Social Capital

Meet Jim HeinignerJim Heininger is The Rebrand Man. He leads the efforts of The Rebranding Experts, which he founded in 2017, after 30 years of business and brand strategy experience for P&G, McDonald’s, Anheuser-Busch and others.Rebranding Experts was purposefully designed to be the only agency with the comprehensive services necessary to rebrand organizations. It starts from a fundamentally different viewpoint than traditional branding firms that see rebranding as a marketing strategy. His team believes rebranding should be a strategic growth accelerator, creating a forward-facing organization ready to grasp new opportunities. It’s a jetpack to your success.Jim has designed the methodology used by the firm and merged the many disciplines necessary for successful rebranding, including research, brand strategy and planning, creative naming, design/identity, corporate and leadership communications, changemanagement, employee engagement and internal marketing, customer experience design and marketing/public relations.Jim coaches CEOs through the rebranding process, aligning their executive team, and helping to execute complete name changes and new customer promises. He regularly speaks at national conferences and is a frequent contributor to Forbes.com on the topic of rebranding.Highlights00:00 Welcome to the Social Capital Podcast01:21 Introducing Today's Guest: Jim Heininger, The Rebrand Man02:23 The Art and Strategy of Rebranding05:05 Current Trends in Rebranding08:03 Learning from Twitter's Rebranding to X10:44 Personal and Professional Growth Advice14:07 Engaging in Professional Networks for Success14:53 How to Connect with Jim and Closing ThoughtsConnect with Jim!LinkedInTwitter/XRebranding Expertsjim@rebrandingexperts.com

Meet Bobbi BaehneBobbi Baehne is the founder and CEO of Think Big Go Local, a digital marketing agency that helps small businesses succeed in their local communities by leveraging the power of online marketing. With over 15 years of experience in entrepreneurship, marketing, and small business development, Bobbi has a passion for helping small businesses grow and thrive, and has worked with hundreds of clients to develop successful marketing strategies. In her current role, Bobbi leads a team of digital marketing experts who provide personalized support to small businesses. She has done a TedX talk, has been featured in Inc. Magazine, Huffington Post, and more, and is a regular speaker at conferences and events, sharing her expertise and insights with audiences around the country.What are the top three trends that small business owners should consider integrating into their marketing mix right now? So there are so many things and so many trends we could talk about, but there are a few that I think are top of the list.So first is something we're hearing so much about, and that's artificial intelligence, right? How to use AI effectively. That that is definitely one of the things small businesses need to keep top of mind, because one of the challenges I hear so frequently from my customers is the bandwidth to do all the things that need to be done in their business.And as a small business owner, sometimes you don't have a team built yet. And so figuring out how to make the most effective use of your time so that you can run your business and market it effectively is kind of top of the list for me. The second thing, which has been a thing for a while, but it's just not going away is video. For a while, we were all talking a lot about short-form video, reels, TikTok, and those are so relevant. But I also think business owners need to step back and notice a couple of things. There's still so many small businesses not leveraging the power of YouTube. And we're finding that a lot of people we talk to are using YouTube in such different ways that you have such a larger opportunity to leverage that. I can go to YouTube and get the small sound bites for the things I want to know and that I'm looking to learn so quickly, and it's opened up an entire new market for YouTube content. For a while there, we were talking about really short videos. So a TikTok video, eight to 15 seconds, right? These platforms are starting to incentivize creators to do longer videos, a minute or more. So in 2024, we're going to start to see the length of those shorter vertical videos start to shift a little more. Small business owners should be paying attention to those kinds of changes so they can kind of get in the favor of those algorithms, and just be putting out more content that the platforms wanna show to more people.And then finally, a place that many small businesses aren't leveraging, and that's paid promotion. It is so difficult for a small business that doesn't have a ton of name recognition or brand recognition yet to get their content seen. Facebook doesn't show anything on a business page to anybody if they can help it. They're in the game of wanting a business to pay for that type of attention.And yet so many business owners either aren't doing it or they're not doing it right because they've only extended their knowledge base to how to hit that blue button and boost a post versus getting into ad manager and learning to develop a variety of different types of campaigns, leverage different types of audiences and all the tools that Meta is offering.What social media platform do you plan on using more right now? So, I have never been a big fan of LinkedIn. When it came out, I'd been doing this digital marketing thing for quite a while and it just was no fun. That was just the way it was....

Meet Eugene MarshallEugene Marshall is the Founder and CEO of Magnolia Tax Services. He is an Enrolled Agent (EA). Eugene is federally authorized to represent taxpayers before the IRS and, like CPAs and attorneys, has unlimited representation rights. He specializes in advanced tax strategies to reduce his client’s tax liability through effective tax planning. Eugene has several years of tax experience, including preparing taxes for individuals and small businesses.Eugene is also an avid real estate investor. He owns a real estate investing company that acquires multi-family properties within the inner city of Chicago and has recently expanded to the Milwaukee market. Eugene believes owning real estate and having a small business is the cornerstone of building wealth.What sets Magnolia Tax Services apart from other tax firms? Magnolia Tax Services is a tax advisory practice that ultimately specializes in tax planning, tax preparation, tax debt resolution for individuals or small businesses that need assistance with solving a tax problem, and accounting and bookkeeping. What separates us from the average tax practices is that we're actively meeting with our clients periodically throughout the year and most of our client book is all small businesses.I want to say maybe 90 to 95 percent is all small businesses. We do have some individuals that don't own a business, but have the desire to pick up some rental properties. We do bring them on as clients.And we also assist and consult them on how to analyze deals, source those deals as well and get the capital to fund those deals, and it creates an opportunity for us to also educate our clients on how to be strategic in markets like today, where the interest rates are higher than they have been.Fortunately, we're starting to see things climb down a bit. Still, we do introduce other topics such as seller financing, subject to a contract with the seller, wrap-around mortgages, and all these other creative ways to acquire properties that could ultimately benefit our client's tax position. So what separates us apart in short, is that we are actively looking at our client's financial position, and coming up with strategies to ultimately assist them with minimizing their tax bill.This gives us the opportunities for that business owner to reinvest those savings either back into the business, back into themselves or personal professional development and or into their future.Can you explain what the difference is between an enrolled agent and a certified public accountant?Absolutely. So when we look at the tax space, the tax industry as a whole, there's four types of people. You have your tax preparers that do not have to be licensed at all. This could be someone who just understands how to file taxes using a particular software. Don't need a license, do not need a degree, just need to be able to file taxes.And then we have tax attorneys. And then we have certified public accounts. And then after certified public accounts, we have folks like myself, which are enrolled agents. And so the primary difference between an enrolled agent and a certified public accountant is our specialty is tax. And we get our designation directly from the department of treasury, which houses the Internal Revenue Service. Certified public accountants that get their designation, their license from state boards.And we actually partner with a ton of certified public accountants because they don't have an interest in tax. And some of them don't know tax. And many of them, their focus is on the accounting portion. And a lot of folks stay co associate accounting with taxes when accounting is nothing more, nothing less, but understanding and being able to read and produce financial statements. P and L's, balance sheets, cashflow projections, not more so taxes. Now there are

Meet Lisa ApolinskiLisa Apolinski, CMC is the CEO of 3 Dog Write. She is a content coach, teaching business owners how to use their content to attract more right-fit clients so that they experience the positive ROI on marketing and business development investments.She has written several books, including Persuade With A Digital Content Story, named one of the top content marketing books in the world and most recently as a co-author on The Most Amazing Marketing Book Ever, an Amazon #1 new release.She has been featured in Forbes and The New York Times for her expertise on digital storytelling and has been dubbed “America’s Digital Content Futurist”.What do you think are the biggest mistakes you see businesses make with their content when they're trying to focus on that trust factor? I actually had a conversation with a client today about this some feedback she was getting from her mentor who is heavily into sales. And I'm not saying that sales is bad. They're simply different ways of being.He was pushing her to put all sorts of call to actions and you don't have a call to action in your posts on social media. And I said, well, hold on a second. What are you creating your content for if you don't have clarity around what it is that you are hoping your content will do besides drive revenue?Because we all know the content really should be helping you to make more money, but how do you get there is the question. If you're constantly pushing calls to action or take this next step or sign up now or click on this link. It feels very sell-y and it feels very icky.   People know how social media posts work. People know how websites work. People know how the internet works. It can be a lot more subtle, where people are engaging with you through your content and learning about you, and then from there, allowing them to decide how they want to take the next step.Do they visit your website? Do they do a Google search on you? Do they attend a webinar you're in or a podcast? Do they sign up for your newsletter? Let them decide. Don't shove call to actions in their face where it's unnecessary. You can certainly guide them. Mark Schaefer talked about this. The customer is the marketer now. The customer is deciding the path. And if you think you're in charge of their digital path, that thought process and that ability has absolutely gone by the wayside because there are so many ways for people to engage with you and your content.So if I would drill it down into one big issue that I see people making now as a mistake is trying to control the digital journey versus allowing your audience, who's very savvy to discover you in a way that's right for them. And that allowance of letting them have control that absolutely builds that trust factor that we talked about.What is one thing that businesses can work on in their content today to help improve these relationships with prospects? Add in stories. People are hardwired for stories.I don't know if you noticed, but I've told you three stories so far. They don't have to be long, but it helps to share information. Show how it's relevant. Because people are hardwired for stories, they absorb that information a lot faster and they hold onto it a lot longer. So if you have information that you need to provide on how the journey would be to work with you, put it in a story format. Talk about a former customer or client who is similar in their journey and how they made it to the finish line.And in my “Persuade With A Digital Content Story,” I actually give you a six-step formula to create persuasive stories within your content. You're not selling, you're not pushing features and benefits, and you're making it relevant to your audience. Again, it has value to your audience because it's the information that they want, not the...

Meet Frank KingI am a Suicide Prevention Speaker and Comedian, was a writer for The Tonight Show for 20 years, a full-time speaker and comedian for 37. I’ve worked with Jeff Foxworthy, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Steve Harvey, Rosie, Ellen, The Beach Boys, Neil Sedaka, Randy Travis, and Lou Rawls. I’ve fought a lifetime battle with Depression and Chronic Suicidality, turning that long dark journey of the soul into 11 TEDx Talks, one SPEAK Event, and sharing my lifesaving insights on Mental Health with colleges, corporations and associations. I’ve survived 2 aortic valve replacements, a double bypass, a heart attack, 3 stents, losing to a puppet on the Original Star Search and lived to joke about all of it.A comedian who speaks on depression and suicide. How does that work? Well, depression and suicide run in my family. It's called generational depression and suicide. My grandmother died by suicide. My mom found her. Nine years later, my great aunt died by suicide. My mom and I found her. I was four years old. I screamed for days. In 2010, after filing a Chapter Seven bankruptcy in April, I came very close to suicide. Close enough, I can tell you what the barrel of my gun tastes like. Spoiler alert. I did not pull the trigger. A friend of mine came up at a keynote recently. He goes, “Hey man, how come you didn't pull the trigger?”I go, “Hey, man, could you try to sound slightly less disappointed?” So that's where the humor is in the topic. It's not jokes. It's just funny, personal anecdotes.  That's why. And I myself live with two mental illnesses, major depressive disorder and chronic suicidal ideation, major depressive disorder, relatively common. Chronic suicidal ideation, far more rare. It means for people in my tribe, the option of suicide's always on the menu as a solution for problems large and small. And when I say small, my car broke down a couple years ago. I had three thoughts unbidden. One, get it fixed, two buy new, and three, I could just kill myself.That's chronic suicidal ideation. You have 11 Tedx Talks. How did you land all of those? Well, the only person who had five was the guy in England. He passed away. That's the most I've been able to find anybody else has gotten.  In 2014, I applied. It was a Tedx in British Columbia. And I got it on my first try, which is unusual. And then two TEDx events reached out to me after that said, do you have any more mental health ideas to talk about? And I did. So I did two more at their request. The next seven I applied for and got. And I've got a really big social media footprint on LinkedIn. And an event in India, in the state of Assam, reached out and said, we like your take on mental health. Would you be willing to do a TEDx force virtually? I said, absolutely. So I got invited to as well. So, it's just a matter of applying, it's a bit of a numbers game.  I got my first one on the first try, but the other ones took 20, 30, 40 applications before I got the audition and got asked to do it.Connect with Frank!LinkedInXthementalhealthcomedian.com  

Meet Alane BoydAlane Boyd is the Co-Founder of BGBO Co., an operations and growth strategy agency utilizing AI and automation to improve efficiency for their clients. In 2022, her company launched Arvo, an AI-powered visual documentation software for creating standard operating procedures, training documents, and company knowledge. Alane has been written and featured in Entrepreneur, HuffPost, South by Southwest (SXSW), PBS, FemFounder, and many more.How do you start positioning yourself as an expert or a credible resource in your industry? I really struggled with this for a long time because I was looking at the work we were doing. We are doing such amazing things and our customers love us. I finally realized we weren't telling anybody about it. Even when we would do these big case studies, we weren't sending them out in a bite sized piece.No one's gonna know that you're an expert unless you're telling them, and you're not gonna be credible just because you say you know how to do something. You have to tell stories and do them short, where people's attention span can still follow along with it.And also very clear. You can do that so easily now with social media. And I have found that has really turned a 180 for me. I was just going, Hey, I'm an expert. I'm over here. People are coming to me because they see me as an expert.I would love to hear more about your AI software. We launched that for companies to create internal process stocks, SOPs, training manuals for their team, and it's all digital.We were looking at it from a perspective of stuff out there, a lot of platforms, they look like glorified text documents. We just thought nobody wants to learn like that.  Everything is meant to suck you in longer and also for short attention span.So that's why we built Arvo, to be really digitally appealing. And then we added AI earlier this year and we've got a couple of new AI features coming out too. We thought, what a great use of AI to help write processes. If you could have AI write 90% of a process for you, and then you tweak it for your business, that could be saving you hours of work. We've got some things coming down the line that I'm really excited about with AI too.Connect with Alane!LinkedInReach out on LinkedIn for a free 30-minute callX

Meet Ross KeatingRoss Keating believes all businesses, regardless of their size, can be more successful, including yours. When you are successful it not only helps you and your customers, but it also helps your employees, your suppliers, the community around you, AND your family.Over the last 15 years or so his clients have been in industries such as industrial equipment sales, pet grooming, civil construction, fitness, lighting and motor systems, house construction, mining, animal welfare, tourism, and pest control.Many of Ross’ clients have 2x and 3x their revenue and profits yet become more relaxed and able to have more focus to “work on the business”. The result is their business continues to grow. These clients say they have also been able to achieve personal and lifestyle goals as a result of working with Ross.He has managed the development, implementation and sales of customer relationship management strategies and software internationally. He has held management responsibility for 40,000+ customers, and $36 million in sales. Ross is a certified by Codebreaker Technologies as a B.A.N.K.TM IOS Coach.What are the two of the biggest problems that you see business owners and executives have? The key is that they're frustrated with the lack of results they're getting in the business. The teams are working all hours under the sun. They are trying to throw all their resources at it, but the business still doesn't meet their expectations. And they started saying, “We've got to get more sales and generate more leads.” That's what becomes a real focus on those numbers. Sales is not a numbers game, sales and business. It's a people game now. No longer can you just go for selling. People don't like to be sold to.So I say business and sales is not a numbers game. It's a people game.Talk about the Codebreaker Technology Program?Codebreaker Technologies was founded by Cheri Tree and is the only methodology that has been scientifically validated by independent studies to predict buyer behavior in less than 90 seconds. It doesn’t take a huge amount of time and a lot of brain power to go through the test.It's been scientifically valid that you've got that prediction, but also to increase sales and influence by up to 300%. And the red, that 300 percent is because you're talking to different personalities.So by doing that, when we know our methodology all of a sudden you can talk to people in the language and the phrases and the behaviors that you like. And it's not just in business; it's in your personal life because you're trying to influence people.Connect with Ross!LinkedInXNextree Business Growth ConsultancyDiscover Your True Personality in 90 Seconds or LessFree E-book- Top 10 Hacks to Create Delighted Repeat Customers, 10 Reasons for Having A CRM

Meet Matt NettletonSince 2003, Matt Nettleton has coached more than 175 companies in a wide variety of industries. He has helped multiple companies grow from $1 million to more than $10 million in annual revenue and has helped clients close more than $3.2 billion in new sales.Why do you believe sales is an honorable profession? People have this idea about sales and sales people and what sales people do and how, but they forget that there is not a company that has ever existed without revenue. And that revenue never shows up magically. And those people that create the relationships and manage the relationships that generate revenue, they're salespeople who are probably the most honest traders out there. Because the salesperson tells people up front, “Hey, listen. I'm here to see if I can get you to buy something from me. You give me money and I give you a product or service.” And the more honest they are, and the more they do the right thing, the more likely they are to succeed.So why do you believe business is honorable? This is kind of an extension of why sales is honorable, but a lot of my clients are family owned businesses, two to 50 million in revenue. And when I talk to them, whether they're first generation, second generation, third generation, one of the things that they'll talk about is the people's lives that they've impacted.One of my clients was talking about how they hired their third employee right when he graduated from college and here they are 25 years later. They just celebrated that employee's son graduating from college. That business is not just that service that they provide. They actually provide meaning and livelihood for their employees. They provide sustenance for their families. They allow kids to grow up in great homes. They create a fabric and a tapestry of a community. I think we lose sight of the fact that salespeople are doing good work and that companies and business owners are almost what I like to think about is an almost heroic mission to impact their employees, their customers and their communities.Connect with Matt!LinkedInXInstagramSandler's Ultimate Resource Guide

Meet Scott FloodScott Flood established Scott Flood Writing in 1995 after 13 years with advertising agencies in Chicago and Indianapolis. The Chicago native is a frequent author on copywriting and marketing topics for business websites and publications, has authored two books of local interest, and is also the author of 100 Years: The Story of the Western States Machine Company.An active community volunteer, Scott has served on the School Board for the Plainfield Community School Corporation since 2000, was honored as Indiana’s outstanding local school board member in 2021, and named Hendricks County Leader of the Year in 2007 by Leadership Hendricks County. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Communications & Theatre Arts from St. Joseph’s College.Isn't business writing supposed to be grammatical?  That's one of the great misconceptions. Let me step back and say that I absolutely love and adore English teachers. They're amazing people and anybody who can get bored sophomores to get interested in literature and poetry deserves my praise. But one of the unfortunate things that comes out of English class is that people learn a particular way to write. They learn the highly grammatical academic style of writing, which is used nowhere but the academic world. When you get out into the business world, really what's far more effective is to communicate in a more informal way, particularly a very conversational way. So I always advocate for conversational copy.Is there a simple way to tell that something I've written is conversational? I think the easiest way to do it is to read it out loud. Once we get out of grade school, we don't often read what we write out loud. But it's good practice because if you pick up something that you've written and you read it out loud, or even let's just say it's a paragraph from you're writing a blog post and you're not sure if it's doing a good job, read that paragraph out loud. If you find it's easy to read it out loud, if you find that everything comes easily, you've probably done it great. But if you find yourself stumbling or pausing or running out of breath, you probably need to rewrite. It's probably too complex for the situation. That's the easiest trick I can give people.Connect with Scott!LinkedInhttps://sfwriting.com/The Smarter Strategy for Selecting Supplierssflood@sfwriting.com

Meet Carol CleggCarol Clegg is a small business coach specializing in mindset and accountability, partnering with midlife women. Carol's passion lies in cultivating business balance and establishing realistic goals with an effective accountability structure. A maverick entrepreneur at heart, she founded Classic Exec Marketing a decade ago, embarking on a journey to empower small business owners to share their gifts and expertise.At present Carol integrates the transformative tools of Positive Intelligence, elevating overall well-being and contentment across all spheres of life. Her ultimate mission is to empower clients to create lifestyle businesses that include flexibility and balance, enabling them to operate from any corner of the globe. With her origins in South Africa and her current base in the USA, Carol extends her guidance globally, transforming aspirations into achievements, one step at a time.Sometimes it seems like [a four day workweek with themes for each day of the week] works for me at least for about 60 days. And then I kind of start to go off track.  Any advice on that? Absolutely. It's just time to reframe it. I felt that as well. I was like, “Oh, hang on a minute. This is getting a little boring.”  So, just change it up. Okay, do something different on Mondays or simplify it, because sometimes you want to get into all the nitty gritty and like break it down into so many steps. And then that's overwhelming. So just change it up.How do you use positive intelligence for wellbeing?  Well, positive intelligence is something that has been on the outskirts for about two or three years, watching other people using it. Curiosity. And you know how timing sometimes is just when you're ready, you're ready?So, I started the training with them at the beginning of the year. And it has been absolutely life changing. It's a training system and it's developed by Shirzad Chamine. He's written a book on Positive Intelligence. And there've been thousands of coaches who've now gone through the system, but it's life changing.And the simplicity of it is it's just a three muscle operating system. What you're doing is you are looking at your negative thought patterns and needing to learn how to intercept that to say, stop, shift. And how can I look at this as a gift and bring in a different component? So it's much more complex than that, but the beauty of it is that not only do you get more calm in your own life, so that's been for the sense of well being, but then it spills out. So as I grow myself and become more calm and cope better with situations, I feel that I'm passing that on. And the instrumental thing, which is something called a PQ rep. And so this is something as short as 10 seconds.It could be as long as five minutes. There is an association with meditation, but you're being single mindedly focused on stopping the negative thought pattern and just bringing in a sense of touch. So you could just rub your fingers gently together and just immerse yourself in that. So if you and I were sitting here now before going into a meeting, we could just be feeling our fingers getting ourselves grounded, feeling our feet, bringing ourselves back to center, and then stepping into our conversation. And then it's with a loving, joyful, happiness, as opposed to judge and feeling negative. So, there's just so much about it. I am super excited to be now sort of focusing my coaching completely on this and bringing it into the accountability side. But it's a system that you can stay with for life. So it's something that you can use.Connect with Carol!LinkedIncarolclegg.coma...

Meet Danielle HughesDanielle Hughes is the creator of the Personality Brand. She teaches clients how to bring more of themselves into their message so they feel comfortable expressing it and can convey what makes them different from their competition, attracting the right audience and repelling the wrong one. Often referred to as a magician with words, while she can’t pull a rabbit out of her hat, she can hone your brand message and deadlift you or your employees, but not at the same time. That’s just irresponsible. (note: Danielle isavailable for office party tricks and accepts payment in bottles of Bordeaux.)What is a personality brand and why does someone need one? Yes, so personal brand is everywhere. And the word personal means private. So why are we sharing our private thoughts, habits, behaviors with people that we don't know? But our personality is who we are. It's always on display and we dial it up and we dial it down, depending on who we're interacting with. So people that we have just met might get a small glimmer of our personality. Our friends and family get too much of our personality.  And so to me, when you cultivate a personality brand, in business, it puts you in control of what you want to share with the people that you're meeting or the people that you're interacting with, or even your clients or customers, and allows you to say this is what I want you to know about me in order to form the necessary connections that we need to do business.But it also creates a line in the sand of things that you're not going to share because they're no one's business and they will remain private.What if someone's an introvert?So, the beauty of personality brand is that you are in control. So, just because you're introverted doesn't mean you're not interesting. Doesn't mean you don't have hobbies. And I always say, think about if you were stuck in an elevator with someone (which I know is a nightmare for an introvert). What is the one thing that you could talk about with this person for an hour and it would not freak you out? And what is that thing that you would love to talk to them about if you found out that they shared that hobby or that passion with you? And we're just starting there. We're just putting that little thing, even if it's at the end of your title your LinkedIn title. And it just says like triathlete or knitter or, you know, lover of pugs.It's gotta be a little something and that's enough. And you can just start there and then you can baby step it to more if you feel comfortable with more. But I always tell people, just because you're introverted or just because you're shy, you have things that you love to do that I'm sure help you connect to other people.Connect with Danielle!LinkedInInstagramwww.morethanwordscopy.comPersonality Brand Bio Checklist Keystone Click commercial: Goal Driven Marketing Strategy

Meet Erik DeckersErik Deckers is a professional writer and humorist from Central Florida. He is the co-author of four books on social media marketing, and has been a newspaper humor columnist since 1994. He has owned his own content marketing agency for 14 years, and ghostwrites books for business owners who want to leave a legacy for their families. Erik is the president of the Jack Kerouac Project in Orlando and is the lead organizer of 1 Million Cups Orlando, a networking group for entrepreneurs.Where do you think most people should spend their time and energy? Analytics, creation of content?I actually think that people should spend more time talking about and focusing on creation. One of the nice things about analytics is that we can do this with marketing now, where 30, 40 years ago we could not.You didn't know how many people drove past your billboard or how many people actually saw your commercial on TV or actually heard it on the radio. And if somebody came into your business, which commercial brought them in? Which time did they see it? We didn't know any of that. And now that we can, I think marketers have gone a little bit overboard and they want to measure everything.They use analytics to drive their content creation, which I think is the backward way of doing it. Your content creation should be first. That should be your highest priority because your analytics should tell you how well it's doing, not tell you what you should write about.How can one turn their competitors into collaborators and referral sources?Okay. I talk about this sometimes. I talk about the importance of having your network of people who are out giving you leads. They're making connections for you. And the best way that you can turn your competitors into your sales force is if you each were to specialize. And so one example I use is if, you know, let's say you're a bookkeeper, you might be a bookkeeper and you charge 50 bucks an hour to just do bookkeeping for anybody who calls you up.But that means that every other bookkeeper in town is your competitor. But what if you were to specialize and you're only going to do bookkeeping for restaurants? Well, if you specialize, you can charge more because if you specialize, you know more, and that means it's worth more. And so you can charge maybe 75 or a hundred dollars an hour. And your competitor decides they're going to specialize and only work on professional services: doctors, lawyers, chiropractors.So whenever they get a call from a doctor who says you know, “Hey, I need a bookkeeper,” then they're the one to answer that call. But let's say you get a call from an attorney and say, “I need a bookkeeper.” And you can say, “I don't do that. But my friend, Susan does. Susan is a professional services bookkeeper and she can absolutely handle what you do.Connect with Erik!LinkedInTwitterInstagramTikTokerikdeckers.comproblogservice.com

Meet Wayne MullinsWayne is a husband, father of 4, entrepreneur, and the Founder of Ugly Mug Marketing, creator of the Freelance Accelerator, and author of Full Circle Marketing. He's an out-of-the-box, against the grain, thinker and it has more than paid off for his company and clients. He leads from the heart and is passionate and unapologetic about doing so. As Founder & CEO of Ugly Mug Marketing of one of the most unique and successful marketing agencies in the world, Wayne has personally trained more than 20,000 marketers, launched NY Times Bestsellers, and helped a client grow from $20M to more than $600M in less than 5 years.How do you know if your business's culture is sabotaging your marketing efforts?Yeah. That's a, that's a great question. And it's a challenging question because to begin, Lori, I think we have to come to the realization that often for us as entrepreneurs or for us as marketers, this thing called our business or the business that we're marketing for, it's our baby. We love this thing.And sometimes we don't want to admit that our baby is actually ugly. And the truth is that sometimes our baby is a bit ugly and we need to look at it through that objective lens so that we can determine what is actually happening and what is not. So the first place that I love to tell people to start is to get some candid feedback from your actual customers, those interacting with your organization, purchasing your product, purchasing your services. And that can be a little bit daunting and it can be a little bit confusing for people because by default, what we typically do is we go ask the people who we think are going to say great things, right?We ask our friends, our longtime customers, and those people rarely are willing to say things that are going to hurt our feelings or step on our toes. So, it's important to find those who are willing to tell us the honest truth about what it's like doing business with us.Why is it so important to engage with prospects and customers on a personal level? So we live in a world now that is, you know, there's some great quote or analogy here that I'm going to completely botch and mess up, but basically we live in this hyper connected world, right?Where everyone is connected to everyone online and yet we live in a world where people don't have that many real connections anymore. And so one of the simplest yet most impactful things that you can do is learn to connect with your prospects and your customers on a personal level. So very simple things that you can do that will immediately calls you to stand out, send handwritten thank you notes, send birthday cards in the mail. Any points of personal interaction like that are going to cause you to immediately stand head and shoulders over your competition. Not because they can't do those things, but because they're so busy looking for the next big hack or the next, you know, cheat code or whatever it may be that they're unwilling and undisciplined to do the fundamental things that we know actually do work.Connect with Wayne!Connect on LinkedInUgly Mug MarketingFreelance AcceleratorFull Circle Marketing

Meet Henry DeVriesHenry DeVries, MBA, is the CEO of Indie Books International, a company he cofounded in 2014 to work with agency owners and strategic consultants who want to attract right-fit clients by marketing with a book and speech (www.indiebooksintl.com). He is the author of 17 books including Marketing With A Book For Agency Owners. Since 2010, he has ghostwritten, coauthored, and published more than 300 business books, including his McGraw Hill bestseller How to Close a Deal like Warren Buffett. Henry’s articles have appeared in forbes.com, the Associated Press, and various magazines. He can be reached at henry@indiebooksintl.com. Learn more about Henry by visiting the website for Indie Books International: http://www.indiebooksintl.com.Henry, how does a book help with your authority marketing efforts? Well, as our friends at Predictive ROI and Agency Management Institute say, a book can be the cornerstone for your authority marketing. And then the real leverage is talking about doing what I'm doing here on a podcast with you. Or I'm going to be giving a speech tomorrow at the University of California at Irvine at their innovation center. A lot of these [opportunities] come from the writing that I do and being an author; that makes sense to be on a stage. So, you use the book as the authority marketing tool. Your sales strategy is talking about the book. And that's what gets you the right fit prospects into your sales pipeline.Why do you say publishing the book is the starting line and not the finish line?There are so many people out there who're all about the book, about coaching you to write the book, and/or writing the book for you or their publishing service. And you get your book out. But let me give your audience a hard truth… Nobody gets discovered because they write a book. It's like nobody gets discovered because they put a website up on the internet. Books don't promote authors, authors promote books. And in the promotion of the book with the spotlight being on the book, it reflects on you and attracts people who want to have conversations with you about what you do and how you solve problems for people like them. So, we say publishing the book is the starting line. And it's a marathon, not a sprint. This is a long race you're going to be going on, and I have some minimum monthly requirements for my authors. Here they are. One: Do Two Showcase Speeches a Month. Either podcast or something you host like a Q&A session, or on somebody else's stage where you're a virtual or live presenter. Two of those a month and then send 20 books out a month. Two: People Who Could Book You as a Speaker Could Hire You for Your Service. If you do that on a consistent basis, you're gonna sell enough books to pay for the whole effort. And then we measured a return on investment of 4x to 220x. In other words, if people put in, let's say, $25,000 into this effort, they should get $100 to $250,000 to a half million back in extra revenue. And we have a study that shows that. People are on record with the amount of money that the book has made them. And we're out there with measurable results and testimonials to prove it.Connect with Henry!Connect on LinkedInIndie Books InternationalEmail Henry (henry@indiebooksintl.com) to get a free digital PDF copy of his book “Marketing with a Book” or “Persuade with a Story!”

Meet Kurt KleidonKurt Kleidon is the president of Kleidon & Associates, a marketing communication agency in Akron, Ohio. Kurt has more than 15 years of experience in marketing, branding and media relations. He also has experience as the founding editor of an arts and entertainment magazine editor and as a college professor.In his professional capacity, Kurt focuses on marketing strategy and helping his clients find the right balance between digital opportunities and traditional marketing effort. With a background in storytelling, he truly enjoys developing new ways to convey a message within all the possibilities that are possible in social media and digital marketing.As the host of his own podcast, Three for Three, Kurt interviews business owners on tips and tricks that have helped them build a successful business.Kurt is avid in his volunteer work in the Akron area and has a passion for helping organizations that aim to improve the lives of children. Currently he serves on the board of a local arts organization that helps artists establish a sustainable brand and business model.He is a published writer and photographer with more than 100 articles and photos that have appeared in print in various magazines and journals.When does on-brand come off as artificial when networking?Yeah, so we work with a lot of different clients to figure out what is their brand. Where should they be positioned? And sometimes when people think about branding, they think just about maybe the visuals of a brand. But of course, everything that comes with that includes things like mission statements and vision statements and a lot of different wording that goes along with it as well. And part of that is elevator speeches. We talk about networking, and how you keep your branding, and feel both on brand but feel authentic, as opposed to just reciting an elevator speech. So the way I put it here is that I think that an elevator speech really has to match the person who's saying it. Have you ever heard a muscle car drive by? You know that sound even if some of that's really loud and something in the background. So whenever you hear that, you look and you're expecting to see maybe a Dodge Charger or a muscle car. But what if you heard that sound, and you looked and you saw a 20-year-old Subaru? Totally mismatches what you're expecting, right? And if you think about that, with networking, there's nothing wrong with being that loud car if that's kind of a metaphor for maybe that elevator speech. There's nothing wrong with being a 20-year-old Subaru either, but they don't necessarily match. So I think it's really important that when you think about how you're talking about yourself, what you do, or your company, that that really matches how you present yourself. Because that's really important for people to make that feel natural. So when you're thinking elevator speech and sometimes love one of our clients, we write that for them, and you're getting to recite that and just make sure that that matches the M image that you're presenting, but also who you're speaking to as well. You think about that same metaphor, it's a, it's a muscle car. And it sounds like the most car looks like a muscle car. But it's, let's say, you know, at a somber event, well, you can't necessarily come with that same presentation for that. So think about making sure that all those brand elements that have worked so meticulously created, match how you're presenting it and who you're presenting it to.If you could go back to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell yourself to do more or less of or differently with regard to your professional career?What I think I would do was tell myself to prepare for any kind of meeting or any type of event. We're able to engage with people with maybe just a little bit of research or maybe timely news. So, I would usually come into...

Meet Kris WardKris Ward is creating a movement where your business supports your life instead of consuming it. Kris is the founder of the Win The Hour, Win the Day philosophy.After the loss of her husband, Kris returned full-time to her work as a marketing strategist. She was relieved that her business had not only survived her absence but was growing. Now, Kris has completely changed the landscape for entrepreneurs by sharing the successful practices that allowed her absence.Kris has shared the stage with Jack Canfield - Chicken Soup For The Soul, Kevin Harrington original Shark from Shark Tank, James Malinchak -ABC’s Secret Millionaire, Sharon Lechter - Rich Dad Poor Dad Co Author and Joe Theismann - NFL All star and commentator to name a few. Kris has also been featured on award-winning podcasts, radio and TV shows.Kris is an acclaimed podcaster. You can hear Kris on her own podcast - Win The Hour Win The Day, where she has engaging conversations with dynamic guests covering a variety of business topics so you can get to your next win now!We keep thinking we have to add more team in order to keep growing, but what do you think is the biggest mistake that most people make when building their team? I think first of all, we live in a magical time and the resources are just so affordable and so endless. You could have exceptional talent in the winner circle part of our package. We will find you a VA and help you hire, onboard and train them. I would say to most people, two things, just two really big mistakes. One is they'll say, “Okay, I need a VA,” and they maybe go to an agency. I've had clients do that. And in the agency, it's a lot more expensive than working with us. You could be an amazing VA, and then somebody pairs you with someone. Let me give you an example like this. It's kind of like… let's say, Lori, I sent you a chef to work with you and your family. And I'm like, “This is a world-renowned chef, world-renowned. You are so lucky to have this chef,” and they send them to your home. And you're like, “Kris, this is a French cuisine chef and my kids are all about chicken nuggets.” This is not going to work, right? So what I'm saying is that you can have an exception, you can find somebody extremely affordable and exceptionally talented. But when you're just running around, you know, pivoting all the time, and you're not set up and you're not ready, you're not gonna be able to keep them. And that's one of the biggest mistakes is they're like, “Oh, well, this didn't work. It didn't last.” Yeah. Because you're not set up, right? So, that's a big part of what we do. The other thing I would say is, so many people think about, you know, what they experienced as a team; the hierarchical thing when they worked in any kind of corporation anywhere in the world. And think about it like this… You also tend to think of it as a very parentified system, that working with a team and in a bigger company. And what I would say is the idea of culture, people tend to think when you have a bigger company, 5500 people, you have to think about culture. So, one of the things we talk a lot about in team building, and really implement quite effectively  having a really amazing, uplifting, productive culture when you have one, two or three people on a team. Because think about it like this, Lori, if you were seeing an ocean liner like. There's 500 passengers and something happened to that ship. Maybe there's only 100 or 200 people or 75 people that are highly useful, and they're going to be able to deal with that crisis. Whatever the crisis is, the boats going down. But if you're in a rowboat with two other people, you can make sure this is one heck of a team. Because if there's a hole in that boat, that's it, right? So, I think culture is a big thing, and creating leadership and strength and making them little CEOs of their own departments. Instead of...

Meet Andy CrestodinaAndy Crestodina is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Orbit Media, an award-winning 50-person digital agency in Chicago. Over the past 20 years, Andy has provided digital marketing advice to1000+ businesses.Andy has written 500+ articles on content strategy, search engine optimization, influencer marketing, visitor psychology and Analytics. These articles reach more than three million readers each year. He’s also the author of Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing.Andy gives up to 100 webinars and presentations per year and is a frequent repeat speaker at many of the top national marketing conferences.What kind of content can't be created by an AI? I love this because I strongly believe that AI will reduce the cost of creating lots of content and especially specific types of content. But there are still types of content that it's not going to be very good at. AI, in my experience, doesn't really have a strong perspective. The technology is really just predicting the next chunk of language in a series. It's not trying to succeed at a goal per se. It's trying to create a piece of language that satisfies the prompt. So, if you want it to create some true thought leadership content or make a stand, have an opinion, it doesn't really do that. I've never seen AI throw a punch. It just isn't built for that. So, if you want to differentiate your content there are several great opportunities to do that.What is the wrong way to be social online? I think from a business perspective, it's constant selling at 100%. You're not going to have a following. You're going to lose any sort of followers that you did have. But if you're constantly pitching your service or, or product, you're going to lose interest right away. It's not sell me media. It's social media.Connect with Andy!Connect on LinkedInContent Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing Sixth Edition

Meet Clarene MitchellShe is the founder and CEO of TCM Communications, a social media branding firm based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. TCM focuses on empowering success-driven entrepreneurs and corporate leaders to effectively leverage LinkedIn to generate organic results. She holds a BA in interpersonal communications from Cardinal Stritch University.How is LinkedIn different from other social media platforms?Totally different. I couldn't we could just talk about that question in itself and go on and on, for one LinkedIn was created for the members to generate results, as opposed to other platforms where they're really social entertainment. That was really that's the core foundation, the foundation of LinkedIn is all about members generating results. When you look at the mission of the platform, it says that explicitly, it's about the economic advancement of all the members. So that's number one. The other part of LinkedIn is different than other platforms, I say, is a more comprehensive platform. From my perspective, why do you have to go anywhere else you're using any other platform, when there's so much that LinkedIn offers, whether it's being able to create newsletters or write our articles, or go live in video form or audio form? And just the different features that it has, make it a more comprehensive platform versus I say some other platforms are more limited than with what you can do on themIf you could go back to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell yourself to do more or less of or differently with regard to your professional career?You know, I had to go way back, because you know, my age, I think that mentally to go back to my 20-year-old, so I guess the biggest thing I would tell my 20-year-old self is, dreams don't have to die, they can be deferred, meaning so 20-year-old Claire rain wanted to be a broadcast journalist. But my life circumstances didn't allow for the freedom of that. But or the flexibility I needed to go with being in the broadcast journalism sector of communications. It's ironic now, though, where you know, with what I do in my business, and again, going back to the LinkedIn features, the LinkedIn feature, linked in live feature, for me is much of our dream, where, you know, life circumstance happened couldn't be a broadcast journalist right out of college, like I want it to become. But really, I'm fulfilling that dream now as a LinkedIn, live creator and host and all of that. It's like, okay, it could, that dream didn't have to die, I still held it dear in my heart, you know. And I, it became a reality when it needed to become or was able to become a reality. So not give up on my dreams, keep them fresh in my heart and continue to nurture them so that I could seize opportunities when they came up.Connect with Clarene!Connect on LinkedInhttps://calendly.com/tcmcommunications/linkedinassessmenttcmcommunicationsllc@gmail.com

Meet JamieJamie Shibley is the CEO of The Expressory, a strategic gifting agency that believes the key to accelerating your business growth and profitability in the post-COVID era will rely on your ability to maintain personal connections to build stronger emotional loyalty in your business relationships. After 20 years in the corporate world full of it and E-commerce roles, Jamie launched an online brand of her own. Jamie understands the influence of strategic gifts and wants to positively impact the mental well-being in our world by helping businesses acknowledge care for their community members, respected as a market leader. Jamie's work has been featured on Entertainment Tonight and forbes.com. What are some of the best practices that you see for this relationship nurturing?In this post-COVID era, we kind of have a challenge as business owners, how do we continue to grow and succeed when, when we are working with nurturing our leads and converting more, I think that we've depended so long on this idea of, you know, you get this drilled into your head, this know, like, and trust, people need to know you as you trust you. And so great technology helps us reach more people, right, to reach the masses, and if that's how you're networking, even if that's how you're out first meeting people, that's great. But how do we get into and move people to the lake and trust if we're going to stay just digital and surface? And that's where I think this focus of, we need to bring a mix of a lot more personal touch, touch points with people. And so our best practice, what we always recommend is that you identify when you have prospects that come into your space, identify the key ones, because they can't all be like, like your top dream prospects, right? You know, grab, grab 10 of them, or 20, we say 25, right, your dream 25? Who are those people, and then make a plan so that you are showing up in some way in front of those people, those 25 leads, say, every six to eight weeks, but you need to do so through a combination of digital and physical, maybe even face to face. But how are you showing them that you understand their pain points that you understand where they're at, in, you know, whatever their business needs are, how whatever you serve, right as your company. Be generous with your smarts, and the things you share with them to educate them. And, you know, each time that you're in front of them, it moves that relationship forward a little bit further. And when we say use physical touch points in some way, whether that be handwritten cards, printed material, like your articles or research, the reason we say that is because physical tangible items in hand trigger the part of your brain that is that perceives value. So if I send you something that you are holding, you're already going to think I am my company, my service is more valuable. Because you're looking at something, right?I'm curious, if you could go back to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell yourself to do more or less of or differently with regard to your professional career?Well, it's funny because when I graduated college, I started working right away for the company that I spent 20 years at and like I said in it, but at the same time, I was so obsessed with this with programming and creating and so I was outside of work. I was creating my own website, right and it was a time when the web was for Starting to take payments. And so I set up this whole crafting website where crafters could sell. I'd rent them space, all this stuff. And I had a bunch of crafters renting from me. However, I wasn't doing a great job getting them business customers. And so what I recognize then is like, well, I didn't know marketing, I had to figure out how to market on the web. And so I went and I searched the web. And I printed out this enormous book on marketing on the web. And then I realized, I'm just starting out my career,

Meet MartinMartin has had a unique career that has spanned both analyst and marketing practitioner roles focused on high technology and related industries. The unifying factor has always been a keen analysis of go-to-market trends while also having achieved success as a marketing leader. Schneider started his career as a journalist covering b2b technologies and quickly transitioned into leading analysts covering application software for the 451 group in New York City, where he specialized in CRM, marketing, automation, and business intelligence analytics technologies. After analyzing the go-to-market strategies of dozens of technology vendors, Schneider made the move to the vendor side, where he led successful go-to-market teams for several startups and established tech providers including Sugar CRM, Basho, technologies, Caspio, and support logic. Schneider brings a wealth of marketing and sales alignment content strategy and other go-to-market expertise to his role at Annuity this research is excited to be merging his two passions in producing research and analysis around modern go-to-market and growth marketing strategies for a broad set of b2b professionals.So what's driving this interesting evolution and how growth leaders that you're talking about are looking at approaching go-to-market right now?Look, I think I think we've kind of hinted at it, right? I mean, it's the idea that looks, we we've changed the models of like delivery, and like payments, and like we've done all the infrastructure things, billing, you know, all these things that needed to be done in this new recurring model of everything. Subscription economy, whatever buzzword you want to use, right? Yep. But we have like, we never thought about the go-to-market and engagement strategies for the second half of that, right? We've never extended that part down the line. So that's really what's needed. Because what are we being forced with? We keep, you know, what did we hear a week or so ago in Chicago, right? Do more with less, you know, leverage data in ways that you never have. But well, what's the data need to be about? It's got to be about well, what's the customer experience that's driving new opportunities for growth? Right? It's about how we find lift, not just revenue. And how do we focus on the metrics and the KPIs that matter? Not the ones that are like what I would call kind of short-sighted, you know, how many times does a CMO pat the team on the back and said, Look, we did 115% of our lead handoffs, the sales for sales accepted leads were awesome. But the company misses its number. So then fingers get pointed, and people start, you know, and there's distrust and factions, and all those types of things that start to dysfunction, right? But because there wasn't a shared growth plan, there wasn't an understanding of like, well, well, what is a good lead? What are you know? And where did the post-sale? the idea that like, how do we not market these people effectively to get lifting growth inside our accounts, rather than just focusing on that new and blah, blah, blah, right? So I mean, that's really what's happening, right? Like, if everyone's using this term growth, and you see these things like growth hacking, and you use a term like hacking, and I'm like, that sounds a lot like just random, haphazard acts of marketing that are not strategic. They're not aligned to the entire journey. And that's really what's driving this, right, we need to have a full journey, an orchestrated approach that understands, you know, who are the personas for presale? Who are the personas for post-sale? What is that conversation track? What kind of content? What kind of channels? When do we provide that? What are the indicators that say this is upselling versus this is the reinforcement of just baseline stuff, of making sure they're actually using our product effectively, that kind of thing? And, and really building these models' full...