans. No matter what business we are in, we want recurring revenue whenever possible. Recurring revenue provides value every month to our customers and provides income and stability for us each month.    However, no matter if we are using an OTO, a recurring revenue plan, or giving away value for free, we have to work just as hard to sell it. “No matter if you're exchanging [value for an] email, you have to sell things that are free just as hard as you have to sell something that has a price tag to it,” Dave said. “I think the biggest mistake a lot of people make is thinking that because it's free, [they can] just give it away and people are going to want it. It doesn't work that way. The whole idea behind building a list is to create an offer that has value.”   Choosing between an OTO or a subscription model is just the beginning. Once we determine our price model, we can look at different ways of offering our products or services.    “Order form bumps are one of the [best] kinds of secrets we see,” Dave said. “Usually you'll find a successful order form bump is typically in the neighborhood of anywhere from 20% to 30% of people clicking on that. For us, I know that's probably one of the fastest ways of recapturing some of our ad spendings, and then breaking even.”   An order form bump is an offer of something that is related to a previous purchase of a custom-made. For example, when a customer goes to checkout, we may include links to other related products or services they can buy along with what they have in their cart. Or, in the order confirmation email, we can include additional links to similar products our customers may like.    Where we position our offers on our website, our newsletters, or landing pages matters. We also can implement different strategies to encourage our customers to take our offers.  Here are a few strategies we can consider:    Bundles Membership programs Buy one, get one free 15% off if they subscribe  10% off for recommendations Seasonal discounts Discounts Subscriptions  Free shipping Free samples    As we design our offers we should always keep our audience in mind. What discounts will they appreciate the most? What areas on our website get the most traffic? By designing our offers to meet the needs of our customers, we will see a much higher return on our advertising investment.     Look at Metrics and Test     Once we have our value ladder completed, one of the best things we can do to ensure its success is to look at metrics and data. “The most important thing is to really understand metrics and do some testing,” Dave said.    One key metric we want to pay attention to is our opt-in rates. What is our opt-in percentage? We should look at the metrics of our funnel to determine if our marketing strategies are effective. One of our main goals should be to get a customer to “opt-in” by giving us their name and email address. Even before a customer makes a purchase, we want to get their contact information so we don't lose that lead. If we find that visitors on our website often leave without opting into our newsletter or program, we know we need to make a change.    The next step is to get our leads into the check-out so we can get their address and credit card information. This is where we start to see conversion rates. Dave said, “I don't think you have a real business until you can start driving paid traffic.” In order to get paid traffic, it may take a few months or even years of trial and error.   The first thing Dave does with a funnel is trying to break even on his customer acquisition costs. If he can make enough money in the first purchase a customer makes to cover his marketing or advertising costs, he essentially gets customers for free.    After looking at opt-in and conversion rates, we want to take a look at the metrics of our steps inside the actual funnel. Are customers accepting our offers? Are customers following the journey we mapped out with our funnels? If they aren't, what can we change? If they are, how can we do better?    Dave explained that the biggest mistake people make is giving up too early. He finds that entrepreneurs often try one funnel, find that it doesn't work, and then give up. No one can expect to create a perfect funnel on the first attempt. This is why testing and tweaking are so important. We need to look at the metrics to find ways we can improve our sales funnels to increase customer opt-in rates.    “There [have been] so many times where we've created funnels that just didn't work,” Dave said. “The numbers weren't where we needed to be. And so for us, it's [about] going back and testing and re-tweaking and changing and doing whatever we can to get to where we need to be. Sometimes it's a pricing thing and sometimes it's a different offer.”   Dave created ClickFunnels to help entrepreneurs manage their sales funnels. ClickFunnels provides the opportunity of seeing the entire customer journey. As a person comes into our funnel, we want to see where they fall out. ClickFunnels is a great tool that allows us to do a lot of testing and make changes to the order form to find what works and what doesn't. As we use metrics and data, our sales funnels will become much more successful.    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Dave for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:    A value ladder is a lineup of values we offer to our customers at each step of their customer journey. At each step, the value and cost increase.  The best way to determine what value to provide is by first determining our core offer. Once we have our main offer, we can work backward from there. There are many different ways to provide value to our customers such as books, courses, software, membership sites, and events.  We can choose to sell our offers as OTOs, subscriptions, or give value for free in exchange for customer information.  We have to work just as hard to sell things that are free as we do to sell something with a price tag on it.  We can implement different strategies to encourage our customers to take our offers such as using discounts, order form bumps, and promotions.  Once we have our value ladder completed, one of the best things we can do to ensure its success is to look at metrics and data. We need to look at the metrics to find ways we can improve our sales funnels conversion rates, increase customer opt-in rates, and optimize our customer lifetime value.   Connect with Dave   If you want to learn more about Dave or connect with him you can:  Connect with him on LinkedIn Visit his company's website at ClickFunnels.com, or go to SecretsTrilogy.com.  Join ClickFunnels today to get two months free.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Passion Marketing ebook and learn how to be a top priority of your ideal customers. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  What value do you offer to your customers in your value ladder? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-to-create-a-value-ladder-within-our-sales-funnels/ 

Dave Woodward is the CEO of ClickFunnels, a premier sales funnels platform that generates more than $100 million per year (This page contains affiliate links and we may earn a commission if you click on the links and buy). In addition to his CEO duties, Dave is the energetic host of the wildly popular podcast, Funnel Hacker Radio.   In today's episode, we're going to discuss the benefits of a sales funnel, and how we can leverage them to increase our conversion rates and monetization.   ClickFunnels   During Dave's entrepreneurial journey, he experienced frequent ups and downs. He started at an employee benefits company right out of college, took the company from Texas to California, and then sold it. Afterward, he started a few other businesses where he fell flat on his face a few times. He started a marketing agency business, which grew well in the mortgage and real estate industries, but he eventually lost it in the crash in 2008 which led him to finally realize his passion for online businesses.   Dave and his partner, Russell Brusson, started ClickFunnels because they had a need for the services themselves. There was nothing more frustrating than not being able to get their sites up and running, so they wanted to create software that would allow them to do it themselves. After about six months of design and development, they launched the software, which became incredibly successful, having processed over $11 billion (Source: ClickFunnels).     ClickFunnels is the platform we use at Monetization Nation, my Adoption.com business, and with many of my consulting clients. It is software that lets people design and creates sales funnels, landing pages, order forms, and membership sites to help businesses with their sales funnels and customer journeys.    Over 110,000 entrepreneurs actively use ClickFunnels to get their products and messages out to the world while converting visitors to leads and leads to customers (Source: ClickFunnels).    ClickFunnels has helped my business grow and made my job easier. For a limited time, if you sign up for an annual plan you can get two months for free. You can sign up on ClickFunnels.com to join today.    What is a sales funnel?   A sales funnel helps direct a customer to a purchase decision. It often starts with building awareness, providing value, and eventually leads to customer loyalty.    “If you've got anything to sell online or a lead you're trying to generate online, that's what ClickFunnels is for,” Dave said. “A sales funnel takes you through a customer journey, solving one problem after another with a product or service that you provide.”    One of the biggest challenges Dave finds digital businesses run into is cart abandonment. A visitor will land on our website, see a hundred different product options, and start adding products to their cart. When the visitor gets to the checkout and sees the price, instead of making a purchase, they leave their cart.    Dave said, “The whole idea behind a sales funnel is you solve one problem at a time.” Once one problem is solved, we can offer something else to solve additional problems. This will help prevent cart abandonment as customers don't get overwhelmed by all the different options at once. Instead, they can effectively solve one problem at a time, making one purchase at a time so they don't have to make such a large spending decision right at the beginning. Once we build their loyalty by providing free to low-cost value, we can eventually lead them to our higher-cost products.    Dave explains we can start by offering one-time offers (OTOs) such as books or events. For example, Russell, Dave's business partner, has written three different books on the sales funnel. They offer this OTO product and then use an order form bump, an offer for a related product, to earn additional revenue. `   “An order form bump is very similar to if you were walking through checkout in a grocery store, and you pass by all the candy and all the magazines and everything else. It's the impulse buy. That's the idea behind an order form bump,” Dave said.    A sales funnel helps create a step-by-step process for the customer. Instead of having to know everything all at once, we start them with our free value, lead them to our OTOs and order form bumps, and then eventually to our main product or service.    Benefits of the Sales Funnel   As we build effective sales funnels, our business will see multiple benefits.    Dealing with a Customer's Low Attention Span   The biggest problem a sales funnel solves is the attention deficit of consumers. People can get too distracted on a website, but a sales funnel aims targeted messages to our customers, solving one problem at a time. Consumers have very short attention spans, and if they can't get an answer to what they're looking for right away, they will move on.    “What happens is that people go to a website and they just get distracted too fast,” Dave said. “There's a ton of different things, like products, [and they have] no idea where to go. The whole idea behind the sales funnel is to get very targeted ads to drag people to it and then most importantly, once they're there, to solve exactly what they're trying to do.”   Establishing Relationships    Relationships are key. The better the relationship, the longer the customer continues to buy and if we can create a successful sales funnel, we can monitor our customers in each stage of their journey to find better ways to strengthen our relationships with them.    The first exchange with a customer is critical. When they make that first purchase decision, we need to follow up and build that relationship so they will continue to buy from us. “There's a huge difference between a lead list and a customer list,” Dave said. “I will take a customer list any day over a lead list. Because they've already exchanged that relationship, there's monetization. There's an investment in that relationship. And because of that, they're willing to go ahead and take a look at your next offer.”   We can follow up through email, text, Facebook Messenger, desktop notifications, or a voicemail broadcast. The goal with our sales funnel is to help our customers ascend our value ladder. The follow-up sequence helps us continually nurture our customer relationships to help them climb the value ladder.    “The whole idea behind that follow-up sequence is to reach out to [customers] on a frequent basis. Continue to nurture that relationship,” Dave said. “I think the real big thing we look at is this online community right now and the relationship is the most important part. People are very quick [to] bounce from one offer to another, and the key really comes down to how deep that relationship is. The better that relationship is, the more they may continue to buy products and services.”    Optimizing Conversion to Monetize   Sales funnels are a great way to optimize customer conversion to monetize.   A company I follow had a 0.15% conversion rate on their site. Most visitors that came to their site never bought anything, so they implemented an effective conversion funnel, and they increased their conversion rate to about 3%. If we can go from 0.15% to 3%, we've converted thousands of dollars more just by optimizing the conversion of the people that are already paying to get to our website.    In ClickFunnels, more than a thousand people have generated more than $1 million in their sales funnels because they have been able to increase customer conversion.   Dave gave the example of a designer. A graphic designer had three kids and realized she needed to be a full-time caretaker. She started looking for a way to be artistic during her free time and found a way to design sugar cookies with an airbrush. While it started as a hobby, friends and family began noticing her designs and started purchasing her cookies. Her kitchen became overcome with her orders, so she decided to create a business to teach people how to airbrush the cookies themselves. She used ClickFunnels to create a sales funnel and ended up having a revenue of over $1 million in just nine months.    Covering Customer Acquisition Costs    A sales funnel is a great tool to use to find ways to cover customer acquisition costs. Any time we are trying to build a business we need to look at the cost to acquire customers.  If we can create a breakeven funnel where the cost to acquire a customer is the same as the average cart value or the amount of money we bring in, then we're getting free customers. The question is, how do we create a breakeven funnel?   We need to carefully watch our customers at each stage of the buyer's journey in our sales funnel. With that data, we can look at how much money customers are willing to spend on their first purchase. If we can effectively use free value to direct our leads to make a purchase that covers the cost of our marketing or acquisition costs, we have a money machine. If we can put $1 in and get $3 out, we have created an endless marketing budget. We can also use an order bump form to increase the revenue as well.    “Most software companies will spend anywhere from $100 to $160 [to acquire one] customer,” Dave said. “We have to find a way of acquiring those customers for free. . . . One of the things we've seen is that for every dollar that comes in the front end if they're successful in their follow-up funnels and all their follow up sequences, we typically see anywhere from $15 to $17 on the back end.”    If we create a successful sales funnel that offers value at each step of the buyer's journey and successfully use follow-ups, our sales funnel can make our businesses extremely profitable.    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Dave for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   A sales funnel takes us through a customer's journey, solving one problem after another with a product or service that we provide. The biggest problem a sales funnel solves is the attention deficit of consumers. People can get too distracted on a website, but a sales funnel aims targeted messages to our customers, solving one problem at a time, so they don't feel overwhelmed.  The follow-up sequence in our sales funnel helps us continually nurture our customer relationships to help them climb the value ladder.  Sales funnels are a great way to optimize customer conversion to monetize. If we can effectively use free value to direct our leads to make a purchase that covers the cost of our marketing or customer acquisition costs, we have a money machine.   Connect with Dave   If you want to learn more about Dave or connect with him you can:  Connect with him on LinkedIn Visit his company's website at ClickFunnels.com, or go to SecretsTrilogy.com.  Join ClickFunnels today to get two months free.  Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Passion Marketing ebook and learn how to be a top priority of your ideal customers. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  Do you have a sales funnel? What benefits have you seen? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-to-use-sales-funnels-to-monetize-your-business/ 

Would you like some advice from an entrepreneur who built a $2 billion real estate investment firm? As entrepreneurs, it is easy to become consumed in our work and schedules. Sometimes we get so focused on meeting a deadline or reaching a certain goal that we forget to focus on nurturing our important relationships.    In the last episode with Jeff Burningham, we discussed why entrepreneurs should never stop learning. In today's episode, we're going to discuss how we can maintain healthy business and personal relationships.   Make Time   If we want to maintain our relationships, whether personal or professional, we need to make time for that person. A study published by the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that it takes about 50 hours of time together for two people to move from acquaintances to friends, 90 hours to become more than simple friends, and over 200 hours before we will consider someone a close friend (Source: The University of Kansas).    When we make time for our customers, business partners, friends, and family, we strengthen our relationships. Spending time with someone shows that we care about them and what is going on in their lives.    When I asked Jeff what his biggest home run was in his career, he told me it was finding his partners at Peak Capital.    “It's all about the team; the best teams almost always win,” Jeff said. “I think the longevity of the partnership was the biggest home run in my career because not only has it certainly paid off financially over time but more importantly, it's paid off interpersonally and personally, as we have fun together and grow businesses together.”    Jeff built very strong relationships with his business partners, and because he was able to do this, his company became very successful. However, if Jeff hadn't put the time into building those relationships, his company could have potentially had a very different outcome.    When I asked Jeff what his biggest failure was, he said it is being too focused on the end prize, and not spending enough time developing relationships.    “I'm very type A, driven by results, driven by outcomes. And that's what my mistake has been. I'm too often driven by outcomes when, really, I think the outcome we really want [to focus on] is our close, intimate relationships,” Jeff said.    Jeff explained that there have been times when he may have neglected his close relationships or he wasn't as empathetic as he could have been, something which can really hurt relationships. This can be caused when we are too focused on the grand prize such as profit. Instead, we need to remember that without relationships, we wouldn't get anywhere. We need relationships with our customers if we are going to sell, we need relationships with our partners if we're going to stay organized and energized, and we need relationships with our friends and family if we're going to stay positive and happy.    “Sometimes I lose perspective,” Jeff said. “What really matters in the end [is] the relationships that we have.” In order to build these strong relationships that are the backbone of our businesses, we need to take the time to develop them. This can mean prioritizing a coffee date with a partner over finishing a business report or taking the night off to spend it with family, even when we have a list of 100 things to get done by the end of the week.   Be Patient and Understanding   We have to remember to be patient with everyone in our lives. Often stress and pressure can build up until the thing that breaks the camel's back is a small and insignificant thing someone close to us says. They end up getting the worst of it as we let everything affecting us, come out on them. We need to be patient with the weaknesses of others and be patient during disagreements.    “What I wish we had more of is the wisdom, the patience, [and] the foresight to understand we're all flawed characters,” Jeff said. “We're all extraordinary in some ways. We're all very ordinary in other ways. . . . There's a lot more that binds us together, and that makes us similar in our human experience than what makes us different.”   In our professional relationships, patience is essential. An employee may repeat the same mistake while they're learning or a partner may take more time to complete their part of a project than we take. If we aren't patient and lose our temper, it can permanently damage a relationship. Sometimes we may be unable to recover. When we are lacking patience with those we work with, Jeff urges us to remember that we are all flawed. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and if we expect others to be patient with us as we work on our weaknesses, we should be patient with others as they work on theirs.    Our strengths and weaknesses often go hand in hand. It's like picking up a stick, you have to pick up both sides. The two sides of the stick are a superpower and a weakness. God gives us strengths so we can change the world, but with every strength, there is an associated weakness which gives us humility and the chance to focus on improving and overcoming it. Our weaknesses not only test our patience with others but also our patience with ourselves.    Even if we vote for different people and have opposing political views, we still have a lot more in common than we do in differences. “Let's support each other . . . and endlessly give each other grace and mercy in places where we don't see eye to eye,” Jeff said.    Two people can never agree 100% of the time. We may disagree with our business partner on the best marketing strategy or argue about parenting methods. However, even if we have disagreements, if we can be patient and understanding, there are ways to communicate and work through conflicts without damaging a relationship.    Love One Another    My wife and I have a core philosophy, and that core philosophy is “just love”. As we come into conflict in a relationship or a challenge with an employer or co-worker, 99% of the time when I don't know what to do, the answer to that problem or that challenge is just to “just love” them. Choose kindness. Choose love. Choose compassion. Choose the benefit of the doubt.   Billy Cox, an American bassist, said, “Leadership today is based on relationships built with trust, hope, love, and encouragement.” In order to be a successful leader in our businesses, we need to lead with love. We should treat each employee with respect and value their opinions like we would our own.    If we don't show love in our relationships, they will likely dwindle and burn out. Despite all the work we have to do in such a little amount of time, relationships should be our top priority. When our employee has an idea, we should listen. When our family eats dinner, we should sit with them whenever possible. When our partner disagrees with us, we should do our best to understand them and love them.    As we spend quality time with those around us and show patience, understanding, and love, we will be able to maintain and grow our professional and personal relationships better even with the workload of an entrepreneur.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Jeff for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   If we want to maintain and grow our relationships, whether personal or professional, we need to make time for that person. We need to be patient with the weaknesses of others and be patient during disagreements. A moment of lost patience can have permanently damaging effects on our relationships. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and if we expect others to be patient with us as we work on our weaknesses, we should be patient with others as they work on theirs.  As we come into conflict in a relationship, 99% of the time the answer to that problem or that challenge is just to love them.    Connect with Jeff   If you want to learn more about Jeff or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn or Twitter, or visit his company's website at PeakCapitalPartners.com.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Passion Marketing ebook and learn how to be a top priority of your ideal customers. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story    How do you maintain your personal and professional relationships as an entrepreneur? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-to-maintain-healthy-relationships-as-an-entrepreneur/ 

One of the most essential parts of our entrepreneurial journey is the ability to continually learn. We should never stop learning. If we stop learning, we stop growing.    Sir Richard Branson, a business magnate, investor, and author, said, “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” If we can learn from great books and courses, our mistakes and successes, our mentors, our critics, and our customers, we will have the ability to continually find success. The worst thing we can do as entrepreneurs is to think we know everything and stop learning.   Jeff Burningham is a serial entrepreneur who has founded some very successful businesses in his career and has been on over 10 start-up boards. He is also the founder and chairman of Peak Capital Partners, a $2 billion real estate investment firm, which was named the second fastest-growing company in Utah and one of the 500 fastest privately held companies in the United States by Inc. Magazine.    In today's episode, we're going to discuss Jeff's career and how his passion for learning helped him get to where he is today.    A Passion for Learning    Brian Herbert, an American author, said, “The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.”   We should always be growing and progressing, and the only way we can do this is by learning. From a young age, Jeff developed a passion for learning and created a growth mindset. Each life experience he went through, he found a lesson to learn. However, this is often easier said than done.   Learning is a choice. We should actively search for new opportunities for growth if we want to constantly progress. There are so many different ways and things to learn we could easily miss if we aren't paying attention. We can learn skills, history, spiritual lessons, or life habits. We can learn by reading books, listening to stories, or watching the examples of mentors. We can even learn from the massive glaciers in Alaska.    Jeff went heli-skiing in Alaska and learned a new skill. While he stood on the massive mountain, watching the northern lights flicker over the horizon, he learned perspective.    We can learn from everything around us if we are looking. Some of the best and hardest ways to learn are through trial and error. Making mistakes is hard and unfortunately, guaranteed. What determines our success is not the intensity of the mistake, but the way we react to it. If we can look at our challenges and failures as opportunities to learn, we will have much more success in our businesses and in our lives.    Here are a few examples of experiences Jeff took as an opportunity for new insights, knowledge, and growth.    Relationships   Over the course of his career, Jeff learned that relationships matter most.    “It's about relationships,” Jeff said. “We often focus on results or things we want to get done and sometimes those are important, but really, at the end of the day, the result we really want are the relationships, and whether that's an MBA program, or a business, or a family, or a community, those relationships are what matter most.”   When Jeff was about 12 or 13 years old, he started a carpet-cleaning business. His parents bought him a carpet cleaner so he could start cleaning the carpets at school, the dentist's office, and churches. He eventually handed on his business to his little brother, but he said this first step on his entrepreneurial journey taught him some of the greatest lessons.    “We don't get there alone; we almost always need help, whether it's through investors or mentors or partners or employees,” Jeff said. “Without my mom and dad . . . I wouldn't have been able to make it.”   While we may have the skills necessary to start a business by ourselves, we will have a much greater capacity for success when we get the help of others. Jeff learned this lesson from his parents and re-learned it again with his mentors, partners, and investors. When we focus on relationships, whether it be with our customers or partners, success and profit will come naturally.    Exit Transactions    Jeff learned a lot from his first scalable business. He started Mind Wire, a technology company, as an undergrad at BYU, and he won the BYU Business Plan Competition in 2001. He later sold his business to a publicly-traded company, learning a few lessons in the process.    Jeff and his partner had scaled their business up to about 20 employees and created a great team of people. When he sold the company and made that transaction, he learned that watching his small company get absorbed by a bigger company was harder than he thought. He also stayed with the publicly-traded company for about two years until he left to open his own office.    “I learned a lot about transactions [in] that early sale,” Jeff said. “I also learned that it was hard for me to work for someone else. It wasn't motivating to me to follow someone else's vision. I always like to set the vision, set the plan, set the course within my team.”    By selling his company, Jeff learned new ways to negotiate with others, and also learned something about himself. He learned that he doesn't work great under someone else. He learned he works better when he can implement his own ideas and visions with a team.    Partnerships    After Jeff left the publicly traded company, he teamed up with two of his friends to create Peak Capital Partners. There were times when they weren't sure if they would make it as they had about two to three years of no revenue. However, as they continued to work hard and pursue their vision, they turned it around. Since then, they have been one of the fastest-growing businesses in Utah for the last 5-10 years and have scaled their business to about 800 employees.   During his time with Peak Capital Partners, Jeff continually looked for new opportunities to learn. He first learned to never give up. It took Jeff two to three years to earn a profit, but because he put in the hard work and effort, he was able to turn our business around and become extremely successful.     We also need to be very intentional about who we choose to partner with. “I've learned the value of good partners,” Jeff said. “Don't ever get a partner that doesn't have your same baseline ethics or morals, and I'm not talking about religion. I'm talking about honesty, integrity, work ethic, etc. Find partners that see the same way you do in that regard. Also, get partners . . . that complement your weaknesses. Be self-aware. Know where you're strong, know where you're weaker, and get partners that can complement your weaknesses.”    As we constantly seek new ways to learn and implement what we learn, we will find that our chances of success will increase. Because Jeff was able to learn from his experience and the experience of others, he found strategies that work in a business and others that don't, and that helped him in his future ventures.   “I really love the early stages [of a business],” Jeff said. “There's a lot of risks. It's really hard, but I find it to be . . .  such a rich time of learning. And so I love those first five years. I love the startup.”    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Jeff for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   We should never stop learning. If we stop learning, we stop growing.  Learning is a choice. We should actively search for new opportunities for growth if we want to constantly progress.  Our businesses should be about relationships. While we may have the skills necessary to start a business by ourselves, we will have a much greater capacity for success when we get the help of others.  It might take two to three years to earn a profit, but if we put in the work and effort, we can turn our business around and become extremely successful.   We should be intentional about who we choose to partner with. Our partners should have similar values as us and should complement our strengths and weaknesses.    Connect with Jeff   If you want to learn more about Jeff or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn or Twitter, or visit his company's website at PeakCapitalPartners.com.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Passion Marketing ebook and learn how to be a top priority of your ideal customers. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  What are the most important lessons have you learned during your career? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/158-why-entrepreneurs-should-never-stop-learning/ 

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I'm Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today's episode, we're going to discuss how to live a life with no regrets.   If your life flashed before your eyes, would you have any regrets?    In a 2012 sermon, “Of Regrets and Resolutions,” Dieter Uchtdorf, a German aviator, airline executive, and religious leader, explained that a nurse who cares for the terminally ill often asks her patients a simple question as they prepare to leave this life: “Do you have any regrets?”    “Being so close to that final day of mortality often gives clarity to thought and provides insight and perspective,” Uchtdorf said. “So when these people were asked about their regrets, they opened their hearts. They reflected about what they would change if only they could turn back the clock.” If we could turn back the clock, what would we change? How would we be different? As entrepreneurs, we have to make constant decisions. Sometimes, we may make choices we regret. For example, this week I thought of some team members that I let go of over the years, and a business partnership that didn't end well, and what I could have done better in those situations.  A Near-Death Experience   Marshall Goldsmith, an American executive leadership coach, and author, shared his near-death experience on his website, MarshallGoldsmith.com. He had been on a flight to Santa Barbara when the plane suddenly took an “enormous” dip.    “We have a minor problem,” Goldsmith recalled the pilot announces. “The landing gear isn't working. We are going to circle the airport until we run out of fuel so we can land safely with the wheels up.”   Goldsmith explained he was terrified for his life. The moment seemed to last forever, giving him a chance to reflect. He asked himself, “What do I regret?”   “The only answer I could come up with was that I had never adequately thanked the many people who had been good to me in my life. I told myself, ‘If I ever get back down on the ground safely, I will thank these people,'” Goldsmith wrote.  After the plane landed safely, Goldsmith traveled to his hotel and started writing thank-you notes to the people he was grateful for in his life. After he had reflected on his regrets, he immediately took action and made a change. Now, he makes a conscious effort to be grateful for everyone around him, especially in his business.  “That was the moment I became a connoisseur of gratitude, a virtuoso at thanking. I'm always thanking people now in my emails, letters, seminars, and life. The last thing I say on most phone calls is not ‘goodbye' but ‘thank you,'” Goldsmith wrote.  If we were to have a similar experience, what would we regret? What lesson could we learn? What would we want to do better? What changes would we make? Not only does this lesson apply to our lives, but also to our businesses. Goldsmith was able to reflect on his regrets in his business, and then make a change by constantly being grateful for his customers, clients, and employees.  5 Ways to Overcome Regrets As entrepreneurs who are humans, we will make a lot of mistakes and wrong choices. It is inevitable. We may lose a client, launch a marketing campaign that fails, or release a product no one likes. However, we don't have to live in regret. How do we get to the point where, when someone asks us if we have any regrets, we can confidently say no? Here are five steps we can take to overcome our regrets.    Reflect     Sometimes we may not know what we will regret in the future as we live our present lives. In order to make changes, we first need to recognize what changes we want to make. We can do this by setting aside time to reflect.    Goldsmith didn't realize he had regrets until he had a near-death experience. He didn't realize he lacked gratitude for the people he worked with until he was forced to assess his life. Even though a near-death experience can provide meaningful insights about ourselves, we don't need to have one to determine what changes we should make in our lives now. We simply need to take the time to reflect on what we wish we were doing better.   Margaret J. Wheatley, an American writer, teacher, speaker, and management consultant, said, “Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.”    We should reflect on our leadership abilities. Are we kind? Do we appreciate our employees? We should reflect on our business processes. Is there a step we can take out? Are we missing something? When we set aside time to reflect, we can stop bad habits and prevent regrets in the future.      Accept     When we make a wrong choice, we need to accept it. We shouldn't continue to feel guilty over a mistake we made years ago. We need to accept the fact that everyone makes mistakes. Uchtdorf said a common regret many people have is, “I wish I had let myself be happier.” We shouldn't let our shortcomings, mistakes, or failures ruin our chance to be happy or successful.   Steve Maraboli, a speaker, best-selling author, and behavioral science academic, said, “We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.”    Once we accept that we will make wrong choices and mistakes in our lives, it will be easier to forgive ourselves and move on, continuing on the path to success.      Apologize      If we have hurt someone else, we need to apologize. In our businesses, this could mean acknowledging poor leadership skills and making a promise to do better for our employees or partners.    As entrepreneurs, we often fall into leadership positions and have to spend most of our time working with others. As we run a business, we need to make sure we aren't leaving our relationships at the bottom of our priority list. One common thing we need to apologize for in the workplace is neglecting our relationships. If we don't take the time to really build our relationships and apologize for our past mistakes, our workplace won't run as efficiently or be as successful.    Uchtdorf explained that a common mistake we make is ignoring the people around us because we are too consumed with our projects. He said, “Isn't it true that we often get so busy?” Uchtdorf said. “And, sad to say, we even wear our business as a badge of honor, as though being busy, by itself, was an accomplishment or sign of a superior life. Is it? I think of our Lord and Exemplar, Jesus Christ, and His short life among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem. I have tried to imagine Him bustling between meetings or multitasking to get a list of urgent things accomplished. I can't see it.”   When we focus on all of the tasks we need to accomplish, it can be easy to forget about being a human and working with others. When this happens, we need to take the time to apologize. As we start apologizing for our mistakes, we will build better relationships with our employees, partners, and customers. Once we have apologized we can begin to make amends.  Uchtdorf continued, “I see the compassionate and caring Son of God purposefully living each day. When He interacted with those around Him, they felt important and loved. He knew the infinite value of the people He met. He blessed them, ministered to them. He lifted them up, healed them. He gave them the precious gift of His time.” When we admit mistakes and apologize to those around us for things even as small as being too busy, we will begin to have fewer regrets in our lives.    Learn & Improve     The more we see our mistakes as learning opportunities and chances for improvement, the less regret we will have. After Goldsmith reflected on his regrets, he decided to learn from them and find a way to improve. As we do this in our businesses, our mistakes will no longer be failures, but a sign we are moving forward to reaching our full potential.    A common regret many people have is, “I wish I had lived up to my potential.” During our life on earth, we are meant to grow and learn. If we can do this, we will have less to regret.    “Our Heavenly Father sees our real potential,” Uchtdorf said. “He knows things about us that we do not know ourselves. He prompts us during our lifetime to fulfill the measure of our creation, to live a good life, and to return to His presence.” He continued, “Let us resolve to follow the Savior and work with diligence to become the person we were designed to become. Let us listen to and obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit. As we do so, Heavenly Father will reveal to us things we never knew about ourselves. He will illuminate the path ahead and open our eyes to see our unknown and perhaps unimagined talents.” As we open our minds and hearts to learn new things and understand what God wants of us, we will become better people. In our businesses, we should constantly have the mindset of growth. We want to learn from our mistakes and regrets so we can improve.   Change     After we have recognized the regrets we have or could have in the future, we need to make changes. We need to take what we have learned and begin to apply it in our lives. We can do this by making resolutions and goals to improve.    Uchtdorf explained, “The more we devote ourselves to the pursuit of holiness and happiness, the less likely we will be on a path to regrets. The more we rely on the Savior's grace, the more we will feel that we are on the track our Father in Heaven has intended for us.” As we strive to do better in our businesses, as we reflect, accept, apologize, learn, and make changes, we will begin to live a life free of regret. We will get to the point where we can say “no” when we are asked, “Do you have any regrets?” “[W]e should not be like the boy who dipped his toe in the water and then claimed he went swimming. As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we are capable of so much more. For that, good intentions are not enough. We must do. Even more important, we must become what Heavenly Father wants us to be.” Key Takeaways   Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Sometimes we may not know what we will regret in the future as we live our present lives. When we set aside time to reflect, we can stop bad habits and prevent future regrets we will have with our businesses.  Everyone makes mistakes. Once we accept that we will make wrong choices, it will be easier to forgive ourselves and move on, continuing on the path to success.  When we focus on all of the tasks we need to accomplish, it can be easy to forget about being a human and working with others. If we realize this is something we are doing, we need to take the time to apologize.  The more we see our mistakes as learning opportunities and chances for improvement, the less regret we will have. After we have recognized the regrets we have or could have in the future, we need to make a change so we can live a life without regrets.   Join Entrepreneurs of Faith If this episode of Entrepreneurs of Faith resonated with you, please subscribe for FREE to Monetization Nation so you can receive future episodes of Entrepreneurs of Faith. Subscribe to the free Monetization Nation eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter. Share Your Story  What regrets do you have and how have you learned from them? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/157-how-to-live-a-life-with-no-regrets/ 

Welcome back to another episode with Matt Bailey. In the last episode, we discussed strategies to chase real profits and not just vanity numbers. In today's episode, we'll discuss some of the concepts Matt teaches us how to teach new dogs old tricks, including knowing emotional needs, applying the “mom test”, not muddying the water, removing friction, and acquiring the best customers.   The Need Behind the Need   One day, Matt went to take his daughter shopping for shoes. They got to the store and there were 200 different kinds of Converse, which Matt wasn't expecting. He told his daughter to go look around, meanwhile, he started checking his email, thinking she would just be a few minutes.    Fifteen minutes later, Matt started looking for his daughter. He found her taking pictures of about six different pairs of shoes and sending the pictures to her friends. Suddenly Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs popped into Matt's brain. He realized she was looking for social validation. The immediate physical need was the shoes, but the need behind it was social validation.    Many times we position our product or our service as, “Hey, this will help you.” But our customers may think, “Help me do what?” We need to think about what emotional satisfaction we're providing.   When Matt had his agency, he didn't just tell clients that he would get them rankings or increase their sales. Instead, he would ask, “If I improve your sales by 30%, what does that enable you to do?” By asking this, Matt is shifting from selling something like rankings to selling the ability to take a vacation or hire someone new to help with the workload. It becomes a deeper need, and we begin to persuade our customers at an emotional level. Matt said, “Everyone's selling [higher rankings]. What I'm selling you is more time, more money, and what are you going to do with it. That changes everything.”   When Matt was working for a printing software company, they were trying to sell to the New York Times. The decision-maker told him, “The software that you guys have checked all the boxes. Logically, you are the best choice, and you'll hear from me in the next couple of days.”   Matt went home excited, already thinking about how he would spend the commission. A week went by and he didn't hear anything. The whole company was waiting in anticipation. Eventually, Matt gave the decision-maker a call, and he told Matt, “I'm so sorry. I hate to tell you this, but no one ever got fired staying with the legacy provider.” He was afraid of going with Matt's startup company, so he was going with the safe option, a company that was already established in the industry.   Again, Matt realized that this was about a deeper need. While his startup was good, they were only selling on organizational benefits, but their competitor was selling job security.   We need to know our customers well enough to know the need behind the need. What is it that they really want? What is our product or service going to do for them on an emotional level? This is what we should be focusing on. When we sell to the emotional need, it creates an emotional connection with our customers that our competitors won't have.   Keyword Research   Many companies do keyword research about their company, their brand name, or their product. The problem with that is people don't always search with a product in mind; they search with a need. So we should be asking, “What need does our product or service fill,” and “What are the needs that people have?”   Keyword research helps us understand the needs people have and how they describe those needs. What are the trigger words? What are the emotional words? What are the words that signify not only intent but also the intent to purchase to make a decision? Are they comparing products right now? Are they in the early stage where they're using general keywords, or are they mid-stage where they're now defining what type of solution they want?   To research keywords, we need to be asking questions like this in order to see things from the customer's point of view and better position our products and services so they can find them on their journey.   Once we know the answers to these kinds of questions, it should be guiding our content and the customer's experience on our website. Doing this can help us build rapport and trust because we'll be answering the right questions for our audience.   Don't Muddy the Water   When we've got someone lined up to sign or someone who's ready to buy, it can be hard to stop selling. We want to throw more services or products their way that we think they'll want. When Matt was working for a software company, they would often work in groups of two salespeople. They had a code phrase to let the other person know when they were doing this: “Stop muddying the water.”   Matt said we need to stop muddying the water digitally. “I equate that to what we do on our websites. When someone's . . . looking for information and they're ready to fill out that lead form, what's the worst thing we could do? Send them a pop-up, ask them for more information, make 20 required fields, [etc.]. We do the same thing on our website when we make it difficult for our audience to engage or take action. We put obstacles, we put friction in their path, which prevents them from doing what they want to do.”   How to Remove Friction: The Mom Test   How do we remove this unwanted friction? Matt suggested what he calls the Mom Test. When he had his agency, he would pay his mom, who wasn't very tech-savvy, to test their websites.    Matt said, “I want someone who doesn't know what to expect. I want someone who's not familiar, who's not going to try and hammer away at this because that's not reality. I want someone who, when I give them a task . . . is going to be completely honest about what they think, who's going to run into obstacles and not be sure what to do.”   Matt said his mom identified so many friction points, making his clients millions of dollars. She would identify something, they would change it, and then they'd seen a dramatic change in conversion rates. “That's the easiest and most inexpensive way to remove friction on a website,” he said.   Because of this kind of testing, Matt got very good at identifying those friction points. He had a well-known brand come to him because they were having trouble. Their conversion rate was only 0.01%. Matt looked at their checkout page and right away identified five things they needed to change. After working with Matt and his team, the company's conversion rate went from 0.01% to 3.5%, an increase of 30 times and $30 million a quarter. An important thing to remember with this is the company was already paying for those visitors to come to the site.    We can all find someone in our lives who isn't particularly tech-savvy to help us with things like this. All we need to do is have them sit down in front of a computer and record them trying to get through the process. Once we fix those things, we should do this, again and again, to eliminate as many of those friction points as possible.   The “Best” Customers   Who are our best customers? Matt said it depends on how we define “best”. A stakeholder and a marketing director might look at it differently. If we're looking at it from a financial standpoint, our best customers are the ones that spend the most money with us.    Matt said his best customers are the ones who might not spend the most, but they have been with him the longest, refer new business to him, and he loves working with them. “If they were to call and ask me to do anything beyond the scope of our agreement, I would do it because I love them; we have a great relationship,” Matt said.   Typically, customers will follow the 80/20 rule. 20% of our customers are our best customers, and they're responsible for 80% of our business. Matt said, “Find out who your best customers are and define what you mean by “best”, because when you focus on the best, then what you're logically going to do is produce more of that kind of customer.”   When we treat these customers well, it will automatically lead to more business. They will want to tell their friends and associates about us and recommend our services to them.    These customers will also be more likely to work with us in tough spots. During the crash in 2008, this was one of the things that helped Matt's business survive. When his best customers called, telling him they had to cut somewhere, Matt was able to sit down with them, look at the numbers, and discuss how this would really affect their business. Many hadn't thought of that and realized they couldn't afford to lose him.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Matt for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   We can identify what our customers need emotionally and communicate how we can help them with that need. We can research keywords from our customers' point of view, so we can help them find our products or services easier. We must know when to stop selling and muddying the waters with our potential customers.   We would apply the “mom test” to remove the friction from our business. Friction can be removed on our website by having someone who isn't involved in the business test it. We should analyze and identify our best customers. When we find who our best customers are, we can focus on them and it will lead to finding more of those kinds of customers.   Connect with Matt   If you want to learn more about Matt or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn or check out SiteLogicMarketing.com to learn more.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Passion Marketing ebook and learn how to be a top priority of your ideal customers. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  What old tricks have you taught to new dogs? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-entrepreneurs-can-teach-new-dogs-old-tricks/ 

Matt Bailey is a best-selling author. He's written several books such as Internet Marketing: An Hour a Day, Wired to be Wowed, and Teach New Dogs Old Tricks. He's also the host of the Endless Coffee Cup podcast.    Matt is a marketing expert, trainer, and speaker on digital marketing strategy. Matt is a digital marketing instructor for the Direct Marketing Association and an instructor for LinkedIn Learning. His training content and curriculum can also be found at Rutgers University, Duke University, Purdue, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, and many other places. ‘   In today's episode, Matt Bailey will share some of his strategies for chasing real profit and not meaningless vanity numbers. He will share strategies about asking the right questions and listening.  We'll also discuss diversifying our revenue streams, learning from our failures, and the tectonic shift that's happening with Google and third-party cookies.   Asking the Right Questions   Matt is very passionate about digital and media literacy, or the ability to understand the tools we're using and to understand bias in information. This was something Matt learned during his journey.   Matt started off studying journalism, but he knew that wasn't what he wanted to do, so he went into real estate. He realized there was a way to promote large commercial properties, websites. Two years later, his websites were getting about 200 leads a month.   He learned coding, SEO, link building, and PR doing all these things for himself. He started learning analytics, which led him to ask why his leads from searches weren't turning into sales. “That changed my whole perspective about what I was doing, how I was doing it, and following the profit rather than following the big numbers because if I had to just ask what's generating the most leads, I would have answered that question, but it was the wrong question,” Matt said.    Matt was getting more than 80% of his leads through search rankings, but none of them turned into sales. He poured through his data spreadsheets, trying to figure out where his leads were going wrong and where his sales were coming from. He found that his sales were coming from articles he had published on real estate sites where there were links back to his site. People were reading those articles, clicking the links, and registering on his website. Those people accounted for only 4% of his traffic but 80% of his sales.   If Matt hadn't asked the right questions, he never would have discovered the right group of people to focus on. He would have wasted time and money trying to turn the other 96% of his traffic into sales instead of growing that 4% that already made up 80% of his sales. Questions that drive us to understand our data can help us understand our business and how to make it more profitable.   Ask, Listen, Understand   Matt said some of the best people he has worked with have been able to do this: asking greeting questions and then connecting them to business acumen. Asking the right questions leads to understanding how a business makes money, what the expenses are, what takes away from profitability, what's the business model, how does it functions, etc.   A key part of this process is listening. I feel like the more listening I do, the smarter I am. Listening is one of the most powerful ways to monetize because we can then position our product to sell, we can understand what the needs are, we can customize and personalize based upon it, and we can address true concerns.   Matt shared a survey he had heard about that was run during COVID-19 about virtual selling and B2B sellers. When interviewed, salespeople were saying, “I have a hard time connecting with customers. They're not as attentive, and it's a more difficult sell because of COVID-19.” However, when they interviewed buyers or people in the lead sales funnel, their response was, “I'm not being listened to. They don't really understand what I need.”   In Matt's early days of sales, they used to play a game when they went to sales meetings: whoever talked the most lost. “If you talk the most, that means you dominated the meeting, and the customer did not talk and express what they needed. You were trying to sell the whole time and you didn't listen,” Matt said.    We should be listening to what our customers need. We should also be listening to our partners, those on our team, and our employees because they often have great ideas that we may not have thought of.   Diversifying and Creating Multiple Income Streams   Matt also learned the value of making money in different ways. When he was in real estate, other agents started contacting him, asking him to put their properties on his site because it was getting a lot of traffic.    “That taught me very early [that] I can make money through many other ways,” Matt said. “Putting up a website and [having] other people pay you to put their stuff on it, that takes very little work at all. . . . One of those things I learned is that with the internet, with all these things, there are many different ways to develop multiple income streams.”   Are there different ways we could be diversifying our revenue streams? Sometimes we put ourselves in boxes, saying, “This is the way it's always been done, so that's the way I have to do it.” But that's not true. Experimenting and thinking outside that box may lead us to more success.   We can ask our customers what other needs they have or what other products or services they would be interested in. For example, a business that sells food may find out from their customers that they're interested in recipes they can use to cook their food.    We can also ask ourselves what our competitors have done to expand their revenue streams, and we can look to businesses outside our industry as well to see how they have brought in revenue in different ways, and then apply those lessons to our industry and business.   Learning from Failures   Whenever we fail or make mistakes, it can damage us and our confidence, but Matt likes to look at his past failures as learning experiences.   He was let go three times from three different jobs because of financial cutbacks. It was hard because those organizations were telling him they didn't need him. “It's funny because I look back on that now as the best thing that ever could have happened,” Matt said.    From that experience, he realized he is more secure now working for himself on something he built and has control over than working for a Fortune 500 company. He said, “It's really a lot of things that you learn from that just really turn you into who you are.”   When we're looking back at our past mistakes, instead of being ashamed we can ask questions like, “What did I do wrong?” and “What can I do differently next time?” to help us learn from our mistakes.    Tectonic Shift: Google and Third-Party Cookies   When I asked Matt what the biggest tectonic shift he's seeing is, he said it is the shift Google is making with third-party cookies. Google is eliminating third-party cookies, which isn't necessarily a bad thing because these third-party cookies have been responsible for billions of dollars of ad fraud.   Google is consolidating the total ad revenue being spent online. Matt said, “If you want to reach a certain audience, you've got to go through Google. And the way Google's doing it is they're making themselves the owner of all first-party data of anyone who has a Google account.” It will be interesting to see how this plays out.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Matt for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   We should be asking great questions that will give us actionable answers to grow our business.  By asking, listening, and understanding our customers we will understand our business better, know what our customers truly need, and be able to make much better, informed decisions.  There are many ways to create diversified revenue streams. Being open to new ideas and thinking outside the box can help us grow our revenue, and give our business more stability. We should see our failures as opportunities to learn and grow. They are necessary steps along our path to success.    Connect with Matt   If you want to learn more about Matt or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn or check out SiteLogicMarketing.com to learn more.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  How are you chasing numbers instead of profits, and what can you do differently to more successfully chase profits? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/chasing-profits-instead-of-vanity-numbers/ 

In the last episode with Kate Toon, we discussed how to build a digital business from scratch by growing and leveraging a community. In today's episode, we're going to discuss some key principles from Kate's book Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur and several ways we can provide value to our customers.    Finding Our Superpowers   Part of our entrepreneurial journey should include discovering our superpowers. What are we the best at? If we want to provide value to our customers, we need to figure out what we are good at. What value can we offer? As we discover our superpowers, we will begin to resonate with our audience.    “It's really good to identify what your individual superpowers are rather than trying to fit the mold of what society tells you have to be, the superpowers [you must have] to be a great business human,” Kate said.   As we search for our unique superpowers, we can look for help from the people close to us. We may not be the best judge of our own superpowers. Often, the way we perceive ourselves is different from the way others perceive us. Kate suggests we ask our friends and family how they would describe us in two or three words. This can help us discover talents and abilities we may not have realized we had.    When we discover what we are good at, we will also have more knowledge about our weaknesses. “Sometimes our superpowers are also our kryptonite. They work both ways. My honesty is great, you're always going to get a straight answer from me, but sometimes my honesty can be a bit brutal, and people aren't going to like that. But it's who I am, and I have to own it,” Kate said.    In my career, someone taught me that our strengths and weaknesses are like a stick. When we pick up a stick, we pick up both sides. One side of that stick is our superpower, it's our talent, it's the way we are going to change the world and make our greatest contribution. And the other side of the stick is our weakness. For example, we might have a salesperson that's really good at relationships and communicating, but on the other hand, they're just not as a detail orientated and we'd never have them manage the books.    Every superpower has an associated weakness, just like Superman has his kryptonite. We as entrepreneurs may judge ourselves based upon our weaknesses. However, we should focus on our individual strengths and use them to our advantage. We can also find other people to help bring the skills and talents we lack. It takes a village to run a business. Sometimes we just need to find that business partner or employee who can have strengths to make up for our weaknesses.   Navigating the business world is difficult. The only real way we can successfully make it through is by building our confidence. We need to recognize our strengths and use them to add value, while also recognizing our weaknesses to improve them. As we focus on our strengths and get help with our weaknesses, our chances of success and monetization will increase.    The Road Map   Kate doesn't use a business plan. Instead, she creates micro goals and a rough roadmap of the direction she wants to go.    We don't need to create an entire business plan to have a successful business, but we do need to have the main goal. We need to determine who we are, what we stand for, what our values are, and how we can use our strengths to help others. Once we have our main goal and direction in mind, we can sketch a rough road map of where we want to be in a year, five years, or 10 years. However, we don't need to plan out every single step of the way from the beginning.   Following this philosophy, major business plan competitions have switched to business model competitions.      Once we know our goal, we can begin building our website. This should be a very strong foundation for our customers to always go back to when they have a problem or question. Then, our goals can lead to processing, pricing, branding, and eventually marketing. We can also start to bring in people to fill in the gaps of our weaknesses.    We don't need to have a set-in-stone plan. We need to be flexible, and if we have a strict business plan we are determined to follow, it may cause us to get stuck. Instead of a firm plan, we can create a road map with different possible routes and paths to take. When we are moving towards our main goal, it doesn't matter how we get there, as long as we do.    10 Ways to Provide Value to Our Customers    In Kate's book, she discusses her value ladder. The first step is for her customers to join her Facebook community. This is a very low barrier to entry as it requires no commitment or cost while providing the value of building a network and gaining access to content. All customers have to do is provide an email. Some of the content at the base of the ladder includes her podcast, blog posts, events, and content in Clubhouse. The goal of this content is to raise awareness about her business and expand her reach.   At the next step of the ladder, Kate offers additional free value through the customers' emails. Customers can get access to free online courses, resources, and a workbook. Once her customers are enticed by the free value and continue to climb the value ladder, the value being offered increases with the cost. Kate can attach a price to her content since it is becoming more valuable to her customers.    She begins with a low-cost online course on SEO that is about $87 and eventually leads to a master class for about $1500. These masterclasses can also lead to membership and coaching sessions which generate recurring revenue.   Here at 10 ways, Kate provides value to her customers:   Community Blog posts Podcast Events Clubhouse Workbooks Online courses Reviews Coaching Memberships   At each step of the ladder, Kate provides new value. It starts with little to no cost or commitment and eventually moves to the content of higher value with a higher cost or time commitment such as a monthly subscription. The value ladder works like a funnel, with Kate's ultimate end goal being to get people to sign up for the membership site so she can generate recurring revenue.    However, with memberships, we have to be careful to avoid overloading and overwhelming our customers with content. “Memberships are about transformation,” Kate said. “They're about results. People want to see that they're moving forward and making changes. And content actually overwhelms people, because they're like, ‘Wow, I'm not getting through all this content, therefore I'm not getting the value from this membership that I should, so I'm going to leave.'”   Instead of including limitless content in her memberships, Kate works with a “less is more” approach. They include a couple of master classes each month on topics groups vote for. Instead of having 100 master classes to look at in one month, customers are introduced to two or three new classes each month. She also provides training each month, reviews, and a one-hour coaching session.    “[A membership program] is not about a lot of content, but it's trying to give people a personal experience as much as possible,” Kate said. “I think a good membership is about education, but it's really about support, community, . . . and coaching.”    One of the main goals with Kate's value ladder is to get customers to subscribe and provide her with recurring revenue streams. Recurring revenue is a security measure. While Kate makes a good amount of money from her online courses, it's a one-time purchase. What happens if she launches a course that fails?    “[Recurring revenue] is just about that security. It means I can make more intelligent decisions, I can afford to have a team, [and] I can make promises to my team about their work and how long they're going to be around for,” Kate said. “It means I can sleep at night.”   As we find our superpowers, sketch out a rough roadmap, and create a value ladder for our customers, we will begin to find success in our businesses.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Kate for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   We should seek to discover our superpowers. If we want to provide value to our customers, we need to figure out what we are really good at. Every superpower has an associated weakness. Sometimes we may need to find a business partner or employee who has strengths to make up for our weaknesses. We don't need to create an entire business plan to have a successful business, but we do need to have the main goal or a business model. We can create a value ladder with multiple different types of content to give our customers to guide them towards a purchase decision.  Recurring revenue gives our business security.    Connect with Kate   If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Kate or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn or visit her website at KateToon.com.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  How do you provide value to your customers? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at:

How can we turn our small idea into a successful business with a reliable income? In today's episode, we're going to discuss how to build a digital business from scratch through an online community.   Kate Toon is an award-winning businesswoman and SEO strategist who has helped more than 10,000 businesses demystify digital marketing, grapple with the Google beast, and grow their success. She was named the Business Woman of the Year at the National My Business Awards, and she is also the author of Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur and the host of the Kate Toon Podcast and the Hot Copy Podcast. While Kate's digital business is very successful now, she had to start from scratch and build her way to success. In her journey, one of the first things she did was build an online community.    Build a Community   One of the first steps we should take when starting a digital business is to build a community.   “My whole business has been built on creating what some people would call a tribe. I like to think of it as a Viking Horde—a big horde of people . . . who are there for you and who support you through your business journey. They'll be the first to listen to your podcast and the first to buy your products,” Kate said. “Community is really the foundation of everything I do.”   Before we start a podcast, create an online course, or launch a SaaS product, we should begin to build a following and community. That way, when we release a new product or service, we will already have a group of people who are willing to use it. We can begin by selecting a social platform to post frequent content on. From there, we can slowly build our brand and community on our own platform, such as our own email newsletter, before we offer any products or services.    Kate began her career in advertising and eventually moved to digital marketing. When she got pregnant, she realized her current job wouldn't be a good fit for her new lifestyle, so she gave up her job and started her own business in SEO. Near the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey, she spoke at an event in Australia: ProBlogger. They had 10-minute slots for audience members to get up and speak, so Kate gathered her courage, got up on stage, and spoke about SEO to about 600 people.    When she got back home, she went online to a Facebook group for the ProBlogger community. She left a message saying that if anyone wanted to learn more about SEO, they could come and join the personal group she had created. That short, 10-minute speech became one of her greatest home runs because it gave her an opportunity to build her community. Her group now has 10,000 people in it.   “From that group, I started building all the courses and resources that I now have and the podcasts and everything. It came from that one little speaking opportunity that I was brave enough to do,” Kate said.    Once we have a following, we can launch all of our products and services into that group, and then we will have an instant audience which can lead to instant sales.    Build Engagement    As we build our communities, we need to remember to constantly engage with our audience.    Kate said her best monetization secret is to not waste any money on paid ads. She doesn't spend any money on Facebook or Google ads. Instead, every marketing campaign she launches is through content marketing and organic SEO.    “It's really about that top of funnel awareness, so having the podcasts and being very present on all social media,” Kate explained. “Be present and really work on engagement. . . . No comment gets left behind, that's actually part of my company mantra.”    Instead of spending money on ads our customers likely won't trust, we can engage with them directly in our communities. We should take the time to engage with everyone that comments on our posts. As we build those customer relationships, we help direct them through our marketing funnel and lead them to a purchase decision without ever having to launch paid advertisements. As we respond to our customers, they will be much more likely to comment again.    One of the most important parts of building a business is building relationships. If we aren't engaging with the community we have created, we aren't getting to know our customers. And if we don't have good relationships with our customers, we aren't going to have a successful business.    In Kate's business, she personally responds to each comment her followers or group members make. She doesn't have social media managers reply to comments for her because she wants her customers to feel like they have a personal relationship with her and her brand. She wants them to feel valued and cared for.    “We all want to feel seen and heard and listened to. We want to feel valued and if you can give your customers that feeling, genuinely, then I think that's a beautiful thing and way better than spending money on Facebook ads,” Kate said.    Be Unique   In our businesses, we need to focus on being unique and personal. We should strive to develop our own personal brand and create our own voice and personality.    It can be hard to avoid comparing ourselves to our competition as we build our own digital business from scratch. Yet, we should remember what Theodore Roosevelt said: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” If we constantly compare ourselves to competitors who are more successful than us, we're going to feel like a failure. We shouldn't compare our beginnings to someone else's years of progress, and we shouldn't obsess over trying to be exactly like them.    The biggest failure Kate made in her journey was obsessing over her competition and comparing herself to them too much. When she did this, she felt inferior to them and it brought her a lot of self-doubts.    “You really have to rely on your own skills. Not everybody's going to like you and that's okay. There's always going to be competition, and everyone is always going to have choices, and you just have to focus on why they're going to choose you, not worry about why they're choosing other people,” Kate said.    Instead of focusing on our competition, we should focus on ourselves. We need to determine how we can offer a unique value to our audience that other competitors won't have. Instead of trying to be like everyone else, we should focus on being ourselves. We should be personal and unique.    Be Authentic   In our communities, we need to remember to be authentic.    One of the biggest tectonic shifts Kate sees happening today is the increasing popularity of audio. “We are really craving community and connection in a way that we never have and that's partial because [of] this collective trauma we've all been through in 2020,” Kate said. “I think the future [is] trying to make smaller communities. I think we need that right now in the world.”    She continued to explain that audio, such as podcasts or Clubhouse, is a great way to build community. Clubhouse is an audio-only communication platform. A host can open up a room and invite others to participate and have an audio-only discussion.    In order to take full advantage of the opportunity Clubhouse provides, we need to take control. “You can't be a passenger, you have to drive your journey on Clubhouse so you can't sit in other people's room hoping they're going to bring you on stage and you might get two seconds talking to Grant Cardone. You need to be your own Grant Cardone,” Kate explained. “You need to set up your own rooms, bring across your personality, your knowledge, and speak to your people. Don't try to find lighthouses, be a lighthouse and have people come to you.”    In audio platforms, it's hard to hide. The real you will come out and hopefully, that will be a good thing. Personality and authenticity help us connect with others as we relate to them. People are tired of having to look and be a certain way. When we listen to a podcast or engage in a discussion on Clubhouse, we don't have to care about looks, we only get to focus on ideas and conversation. It gives us a chance to talk and listen to real, authentic people, without being distracted by the worldly visual status cues we look for.    “I have image fatigue—the Instagram perfection fatigue of just having to look a certain way, be a certain way, and being judged on your sex or your color. I think Clubhouse is the great leveler,” Kate said. “I can't see you. I have to take you not on face value, but on voice value. . . . I think it's a more intimate relationship and it feels more honest than some of the other channels like YouTube and Instagram. It feels less produced and more raw and more honest.”   By removing the visual aspect of our content, we may be a little less pretentious and more authentic. We don't want to create a performance whenever we interact with our audience and community. We want to be real and authentic. When we are, our audience will really start to connect with us. As we build our communities, we want to remember to engage with them, provide unique value, and stay authentic. As we do this, our small startup will start to gain traction on the path to success.    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Kate for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   One of the first steps we should take when starting a digital business is to build a community. Once we have a following, we can launch our products and services into that instant audience, which can lead to instant sales.  Instead of spending money on ads our customers likely won't trust, we can reach them through SEO and content marketing and then engage with them directly in our communities. In our businesses, we need to focus on being unique and personal. We should strive to develop our own personal brand and personality instead of trying to be like our competitors. We want to be real and authentic. When we are, our audience is much more likely to connect with us.    Connect with Kate   If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Kate or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn or visit her website at KateToon.com.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine and get a free Passion Marketing ebook. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story    Have you built an online community? If so, what secrets, stories, and strategies can you share about growing a community? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/153-to-build-a-digital-business-start-by-building-a-community/ 

Welcome back to another episode of Monetization Nation. In our last episode with Kelly Roach, we discussed strategies to successfully run live product launches, Kelly's entrepreneurial journey, and the power of collaboration. In today's episode, we'll be discussing nine principles for success from Kelly's book Unstoppable.   It's Never Too Late   Before we dive into these principles, Kelly talked about another topic in her book that really resonated with me: it's never too late to start to dream big and achieve amazing success. Kelly shares several examples of people who didn't achieve success until a little later in their lives.    Julia Child was 39 before she published her first cookbook. After working in advertising and media, her TV debut came at the age of 51. Ray Kroc bought McDonald's in 1954 at the age of 52. Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 before she published the first of the Little House books. Colonel Sanders franchised Kentucky Fried Chicken when he was 62 and sold it for $2 million 12 years later. The first true Walmart opened when Sam Walton was 44. Henry Ford didn't launch the Ford Motor Company until he was 40.   We often think if we aren't successful by a certain age then we never will be. For most of us, our greatest success is going to come in our 40s and 50s. When we are that age, we're actually in a better position to find success because we're more mature and we have more life experience.   “Wherever you are, do not let your life be wasted. It's never too late. It's not about how old or young you are, it's about the amount of tenacity, determination, and perseverance that you have.” - Kelly Roach     Stop Resenting the 1% and Join Them     Kelly has seen many people who have a negative attitude toward people who are wealthy, yet in the next breath, they're saying they wish they were that wealthy. If we have a goal to become wealthy we can't resent people who have achieved that goal. Kelly said, “You're not going to achieve something that you resent, you're going to repel that. You're telling the universe ‘I don't want that. I don't like that.'”   While some of the 1% had previous advantages in their lives, many of them are self-made. They worked hard to get to where they are today. Instead of resenting them, we can learn from them. They have given us an example as they've carved their paths to success, and if we learn from their experiences we may find success too.     Cultivate the Entrepreneurial Spirit     Most of us have had 18 years of programming telling us that failure is bad. In our culture, it is very important to get good grades or do well in athletics or music, or other extracurricular activities. This can set us up for success in many ways, but it can also make us afraid of failure.   When Kelly was first starting as an entrepreneur, she was so afraid of failure. She was used to being in the corporate world where if you make a mistake, you can get fired. In entrepreneurship, however, we have to make mistakes in order to learn how to execute. Mistakes and risks are part of the job, and it can be hard to shift our mindset to realize that mistakes are okay.   “If you only play it safe and you stay in the box of what you already know how to do, you're not going anywhere,” Kelly said.     Act Like a CEO if You Want to Earn Like a CEO     Everybody wants success. Everybody wants a big house, expensive vacations, and their dream car. People who have those things live their lives in a specific way. They have discipline and perseverance, they've made sacrifices, they make investments in themselves, and they hold themselves to a certain standard all because they see themselves as a CEO.   Kelly has seen many people who think, “Once I'm successful, I'll do the work.” They're trying to put the cart before the horse. We can't start working hard after we get the promotion. We have to work hard to get the promotion in the first place. We can't say, “I'll build a team once I hit six figures,” because we're not going to get there without a team. And we can't wait to take risks until we see the payoffs.   Entrepreneurship requires us to dive in and give it everything we've got. It's not something we can just dip our toes in and find success. Success is much more likely when we start acting like a CEO, putting in the hard work, and making the hard decisions.     Act like a Leader     Along with acting like CEOs, we also need to act as leaders. Kelly said. “You have to see yourself as a leader. You have to conduct yourself as a leader. You have to be a leader in all things: word and deed. If you want to go far and go high in life—and it doesn't matter what that is; that could be at home with your children, in your relationship with your spouse, in your community, in your church, in your business and your career—you have to conduct yourself at that level if you want the rewards of life that come at that level.”   We are always at the podium as entrepreneurs. Everything we say and do is on display. So we must be ready to act as leaders at all times.      Develop Business Mastery     Growing a business has a lot of moving pieces: sales, marketing, infrastructure, systems, team building, leadership, HR, legal, etc. There are a lot of moving pieces to build a company, but often entrepreneurship is simplified down to acquiring clients.   Someone can secure the huge investor and still lose everything, going right back to where they started. Someone can get the big win on the front end with clients, but they don't have the backend systems to support it so they lose them all.   “Business mastery,” Kelly said, “is really about investing in committing to learning the components of building and running a successful business and creating mastery of your own skillset in being the leader. . . . Really think about the energy and effort that you're putting into developing your own skills as a CEO and as a business owner and [make] sure that the way you're investing in mastering these different fundamentals of business aligns with how high and how far you want to go. Your business can't grow beyond your growth.”     Invest in Ourselves     Let's face it, none of us know it all. None of us have achieved what we're trying to achieve before. But there are people who have achieved our goals before or have experience in the things we're trying to do.    In order to reach our goals, we need to be investing in ourselves. “Get the mentorship, the information, education, support, the resources that you need in order to achieve the outcomes that you want.,” Kelly said. “Your best investment is always going to be in your worth because you touch on everything else that you come in contact with.”   We should be investing in ourselves every day, even if we only have time for something small like listening to an informational podcast. We can't fill up the gas tank in our car once a year. It's something we've constantly got to keep up.     Don't Avoid Sales     Many entrepreneurs and small business owners almost have this phobia of sales. They don't want to spend time on it, they don't have a sales system, strategy, or salesperson in their company or on their team.   The problem with this is that everything in life from landing clients to getting kids to do their chores is sales. Everything is sales; everything involves a negotiation. “This is something that the vast majority of people really avoid. They have this negative perception, but it's really helping someone to do what's in their own best interest by showing them what's in it for them,” Kelly said. One of the most important skills that an entrepreneur can learn is how to be a great salesperson because everything is sales.     Be Disciplined      We often look at successful people and say, “Wow. They're so talented.” Talent does play a role in success, but it isn't the most important thing. What is the most important thing? Discipline.    Discipline is available to anyone. We choose to be persistent. We choose to be disciplined enough to work through challenges, to do what we don't feel like doing because it's the right thing to do, and to be a good leader even when we're exhausted and don't want to get back on the phone with someone one more time for the day.   “Discipline is the price that you pay to achieve greatness in every area of life, and almost always the answer to why you don't have what you want in your life is discipline,” Kelly said.   When I went to college, I received the largest private scholarship the university offered, but I was nowhere near the smartest kid there. What I had in my favor is I could outwork anybody. A lot of the time the biggest scholarships, best grades and GPAs, and the best business opportunities don't go to the smartest person, but they go to the person who's willing to discipline themselves and outwork everybody.     Focus on Something Bigger      If our goal is just to pay the bills, we're only going to get so far. Paying the bills, making money, and buying a house are all great goals but they are only going to bring us so much fulfillment. Focusing on something bigger than ourselves is the thing that is going to propel us to achieve our goals and dreams and bring fulfillment, joy, and a spark to our lives.   It will also help us during hard times. We'll be able to put things in perspective, deal with challenges, and work through hardships. Kelly said, “When I'm having a really big challenge when I'm struggling, I really try to put things in perspective and remember the why and remember that picture because I know that will help me recharge and refocus and get my mindset back on track to keep moving forward.”   Life is really about something bigger than us. The whole purpose and meaning are about doing good and making the world a better place. That's where we'll find true fulfillment.    Thinking about the big picture can be easier than thinking about the small. When we think small, not only do we think small in our solutions, but it's also hard to get people excited and motivated. It takes just as much effort to do things small. Kelly said, “When you're solving small problems, you box yourself into small solutions. When you are solving the 10x problem, you're opening up your whole world, and you're paving a path for yourself to succeed at that next level.”   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Kelly for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   It's never too late to find success. Success doesn't have to happen at a certain age. If we resent what we want to become, we will never become it. Don't be afraid of failure. As an entrepreneur, it is part of the job. We have to put in the hard work if we want success. We must see and conduct ourselves as leaders. We should be striving to learn about every aspect of our business, not just getting clients. We should invest in ourselves daily to help our business grow with us. Everything involves sales. We shouldn't try to avoid it. Discipline will get us to where we want to be in life. Focusing on something bigger will give us fulfillment and allow us to think of big solutions.   Connect with Kelly   If you want to learn more about Kelly or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn or visit her website at UnstoppableEntrepreneur.com.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  How are you investing in yourself to get where you want to be? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers. Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/152-9-principles-for-unstoppable-success/ 

Kelly Roach is an expert at successfully launching new products. She is the creator of the Live Launch Method and the best-selling author of the book Unstoppable. Kelly has been featured in some of the world's leading publications including Inc. and Forbes. She also hosts the podcast The Unstoppable Entrepreneur Show.    Kelly is a business strategist who transforms overworked entrepreneurs into seven-figure CEOs by teaching them how to leverage timeless business principles employed by billion-dollar corporations. Kelly's current multimillion-dollar company, The Unstoppable Entrepreneur, is the fastest-growing coaching program on the market.    The Live Launch   Kelly had tried it all when it came to launches. She'd done courses, webinars, email sequences, and funnels, but none of them ever resonated with her. After multiple failed launches she decided to try something different.   They scrapped the automation, landing pages, email sequences—everything. Kelly realized most launch strategies were created before there was live streaming. They were created when emails were all the rage, but nowadays texting and live streaming is very popular.    The live launch centers around live streaming. They are focused on cultivating human connection. “[The live launch is] really focused on making deposits in the reciprocity bank, so that when you extend an invitation to someone to join your paid opportunity, they feel like they have received so much from you, and they actually have experienced more value from you for free than the last thing that they paid for,” Kelly said.   The framework consists of nine days, streaming at the same time every day. The first four days are focused on four pillars. The four pillars are centered on our methodology. When preparing for the launch we identify what our core methodology is that we want to be known for. What is our brand? What is the specific element of our space or industry? What is our certain way of doing things that no one else does? The live launch is about formalizing and crystallizing that methodology, and then breaking it into four pillars we believe are the most core essentials to someone having success.   On the fourth day, we pivot into the invitation, and then days five through nine are focused on diving deep and exploring people's experiences from working with us. Over these five days, we're implementing the usual buying triggers that are part of the sales psychology that leads people to make an investment, but the difference is it's life and focused on the reciprocity mindset. As people go through this, the actions we teach them are giving them momentum and generating results for free.    By the time we extend the invitation, the first law of motion comes into play: an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force. The people are so excited about the breakthroughs and results they've gotten for free that when we ask if they'd like to extend the journey, they can't help but say yes.   Kelly called this the simplest method on the planet for making millions online because it's so dumbed down. Many people struggle with a lot of the other launch mechanisms because there is so much complexity with the technology and moving pieces.   Kelly has seen this method work for many people, even a land flipping business. There was one woman whose business was only making about $1,000 a month. After working with Kelly for a year doing live launches, she made enough cash to buy the house of her dreams which she had spent years saving for.    Kelly's Entrepreneurial Journey   Kelly's entrepreneurial journey started when she was in college. She was working three, sometimes four, jobs to put herself through her education without debt. One of her jobs was as a cocktail waitress at a bar. She noticed there was a big difference between nights when she hustled and put everything into serving more drinks and nights when she let herself relax and didn't care how hard she was working. On the nights she worked hard, she could make $250-350 in tips versus about $50 in tips when she didn't.   “I really learned that the amount of work that you put into something and having a strategy around how you do it really pays off. . . . You decide the value of your time. You decide what you're going to extract from any opportunity in life,” Kelly said. When we work hard, we can get so much more value out of our time.   After college, Kelly joined a Fortune 500 firm because she wanted the opportunity to be in a large company where she could learn business, gain upward mobility, demonstrate her work ethic and contributions, grow her income, and take advantage of opportunities.    “I was the first one in and I was the last one out every single day,” she said. “What I learned was contribution in, value out. It doesn't necessarily come down to time. We have this perception sometimes that things could take a really long time. I ended up managing people my parents' age who've been in the industry for 20-25 years as a 23-year-old kid, and it was because I was doing the work. I was showing up; I was commanding that respect because of the contribution I was making.”   Sometimes we think we have to do our time before we go after things like this, but if we do the work and earn the respect, there's no reason why we can't accomplish our goals. Sometimes the only thing holding us back is our mindset. If we can overcome that mindset, we can get to where we want to be.   Kelly did her time in the corporate world and learned so much, but she got to the point where she thought, “I want to own my own life. I want to be in charge of my destiny. I want to have a family. I want to be charting my own course.”    She decided she wanted to start her own business helping small business owners and changing their lives. She started her business on the side while still continuing her corporate job to have more financial security and show herself that she could make as much money in her business as in her executive job.   For several years, Kelly worked on the side during lunch breaks or in the evenings. Eventually, she was able to focus solely on the business, and now she does that along with partnering on three other businesses.   The Power of Collaboration   Kelly said the greatest home run of her career was having a great mentor. She said he taught her everything she knows about business. “I knew I had the tenacity, and I had the perseverance, and I had the work ethic, but he had the knowledge,” she said.   The best piece of advice he gave her was when she was in sales. Kelly was selling and loving it. She was doing her own thing, flying at the speed of light, and making a lot of money. Kelly's mentor wanted her to go into management, but she didn't want to because of all the success she was having. But he told her, “It does not matter in life or in business how much you can do alone, it doesn't matter if you're the best salesperson in the world, it is never going to scratch the surface of what you can do when you learn to get results through others.”   We can accomplish so much more when we work with others. There is so much power in collaboration. This is why it is important to have teams and support systems. They can help us achieve things that were never possible by ourselves.   Kelly said one of the biggest mistakes in her career was competing with all of her peers. “I would go back to the younger Kelly and say, ‘Be bold [and] don't feel like you're in competition with others. Someone's success doesn't mean that you can't achieve that level.'”   When we compete with others, it can either intimidate us, causing us to play small, or it can drive us to only think about the competition, causing us to ruin those relationships.   Now, almost everything Kelly does is a collaboration with someone else. “You move from this mindset of thinking [about] your competition to a mindset of having collaborative partners, and it's much more fun that way.”   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Kelly for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   The Live Launch focuses on cultivating human connection. Doing it live allows us to interact with our audience and make personal connections. Live launches should focus on our core methodology, the things we specialize in that no one else does. Utilizing the first law of motion is a great way to run launches because people will naturally want to take the next step. We can decide the value of our time and how much we're going to get from our experiences. We can accomplish so much more when we stop focusing on competition and start focusing on collaboration.   Connect with Kelly   If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Kelly or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn or visit her website at UnstoppableEntrepreneur.com.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story    What's your best product launch strategy? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-to-run-successful-live-product-launches/ 

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, an Independence Day episode of Monetization Nation. Today is the 4th of July, which is America's independence day, and a day when we celebrate freedom. I'm Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today's episode, we're going to discuss five essential rights and freedoms we need as entrepreneurs.    Freedom to Choose   One of the greatest gifts we have been given is the gift to choose for ourselves. God gave us the gift and freedom of agency.    As entrepreneurs, it is essential we have the ability to make our own choices and pursue our own paths. An entrepreneur starts with an idea and organizes a business through financial risk and hard work. Creating our own business wouldn't be possible if we weren't given the right to agency.    Dieter Uchtdorf, a religious leader, said, “You have agency, and you are free to choose. But there is actually no free agency. Agency has its price. You have to pay for the consequences of your choices.”   With the ability to make our own choices comes responsibility for our actions. We will receive the consequences, whether good or bad, that come from our choices. However, when we do make mistakes we can remember that Jesus Christ has given us freedom from sin if we repent and turn to Him.    Freedom from Sin Jesus Christ sacrificed his life for the spiritual freedom of mankind. He gave His life on the cross so we could overcome death, and he suffered in Gethsemane so we could overcome sin and live again.    In the Bible, it says, “But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (KJV Romans 8:22-23)   As humans, and especially as entrepreneurs, we are bound to make mistakes. We may mistreat our employees, make a business decision that compromises our ethics, or let stress damage our family relationships. However, no mistake or sin is too great to be forgiven. Jesus Christ gave us the freedom to be forgiven of our mistakes.    Though God gave us the right to agency and worship, government and leaders have taken these freedoms away from men throughout history for control and power. In 1776, the United States of America took action to protect these rights.  The Declaration of Independence   After years of war and sacrifice, the United States broke free from its allegiance to the British Crown and became independent. On July 4, 1776, the United States formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, giving Americans rights and freedoms for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.     The declaration was America's first formal statement of independence and the right to choose their own government. American colonists and British soldiers began conflict in 1775—the Americans fighting for freedom and the British fighting to retain control. The Revolutionary War grew and in mid-June of 1776, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston, wrote the Declaration of Independence Congress adopted (Source: History.com).    The second sentence of the declaration reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Source: archives.gov) July 4th has since been declared a national holiday in America, known as Independence Day. Families and friends get together to celebrate our rights and freedoms as Americans. As entrepreneurs, these freedoms are essential as they give us the right to create our own businesses, pursue our dreams, and create the life we choose.  Freedom of Life   The Declaration of Independence protects our freedom to choose the life we want. We can choose to pursue business ventures and take risks or we can choose a career working for someone else. One of the biggest benefits of entrepreneurship is that it allows us to take control of our lives and take advantage of our freedom of life. We can choose to declare independence for ourselves in our careers and gain financial freedom.   Instead of working a 9 to 5 job under someone else, we seize the opportunity to choose our own hours and choose our own work. When we become entrepreneurs and create a successful business, we gain some amazing freedoms in our lives.    When Steve Jobs was 21, he and Steve Wozniak started Apple Computer from a garage. They both had a vision of a life they wanted to create for themselves and to do this, required some risk and hard work.    “Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition,” Jobs said.    With the freedom of entrepreneurship comes hard work. If we want to be successful as an entrepreneur, especially at the beginning we may have to work even harder than we would in a regular job as an employee. We need to be willing to put in the time and resources to successfully execute our vision if we want to succeed. They are willing to invest and work hard now for their freedom down the road.    In order to gain freedom of life, we often need to sacrifice time and resources. While Steve Jobs had to put in hours of work at the start, those hours of hard work led him to live a life he chose, not a life someone else chose for him.    Freedom of Liberty   The right to liberty allows us to be free from oppressive restrictions imposed on our way of life. It also requires us to be aware of the rights of others, and not oppose them.    Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.” Liberty requires us to take responsibility and use the freedoms we have been given under the rule of law. We can't use our freedoms to oppress someone else's freedoms.    As entrepreneurs, we not only have the opportunity to make our own lives better, but we can also shape the lives of others by respecting their freedoms.    In a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, wrote, “If people have the freedom to do what they want—whether that's taking a chance on a new idea or building their community—the inherent creativity and goodness in people will help different parts of society flourish. But the rule of law, strong economies, and community health are all related. When we impose unfair systems, it is easy to get in the way and push everything out of balance.”   He explained that we should strive to “give people the dignity and confidence to be entrepreneurial rather than making them feel helpless and dependent.”    For example, Defy Ventures focuses on helping people with criminal histories become successful entrepreneurs. The founder, Catherine Hoke, came up with an entrepreneurship training program to help others (Source: Forbes). As entrepreneurs, part of our responsibility with our freedom is to help others. And, as we gain financial freedom for ourselves we will probably have the ability and desire to then help others gain their freedom.    Freedom to be Happy   The Declaration of Independence protects our right to pursue happiness and our dreams. As we take control of our lives and use our freedom responsibly, we also need to remember that we have the freedom to be happy. If we are choosing a life in which we frequently feel upset, oppressed, angry, or sad, we have the freedom to change that.    Guillaume Apollinaire, a French poet, and writer said, “Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”   As entrepreneurs, it can be easy to get lost in the end goal. We get so focused on the tasks and projects we need to do that we forget to enjoy the process. If we aren't happy, we have lost the true spirit of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship isn't only about creating a life of freedom, but also a life we love that brings us and people around us joy. That's what we're trying to create.     Key Takeaways   Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   God gave us the gift and freedom of agency. We have the ability to make choices for ourselves, and we are accountable for our actions.  Jesus Christ already paid the price so we can overcome death and sin. He gave us freedom from our mistakes, freedom to be forgiven of our sins. For Americans, the Declaration of Independence protects our freedom to choose the course of our life. And, citizens of many other countries have the same protections for their freedom. Entrepreneurship allows us to take control of our lives and take full advantage of our freedom to live the life we choose.  With the freedom of entrepreneurship comes hard work. We need to be willing to put in the time and resources to execute our vision if we want to succeed. The right to liberty allows us to be free from oppressive restrictions imposed on our way of life. As entrepreneurs, we not only have the opportunity to make our own lives better, but we can also shape the lives of others by respecting their freedoms. As we achieve freedom ourselves, we will naturally want to help others achieve that same freedom.  The Declaration of Independence (or possibly a similar document in your other country) protects our right to pursue happiness and our dreams.    Join Entrepreneurs of Faith If this episode of Entrepreneurs of Faith resonated with you, please subscribe for FREE to Monetization Nation so you can receive future episodes of Entrepreneurs of Faith. Subscribe to the free Monetization Nation eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter. Share Your Story  For which freedom are you the most grateful?  Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/150-5-rights-and-freedoms-essential-to-entrepreneurs/ 

Whether we like it or not, the government laws and regulations can massively affect the way we operate or cannot operate our businesses. Sometimes we need to advocate to make sure these laws and regulations are affecting us and, our customers, and our industries in positive ways. As we advocate, or do anything in life, conflicts of interest may arise.    In today's episode, we're going to discuss what Marion Mass is doing to improve the health care system through advocacy, how we as entrepreneurs can be better advocates within our industries, and how we can remove our conflicts of interest to improve our credibility.    Dr. Marion Mass is a mother, pediatrician, community volunteer, writer, and advocate for high-quality, sustainable health care in the U.S. that will attract bright, hardworking minds in the future. She trained at Duke's School of Medicine and the Northwestern Children's Memorial Hospital. She now practices in the Philadelphia suburbs. She co-founded the nonpartisan grassroots Practicing Physicians of America and serves as part of the leadership of the Free 2 Care coalition. She speaks, writes, and advocates for improving health care access and lowering its costs.    Why Marion Advocates   Marion is passionate about health care. She loved her journey through medical school and residency and loves taking care of patients. While looking at the landscape of medicine, she realized people aren't choosing to be doctors in the future.    She sees a lot of physicians going through what she calls Drexit: doctor exit. Doctors are frustrated with all the boxes they have to check through mandates, authorizations, insurance, etc. “There's so much that we have to do,” Marion said. “Physicians either get burned out or they get morally injured.”   Doctors are leaving. Many are retiring early. The profession has one of the highest rates of suicide in the U.S. The health care system is broken and unsustainable. “If we don't fix it,” Marion says, “America will be very unhealthy and sorry in the future when they show up to deliver their baby or have their appendix taken out and there's not a quality physician there that's well-trained to take care of them.”   Health care isn't just a problem in the U.S. I lived in Brazil for a couple of years, where they have a socialized medicine system that doesn't work. People often joke that those are the hospitals where you go to die. But they have a secondary health care system not provided by the government. It's surprisingly inexpensive and the doctors don't have to jump through all the same hoops, so they can focus on providing health care.    Marion shared a story about her friend who is from Ukraine, where they also have a socialized system. Her mother needed a hysterectomy there. She went to the government-run hospital and found out they had no soap, hand sanitizer, or toilet paper. She had to bring her own. For an inexpensive fee, Marion's friend moved her mother to a hospital that accepted cash, where she got good care and wasn't afraid of getting an infection.   Health care has consumed costs all across the board. Marion said the public sectors like school districts are paying more and employers are paying more. Overall, it's way more expensive than it needs to be. Marion realized all these things and came to the conclusion that she needed to do something about it.   Advocacy Efforts: Anyone Can Advocate   Marion started looking for groups to join and ways to advocate. On her first trip to Washington D.C., she was nervous. She went to a congressperson's office for a meeting, thinking, “These guys are going to be so well-versed. They're going to know everything I'm talking about, everything I've learned over the past couple of years.” Her hands started to sweat and she was worried she'd stumble over her words.   By the time the conversation was over, she thought, “Oh, I should have been doing this a long time ago.” Marion said, “I'm in a robe. I'm a recovering soccer mom with an MD. I'm a real person. I will have conversations with lawmakers while I'm in my bathrobe, sweeping my kitchen. . . . But if I can do this, anyone can.”   Sometimes we think we can't do something until we learn more about it or until we reach a certain point in our career. Marion didn't wait. She cared about the issues and wanted to do something to help, so she did.    She started writing, speaking, doing podcasts, hosting and attending events, serving on the editorial board of a county newspaper, and talking to lawmakers. To those who are considering getting involved, she said, “Finding your voice with speaking and writing to people that can change policy . . . is so important. We trained to do this. We're the ones that close the door and hear people's intimate stories. And it breaks my heart when people can't get what they need. I can't tolerate it anymore.”   Marion told me about a doctor who recently published a piece in 14 Pennsylvanian newspapers. She went to medical school in Pakistan and Marion said she's got a great voice. Marion encouraged her to speak up. Her piece was published and she's been on a podcast or two.   Anyone can do this. The internet has made it easy for anyone with a phone to make a difference. Our background, age, or experience doesn't matter. If we have an issue we care about, something that affects our lives or the lives of those around us, we can make an effort to change it. If we want to change something, we have the power to make change happen.   Entrepreneurs and Advocacy   Health care advocacy itself should be very important to us as entrepreneurs and CEOs because not only is it one of our biggest costs, but also because it is an essential part of taking great care of our people and our families. But health care isn't the only legislative issue we deal with in our organizations. Sometimes those legislative issues can cause a lot of problems in our businesses.   For example, over the past 10 years, there have been some adoption laws, rules, or regulations passed or implemented that have caused fewer children to be able to find loving, permanent families. Working with Adoption.com, I've had to get a lot more involved in advocacy within my niche of adoption over the last decade. I've worked with senators, congressmen, government organizations, and associations to try to get bad laws and regulatory implementation changed and prevent more bad laws from being created.    For example, this morning I did a little work to help encourage an Idaho senator to support some adoption legislation. As another example, when there were regulatory implementation issues causing a decline in international adoption years ago, I was able to go to DC to speak with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Glenn Beck, an adoptive father, had me on his show to discuss the solutions to the issue. It has been amazing over the years to see the people passionate about adoption and children come together to try to impact that change.    Shiza Shahid is an example of an entrepreneur striving to make a difference. This Stanford University graduate co-founded the Malala Fund with Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. Shahid led the organization as founding CEO, focusing on creating access to high-quality education for all children around the world. She also founded The Collective, a community of leading entrepreneurs that come together to build collaborative change (Source: CAA.com).   We often fall into the trap that “somebody should do something” about an issue. However, often, we are one of the somebodies who need to help solve the problem. You can probably make a lot more of a difference than you think when you work together with many others who share your passion.   Removing Conflicts of Interest   Many people who lobby and advocate in D.C. have conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest take away from a person's credibility, hurting what they're trying to accomplish. That person's opponent can use conflicts of interest to attack them and destroy their credibility.    In 2010, the U.S. passed the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. Marion described how this database allows any citizen to look up any physician in the country and see how much money they are taking from pharmaceutical manufacturers.    Marion detailed how important it is to have this information. If I go to a doctor and they prescribe me medication X and I look them up on the database and find out that they're taking thousands of dollars from the pharmaceutical company that manufactures medication X, I'm going to be suspicious; it's going to make me question whether I actually need that medication or not.   These aren't the only conflicts of interest. Marion believes that taking speaking or writing fees may do the same thing. Marion said, “As soon as you get paid by someone—a university, a hospital, an insurance company—as soon as you open up your mouth to take a speaking fee, it may make you suspect the same way that a doctor would be suspect by taking fees from pharma.” We can choose to take that money, but it may erode our credibility depending on who is paying for our speaking and writing.   Marion has done something to remove these conflicts of interest. She doesn't take speaking or writing fees. “I think the fact that I don't take speaking fees, and I know others like me that don't, I think that means something.” Refusing to take these fees gives Marion credibility.   Conflicts of interest can be a big part of reducing credibility. As customers realize we have a conflict of interest—even if we are honest and ethical—their trust declines. We need to remove our conflicts of interest wherever we can to improve our credibility.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Marion for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Anyone can advocate. We don't need any special qualifications; we just need to care about issues and have a desire to make a difference. When we advocate, we should work together with many other people who share our passion for the issue. There are many issues that affect the businesses that may require us to advocate for our industry, our customers, and our businesses. If we remove our conflicts of interest and communicate that effectively, we will improve our credibility.   Connect with Marion   If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Marion or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn or visit Practicing Physicians of America.     Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  Have you been involved in advocacy? If so, how has it affected your business? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/how-to-become-an-advocate-for-our-industry-and-customers/ 

Influencer marketing has grown exponentially within the last few years and is expected to reach a market size of $13.8 billion by 2021. In 2019, the number of influencer agencies and platforms grew to 1390, which is about three times more than the year before (Source: InfluencerMarketingHub).    In the last episode, we discussed how we can become digital influencers and build our online presence. In today's episode, we're going to discuss how we can collaborate with influencers and take advantage of the opportunity they present to our businesses.    Benefits of Influencer Marketing    Influencer marketing allows us to leverage other people's social media accounts, something businesses are just starting to take advantage of. If we really want to increase our visibility on social media, we need to get people talking about us, and influencer marketing does just that. Instead of bragging about our own products, we can partner with influencers with a strong following who will talk about our products for us.    Neal shared five benefits of influencer marketing.      Builds Trust      “It comes down to two core facts. People trust people more than ads and social media was created for people, not business,” Neal said.     Social media is a powerful tool as it allows for virtual word-of-mouth communication between customers. Instead of relying on what we say about our own products or services, customers can talk with friends and other customers.    “Facebook ads [are] extremely powerful, but you're not going to get word of mouth from it. You may not even build trust from it because it's an ad and people distrust ads more and more,” Neal explained. “The whole idea about influencer marketing is tapping into people that are passionate about your company, about what you do, and having them basically incite word-of-mouth marketing for you.”   Customers build trust with the influencers they follow. Instead of taking the time to build our customers' trust, we can use the trust they have already established with influencers. If a customer trusts a certain influencer, they will trust the positive things they say about our brand. When influencers on social media recommend products or services, it's similar to a recommendation from a trusted friend.    Influencers have become the difference between a connection with a person vs a logo. While a personal brand can help with this as well, it isn't quite the same. An influencer isn't trying to sell us something. They are only trying to provide value and customers are more likely to trust them because of it.      Increases Credibility     When we collaborate with influencers we gain credibility. As I mentioned above, influencers help our brand build trust. The more trustworthy influencers talk about our brand, the more credible we become.    “[Influencer marketing] gives you credibility for the fact that you're working together with this person and they're talking about you,” Neal said. “If this person is talking about you, then immediately you become a trustworthy brand. [Customers] may not buy from you, they may not follow you, but at least you're getting in their ear from a trusted entity. I think that's one of the biggest benefits.”      Expands Our Reach     There are only so many people that know our business and an influencer will help expose our business to a new community. The chances of any influencer having the exact same followers our brand has are impossibly slim. In fact, most of the people following the influencer we collaborate with may be completely new consumers who have never even heard of our brand. By teaming up with that influencer, we get access to the feed of everyone who follows them.      Creates Content     Most influencers are influencers for a reason. They create great content. When we collaborate with them, we get access to their talents and skills.    When Neal did his first influencer marketing campaign for a client, he reached out to bloggers who posted about motherhood. Often, those mothers' photography about the client's product was better than anything they were doing. A lot of influencer marketers create great content, even better than what we could create on our own. We can collaborate with them with the goal of using their abilities and talent in creating blogs, photography, or videos for our products and services.      Provides a Focus Group      We can work with influencers and view them as a focus group to learn how we can improve our products and services.    Neal got a job offer earlier in his career to become a brand manager at Procter and Gamble at their Asia Pacific headquarters in Japan. At that time, they spent a lot of their budget on focus groups. They brought in housewives to talk about their product and give feedback before sending it out into the market. It made Neal think that social media is one big focus group and a team of influencers helps control it. Instead of paying for a focus group, we can look at the one we already have on social media.    “You now have this really awesome focus group that's going to teach you a lot, not just in terms of how to do better at social and digital marketing, but also what people are talking about, what people say about your competitors, [and] what people are saying about your products. I think that has incredible business value for companies,” Neal said.    With influencer marketing, we can start with word-of-mouth to gain exposure, leverage their content, and then learn from them as a focus group to see where we should go next with our business.    How to Collaborate With Influencers   In order to find the right influencers to collaborate with, Neal suggested we start by searching for keywords and using hashtags. What keywords do we use for our business? We can search these on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and other channels. Keywords can lead us to influencers who are talking about things that attract our target audience. Which influencers resonate the most with our ideal customer? Those are the influencers we want to collaborate with.   As we search for keywords and do our research, we should be intentional about what platforms we are searching on. If our business doesn't use YouTube, why would we search for influencers on YouTube? If we mainly use Instagram, we should focus on Instagram influencers. That way, when they talk about our product, they can lead our customers to our social accounts while also raising awareness.    As we create a list of podcasters, bloggers, and other influencers to choose from, we can also look at the followers we already have. We can start filtering through our followers, people who already know, like, and trust us. These influencers will be more likely to connect with us as we know they already have a strong opinion of our brand. Neal suggests this is even better than trying to start from scratch by searching keywords.    “I would absolutely start with the people that already know, like, and trust you,” Neal said. “When you start with people that don't know, like, and trust you, that's when it gets transactional. That's when you get a lot of rejection. That's when you get jaded. . . . When you work with people who already know, like, and trust you, that is your best insurance.”    Once we've determined which influencers we want to work with and have made an agreement with them, Neal suggested two ways we can work with them.       Give the Gift of a Free Product     When we connect with an influencer, Neal recommends we give a free product or free service. We need to understand that the goal of working with an influencer is not to monetize them; it is to spread the word about our business. We should give them free products so they become a customer and can share positive reviews to bring in other potential customers.    “Why wouldn't you want them to become a lifetime customer? You're not looking to monetize them. You're thinking, if they become a user for a lifetime and they're always talking about you, every month they're gonna introduce new users to you. So why are you trying to go dirt cheap?” Neal said.    One way many businesses work with influencers is by sending them a free package they can open on their social media accounts, in an Instagram story for example. The influencer will then talk about the products or services and share their positive ratings. We could send packages every month or offer lifetime value to continually strengthen the customer relationship with our influencers so they will want to share more about our products.        If we want lifetime reciprocity from the influencer, we should provide continual value. We shouldn't try to give the least we can give. We should give them sustained value so they give us sustained value in return. “Influencer marketing is not a campaign, it's a commitment,” Neal said. We should make our offer really special so the influencer wants to work with us.      Provide a New Experience      We can provide our influencers with exclusive experiences. We can host an event and bring them out to it. It comes at a cost, but it can create a year's worth of content. The influencer will also feel bonded to us and feel like a part of our community. The stronger relationship they have with us, the more genuine their comments on our products and services will be.    The goal of influencer marketing is to invest in people instead of investing in ads. As we do this, we will see benefits such as increased credibility and trust with our audience, an increase in leads, a bigger reach, a stronger online presence, and more high-quality content.    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Neal for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Influencer marketing allows us to leverage other people's social media accounts. Instead of bragging about our own products, we can partner with influencers who will talk about our products for us.  Influencer marketing builds trust, increases credibility, and expands our reach.  Most influencers are influencers for a reason. They create great content. When we collaborate with them, we get access to their talents and skills.  Social media is one big focus group and a team of influencers helps control it. We can work with influencers and view them as a focus group to learn how we can improve our products and services.  In order to find the right influencers to collaborate with, we can start by searching for keywords and looking at the followers we already have.  The goal of working with an influencer is not to monetize them; it is to spread the word about our business. Influencer marketing is not a campaign, it's a commitment. We can give influencers free products or services or provide them with a new experience to build our relationship with them.    Connect with Neal   If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Neal or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn or visit his website at NealSchaffer.com. You can also find his podcast online and his books on his website.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  Have you used influencer marketing? If so, what benefits have you seen? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/the-benefits-of-influencer-marketing/ 

In the United States, adults use digital media for an average of 7 hours and 50 minutes each day (Source: eMarketer). This includes an average of 145 minutes on social media every day (Source: Statista) plus additional time spent on the web, CTV, digital video, and digital audio. The consumer is spending more and more of their time living in a digital world, and if we want our businesses to succeed, we should market in that same digital world.    Neal is the author of four sales and marketing books including Maximize Your Social and The Age of Influence, a groundbreaking book redefining digital influence. He's also the host of the podcast, Maximize Your Social Influence.   Neal Schaffer is a leading social media strategist who helps innovative businesses digitally transform their sales and marketing strategies. He's the founder of the digital marketing consultancy PDCA Social and is a fractional CMO for several companies. He also teaches digital marketing at Rutgers Business School and the Irish Management Institute.    In today's episode, Neal shared how we can become digital influencers and build our online presence.    Becoming an Influencer    I asked Neal to share the biggest business tectonic shift he sees in today's marketplace and he told me it is the growth of the digital world. Over the past decade, businesses have started waking up and seeing that consumers live in a digital world. They shop online, they consume content online, they communicate online, and they go online for entertainment and solutions to their problems. If we want to succeed, we need to be digitally engaging.    “People are still searching on Google, people are still reading emails, and people are spending a ton of time on social media. You have to nail those three areas,” Neal explained. “They're equally important for different stages of the funnel; they all have the unique roles they play, but [being digital] should be the 100% focus of your marketing today.”   Neal said if we're not creating a digital presence for our businesses, we're going to be invisible to our consumers. We can begin by building our own platforms such as a website or social media account. By expanding our reach, building an audience, and providing unique value to customers, and establishing trust we begin to become influencers in our specific niche.   Neal shared four tips we need to consider as we become digital influencers.     Create Content      To be an influencer, we need to create content. “How are influencers influential today? They have a platform, and they're creating content,” Neal said. “You have got to create a platform. You have got to create content. If you can't do that, you want to tap into other people who can.”    During Neal's entrepreneurial journey, he began tuning into the challenges and issues other people had. He listened to and stayed in direct contact with his customers. While he was paying attention to the people around him, he found there were a lot of issues about marketing technology. He specifically noticed a lot of questions about social media marketing and influencer marketing.   From the problems his customers had, Neal found a way to be a solution. He wanted to give a unique perspective on marketing, so he wrote a book on it and became known for influencer marketing. Not only did he create a book, but he also built a website, created blog content, and started a podcast. If we want to create influence online, it comes down to having a platform and creating content. Most powerful influencers post at least once a day and this often includes posts on multiple platforms. If we want to build influence, we should start creating consistent, frequent, and valuable content at least once a week, but daily would be much better.      Be Passionate     If we want to become an influencer, we need to build an audience of people who are willing to listen to us. To do this, we should start by connecting with our customers' passions, what I call passion marketing. Instead of solely focusing on our own passions, we can find ways our passions overlap with our customers'. As we do this, we begin to establish and build strong relationships with our audience.    “If you want to tap into people with a certain passion, you need to show it yourself,” Neal said. “That's what social media is great for. I think if you do that and share your passion, you will attract these people with that similar passion, who won't mind spending money with you.”   As we share our passions with the digital world, we will eventually find our tribe. People will connect with us through our passions and be more willing to spend money on our product or service if it is something they love.    “When you're really passionate about something, you will invest the money in it,” Neal said. For example, Neal shared that he has a passion for music and so he is willing to spend money on building his CD collection. If we can connect with our customer's passions, we will have a much higher chance of monetizing our businesses.     Stay in Direct Contact With Our Customers     We want to be in direct contact with our customers. It's the only way we will know enough about their problems to effectively solve them.    The biggest mistake Neal made was caused by a lack of connection. While he was working with a company, they lost one of their biggest clients. “We did not know what was going on in the decision-making process and technical evaluations, but our partner was saying, ‘Oh, you're a shoo-in,'” Neal said. “[But] then we didn't get the deal.”    He continued, “You can never assume anything in business. A lot of people internally assume because they're working through a partner, [they already have] direct sales. And to this day, although I see the benefit of working through distributors, you've got to understand what's going on with the client with your own ears.”   We should understand what is going on with our clients and customers at all times. We have to pay attention to what is going on and how their needs and wants are changing. If we aren't in direct contact with our customers, we may have a miscommunication and end up losing them.    “Even if you work through distributors resellers, you have got to keep your finger on the pulse directly because everybody else in between is just out; they have their own business objectives,” Neal said. “You need to check in and really keep your finger on the pulse of that end customer if you ultimately want to be successful.”     Use Failure as an Opportunity for Growth     Despite his failures, Neal was able to push past them and find room for improvement. “With every mistake is an opportunity to improve,” Neal said. “If you're an entrepreneur, you're going to make mistakes. You just don't want to make the same mistake twice.”   As we develop our digital influence, it is essential to remember it will take time and failure to get to the point we want to. We have to accept failure as a lesson and make changes accordingly.    When people hit a roadblock or brick wall, they often get frustrated and want to give up. While it's natural to feel discouraged, we can shift the way we look at challenges so they become less of a roadblock, and more of a hurdle we can jump over. It is about a mindset and attitude shift. If we can look at a mistake as an opportunity to pivot, it will bring so much more success.    We will deal with rejection. Every successful entrepreneur has experienced or will experience rejection. We should view rejection as a sign we need to do something differently to improve. We can take every bad customer review as feedback and a way for growth. As we learn from the feedback, we can build something that will resonate with our customers so we can start to get testimonials and reviews. Positive testimonials and reviews are key to building our influence, but it may take some bad reviews and changes first.    We should remember to keep our vision and final goal in mind. There will always be times of danger, however, if we are serving our community and keep our end goal in mind, we will have the mentality to push the small mistakes aside and not let them get in our way of fulfilling our mission.    Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Neal for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   The consumer is spending more and more of their time living in a digital world. If we want our businesses to succeed, we should do the same.  If we want to build digital influence, we need to create content. We should start creating consistent, frequent, and valuable content at least once a week.  As we connect to our customers' passions, they will be more willing to spend money on our products or services. We want to be in direct contact with our customers. It's the only way we will know enough about their problems to effectively solve them.   If we can look at a mistake as an opportunity to pivot and grow, it will bring so much more success.    Connect with Neal   If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Neal or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn or visit his website at NealSchaffer.com. You can also find his podcast online and his books on his website.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  How have you built digital influence? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/147-how-to-become-a-digital-influencer/ 

Welcome back to another episode with Paul Chambers. In the last episode, we discussed how to take care of our customers using recurring revenue models. Today, we're going to discuss the pros and cons of several different recurring revenue models, along with tips and tricks for each model.   Subscription Boxes   Today there are thousands of different subscription boxes we can subscribe to, such as Ipsy and Birchbox for beauty products, Naturebox and Urthbox for super yummy natural snacks, Bulubox for workout products, the Beard Club, and the Candy Club. There are a lot of opportunities with subscription boxes. People love to watch unboxings on YouTube or Instagram. They're great for holidays and events. There are boxes for travel, for kids, for lifestyle, or for your horse or dog that you get on a monthly basis. Paul said, “If there's a niche out there, there's an opportunity to build a subscription box.”    There can be many pros to subscription boxes. One of these is the recurring revenue it provides every month, which can take a lot of stress off an entrepreneur's shoulders. It also limits unnecessary expenses because we only have to order enough products to fulfill our subscriptions. Our customers can also have a lot of fun with the discovery and delight side of subscription boxes by introducing people to new products and working with a lot of different brands to put new items in the box. When Paul was working on the Gentleman's box, they worked with Manscaped and Dollar Shave Club.   A con of subscription boxes is they tend to have a faster turnover. After six or seven months, people can get what Paul calls box burnout and stop subscribing.   The Right Software   Picking the right software to run a subscription box business can be tricky. It's important to know what we're trying to accomplish. Cratejoy can be a one software option because it is fast and easy to build a subscription box. They also have a marketplace, so they already have an audience for us to sell to. However, it can have its challenges with products and flexibility.    Shopify is another platform that allows us to sell subscriptions through their widget where we can add on plugins and easily build on top of that. But it doesn't have an audience like Cratejoy, so we'd have to go market on mysubscriptionaddiction.com or other places like that.   There are OrderGroove and Zuora that take it to the next level. OrderGroove is making big waves; they have some cool AI features and they are getting tightly integrated with Shopify. Zuora is an enterprise software company that is good for larger companies like Nike.    When Paul launched the Gentleman's Box, Cratejoy didn't exist yet, so they used WooCommerce which is a little more flexible, but they had to play with it a bit to get their subscription box management the way they wanted it.   Discovery and Delight   Subscription boxes tend to go two ways: discovery and delight or replenishable. Discovery and delight boxes send new products that customers can find joy in. They aren't necessarily products that need to be replaced on a regular basis.    Paul said these kinds of boxes tend to work well on a quarterly basis rather than a monthly one. On a monthly basis, people often unsubscribe after about six or seven months, but they'll stay longer on a quarterly basis.   Replenishable    A replenishable service or product is something people continue to need. It's a great subscription model because customers must buy these every month or so anyway, so making it a subscription box that shows up right at their door makes it very easy for them. These are products like razors, which Dollar Shave Club does, or toothbrushes, which Quip does. However, this type of subscription isn't limited to boxes. SaaS products often work great in this category because customers need access to that service every month.   Early on in the days of Gentleman's Box, Paul and the founding team were thinking about raising capital, so they met with some investors. One of those people was Jack Abraham, a successful entrepreneur, and investor. He told them, “I love what you're doing. This is so cool, but it needs some sort of replenishable product inside.”   The team told him to thank you but they were happy with what they had. Abraham went on to co-found Hims, which is now one of the leading hair growth subscriptions, doing exactly what Gentleman's Box should have been doing, Paul said.   If we are doing a subscription box and there's an opportunity to put a replenishable product in it, we should take it because it will increase the longevity of our customers.   SaaS   The pros of SaaS are longevity and opportunity. “If you can build a good solution that people love and need, they're . . . less likely to leave you at some point in time. They'll stay on as long as they're using that solution,” Paul said. SaaS gives us that audience and the opportunity to build and expand our audience.   SaaS also has lots of opportunities. Paul said, “There [are] tens of thousands of SaaS companies out there, but tons of opportunity still to create solutions that people are looking for.”   We can look at a company like Canva, which is very popular and successful. They could have looked at Adobe's subscription for Photoshop and thought, there's no way we could compete with them. But they didn't give up and tried to find a way to make it easier. “My philosophy is to leave no stone unturned. Look at what your biggest pain points are and challenges in your day and if something doesn't already exist for that, then that's a great opportunity to build,” Paul said.    The challenge with SaaS is we must frequently evolve it. We can't just create the software, put it out in the world, and sit back as the money starts rolling in. Paul had this problem with Quotegine. They did just that and thought they were done, but then people started getting bugs, breaking the system, and requesting new features and integrations. Paul and his team hadn't anticipated that.    “You can't have that mentality of building a SaaS solution that you're not going to need to continue to invest in,” Paul said. Having a technical co-founder, especially in the beginning, can help because paying developers can be expensive.   Membership Models   The key to membership is consistently providing value. Paul described how the Subscription Trade Association is constantly putting out new content, and they're constantly deciding what they're going to give away for free. “We err on the side of giving more away than we probably even should, because . . . we want to grow the community,” Paul said. “We want to help people as much as possible, and if they find this helpful, then they'll engage and subscribe and become members.”   Being a member and being a subscriber can overlap. For example, Paul and I are both members of Amazon Prime, but we also subscribe to Amazon Prime. “A good membership,” Paul said, “is something you'll pay for on a monthly basis and never question that charge or not even know when that charges your credit card.”    Paul and I couldn't remember when Amazon charges us or even how much the membership is now. This is a great example of customers never questioning the value of that membership.   Amazon isn't perfect, however. Personally, I don't feel like part of a community when I say I'm a member of Amazon Prime. I pay for it—and I will continue to pay for it—but I get a service from it, not a community. Amazon is missing the opportunity to build that community. For example, with their streaming service, they could create a way to watch TV and movies with other members online as Disney+ and Netflix have done.    Community is a crucial part of membership. Without it, our audience may just feel like subscribers. We should be doing everything we can to foster our membership communities.   Access/Streaming   The next recurring revenue stream is what I call the access model, but it could also be referred to as streaming. This model is where customers pay to access something. Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu fit into this, but it can also include something like Adobe Stock Images where customers pay to have access to millions of images.   A concern that small businesses have with this model is they're too small to create something like Adobe's image library. They don't have the resources or the finances to build out that library.    The access model is a two-sided marketplace: there are creators putting content out there and people accessing content from the creators. It would be hard for a small business to create all that content themselves. If I want to start a stock photography site, instead of going out and taking thousands of pictures myself, I could let my audience provide pictures. It may still be a challenge to find photographers, provide them with value, and get them to feed my library, but it is easier than trying to do it all myself.    On the streaming side of access, we may think all the big companies (YouTube, Netflix, Hulu or Disney+, Amazon Prime, Peacock, Paramount Plus, etc.) have it covered, but Paul believes there's still a lot of opportunities out there. If the top 10 YouTube creators right now started their own streaming service, people would download that app immediately, and they would have a good chance at competing with the big companies.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Paul for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   There are tons of opportunities with subscription boxes. Consider creating a box with a replenishable product to increase the longevity of customers. The SaaS model is a great way to have lifetime (or at least very long-term) customers. However, we need to ensure we are constantly providing value by evolving and upgrading the software. To think of a SaaS solution, find the pain points in your industry and see if there is existing software that could help fix that. Is there a way you could add a tectonic shift to an existing SaaS product, as Google Docs did by adding remote collaboration to a market that Microsoft Word used to dominate? The membership model should be about providing value and creating a community where your target audience can feel they belong. When building an access library, we can use our audience to help us provide content as long as we are also providing them value.   Connect with Paul   If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Paul or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn or visit subta.com.   Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story    What recurring revenue streams have you tried and what pros and cons have you seen from them? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-different-recurring-revenue-models/