More Than A Few Words

----more----Every woman has that little black dress in her wardrobe. Classic in design it is not too trendy and not too stodgy.  It is incredibly versatile. With the right accessories, jackets, scarves or cool shoes it is perfect for every occasion, year in and year out.  And every smart marketer knows that email is their little black dress. It goes well with all of the other elements in your marketing wardrobe. From the hottest marketing trend to the most basic marketing campaign, email makes all your other marketing more effective.  Updating your website? Promote it on email. Building your social community? Reconnect with your audience through email. As you're planning your marketing wardrobe for next season, don't forget email, your little black marketing dress. 

So you think you've got distractions and can't start a business. Well my guest, Renee Harris has nine children and still found a way to build a six-figure business.  How did she balance the demands of a family and the demands of running a business? Renee explains. " We didn't start with 9 kids when we started a business and just like when you have kids normally you don't get them all at once and normally a business doesn't just fall in your lap. "  She didn't try to do everything at once, focusing on a few things and let the business and the family grow.  She built strategies to engage her children in the process and keep them occupied, when she needed to work on the business.   About Renee She is the founder of MadeOn - a unique handcrafted skincare product  line specifically for dry, cracked skin. What started as a simple farmer's market booth has grown into 6-figure online business.  She has also raised 9 children along the way, teaching them business skills and strategies to develop a marketable talent t

Social media and content marketing should be fun.  If you are not feeling the fun in the content you are creating then your audience is probably bored, and so are you.   But it doesn't have to be that way.  Guest Elizabeth Ruth suggests when you start with a clear brand voice it is easier to create content which entertains and is memorable enough to help you sell products.  About Elizabeth Ruth.    Elizabeth is the Owner and Chief Copy Writer for ER Marketing Services. The agency empowers business owners to attract incredible clients, connect with their audience, and establish their industry authority. Elizabeth and her team specialize in designing marketing strategies and writing content for websites, blog posts, social media, and emails or newsletters. 

Facebook is on a mission to take the social out of social media.  They've announced changes to their algorithm that you're already seeing. They're prioritizing ads and video from complete strangers over the updates from friends and family members. Those updates are going to be buried somewhere and you're really going to have to look for them. As a user, this is incredibly frustrating. And as a business owner, it's confusing as I tried to figure out how to navigate this post algorithm change world where there's really no social and it's all just media.   Looking for help keeping up with changes in the digital marketing landscape?  Join the Digital Toolbox today.   

These days business is built on relationships. So when you are in a networking situation, guest Patty Farmer suggests you remember to focus on the people and the profits will follow.  The relationships  we build are the currency in today's business environment. So think of your business like an ATM machine.  Are you making more deposits or more withdrawals? This is a return appearance for Patty.  If you enjoyed this episode, you are sure to find value in our earlier conversations.

These days, it seems everyone is talking about working remote. with advances in technology, you can work anywhere in the country or anywhere in the world. As a business owner, managing a remote, international team has some similarities to managing other teams and a few unique challenges. This week, Matt Levenhagen joins us for a conversation about running an international team.   About Matt For more than 20 years, Matt has on web design, affiliate marketing, niche marketing, PPC advertising and SEO.  Today his company, Unified Web Design, is comprised of a with a team of professionals from around the world. 

I know the economy is rocky. Yes, things have been bumpy for the last three years. But the truth is, this isn't the first time it's happened, and it will be the last. If you want your business to still be around when things finally settle down, here are a few things you should do. Use this time to clean up your processes. Get efficient. With tight labor markets and rising salary, stop wasting time and money on anything that is not productive. Ruthlessly review your marketing. Just because you've always done something does not mean you need to keep doing it. Getting rid of things that aren't driving results makes room for new ideas. Fire unprofitable clients. I know this sounds crazy as the economy is cycling down. But hanging on to clients who aren't a good fit will ultimately drag you down.  They will prevent you from clarifying what it is you do and focusing on the kind of work you really want to do. Invest wisely. This is not a time to bury your head in the sand and stop spending money on marketing. You ju

When it comes to finding your life's love or passion is there really only one? Maybe you think that's a strange introduction for a marketing conversation. But it's not.  Just as finding that one true love is important to your personally, it is also true for you as an entrepreneur.  There is happiness and profit when you commit to your one true passion.   Guest Jennifer Crawford  says there is lots of talk in the entrepreneurial space about finding your why.  It can be a complex journey to find your why or your zone of genius.  Getting to the point where you are willing to let go of things that aren't in your zone of genius actually takes a bit of self-reflection.  In a way, the pandemic helped because it gave us the time and space to put the brakes on some things as we figured out what really was meaningful for us.    About Jennifer Crawford Jennifer’s passion is helping people grow their businesses. In addition to business and conference consulting, she is also the co-founder of a recently launched company,

Sometimes when people write copy they forget they're not just writing for SEO.  They need to keep in mind they are writing to attract the attention of real people who have  specific reasons for reading the information  According to our guest, Rai Hyde Cornell, Google's not the one clicking the buy now or book a call button. They are not the ones making the decision. So, why are you going to prioritize Google and Google's spiders and search bots over the actual humans who have the real power to buy.  Those are the people that you want to be speaking to.   About Rai Rai Hyde Cornell is the CEO & Senior Copywriter at Cornell Content Marketing and Business Mentor & Coach at Chiron Consulting. Over her 15+ years in online marketing and writing, Rai has worked in hundreds of businesses, helping them grow and achieve their goals. Though she no longer works in the mental health field, her deep understanding of human behavior, emotion, and decision-making is honored in everything she teaches and creates for he

What is the right price for your product or service? Most small business owners struggle with this question, because they confuse the cost of producing the product with the value it brings to the customer. When it comes to establishing a price for your goods or services, the value of your product has absolutely nothing to do with production cost. The value is based on how much you help clients save, increase, reduce or improve. If you can quantify these benefits, then you have a foundation for establishing an appropriate price for your goods or services. Calculate Your Value How much value do you deliver? Use these questions to build your value: How much can my product save my customer? Savings may be in time, money or effort. How much can my product earn for my customer? Can you help them increase their income; directly or indirectly? Does it create a foundation for future opportunities or establish valuable personal relationships? What intangible benefits might customers realize, and is it possible to quant

If you're a little bit of a sci-fi nerd. The idea that the robots are coming can be a little bit terrifying. But if you're a marketer in today's world the advent of Ai is an exciting opportunity.    Guest Thomas Helfrich agrees some of the early AI content wasn't great it has gotten much better. It's doing a great job for small businesses looking to produce short marketing copy titles and headlines. But for longer form you still need a human in the loop. 

Do you feel overwhelmed by social media if you do you're not alone but I've got some good news for you because there are things you can do to manage the chaos and make the time you're spending on social media productive.  Our guest, Andrea Jones explains one of the challenges with social media is that it's a mixture of our business and our personal life.  one of the tricks is to identify why you're on social media to begin with  and separate the platforms for personal and business use. The second tip is to turn off notifications and block out specific times to use social media as a total grow  business with daily time spent with her  community and weekly time spent creating content. By giving herself those boundaries  she is able to reduce that overwhelming feeling    About Andrea Andréa Jones has built an online business committed to empowering businesses to utilize the power of social media in a positive and impactful way, without being overwhelmed and drained by it. With over 7 years experience in the game

One of the things I love about living in Indiana is the color of the seasons. There are the bright pastels of spring, the rich greens of summer, and the bright orange and yellow of fall. The exception is winter. The dreary days of winter seem colorless and bland compared to the vibrancy of colors throughout the rest of the year. That’s why I love evergreen trees. They bring spots of color to my view all year long. Just as these wonderful trees bring consistent color to my yard, evergreen content brings spots of color to a marketing calendar. What is evergreen content? It is information which is always relevant to readers. Unlike seasonal content or breaking news, this information answers questions readers have every day. That’s one of the advantages of evergreen content, you can insert it into your blogging schedule whenever you need filler. Frequently asked questions, simple how-to blog posts, or product reviews make great evergreen content. These posts can be researched and written well in advance. Then the

When it comes to creating content, the age old question seems to be " What do you write about? The biggest challenge of creating content is staring at that blank sheet of paper. But according to guest Kathleen Celmins, it doesn't have to be. The trick is to stop creating content and start telling stories with your clients, not you as the hero.   In the "story" focus on their transformation, how they changed as a result of working with you.  That is the source of compelling content!    About Kathleen Kathleen Celmins (SELL mins) is the cofounder of amplifiedNOW, a hub for solopreneurs and small business owners who want to grow their businesses sustainably. Practical advice, no shiny objects here.

People tell me they're they don't think they're creative. But that's not true. Everyone is creative. We just express it differently. And you need that creativity to solve the business and personal challenges in your life.  In this episode, our guest Fiona Valentine explains how simple it can be to unlock your creativity by  drawing just a few minutes every day.  Starting with a structure approach to learn the basic rules, anyone can learn to draw. That skill, in turn will unlock new parts of your brain, helping you think in new and different ways. 

What do you want people to say about you when you're not in the room. What do you want them to tell people. who are looking for someone who does what you do? All of those comments add up to your personal brand. Now a lot of business owners are under the misconception that somehow they control their brand. But they don't. Your brand is something that exists in the mind of your customers.  All you can do is influence it with your marketing messages and your actions and over time you will create a brand representative of who you are. Looking for more resources on branding and positioning?  Start with the position statement workbook 

You think you know everything about sales. You've heard all the presentations and everybody talks about pain and objections. Well, my guest Chandler Walker thinks that might be the wrong way to approach a sales.  He believes the goal isn't just to stab at a prospect to find the pain.  Instead, when you become a cognitive listener you are able to identify the pain and understand where the pain exists.  Using that information you must help the prospect look not just short term, fixing the pain, but long term at the underlying issues which prevent them from being successful. 

I love a good networking event. but I know not everybody loves that process.  They're often confused and frustrated with how to start the conversation and where to go after they've opened it.  Laura Templeton suggests you start by ditching the pitch mentality. Start by crafting a short "I help" statement.  So when someone asks what you do, you an say I help . . .  That makes the conversation about your customers not you.  The next trick is to have a great set of questions you can use to get the other person talking.  

Every parent knows, It takes a village to raise a child. Each of the adults in the child’s life, relatives, teachers, coaches, brings a different perspective. The same is true for your business. No matter how smart you are or how much you know about your business, there are gaps in your skill-set. Your business village should be filled with smart, talented subject matter experts to help you fill in the gaps. If you are running a small business your village won't be comprised of employees, but an advisory board comprised of professionals, who provide information and guidance in their areas of expertise.  Who Do You Need in Your Business Village? (On your advisory board)  Your Attorney Your attorney’s primary objective is to protect you and your business from risk. As you start you business your attorney can advise you on the right structure for your business and submit appropriate state and federal documents. As you business grows turn to your attorney for a range of legal documents such as contracts, non-disc

Think you know how Google works?  Guest, Kyle Roof explains your assumptions may not be right.  For example, many people think Google reads a web page as a human would.  Google is not able to do that, it isn't pulling meaning from your content.  It is an algorithm  looking at your content not from an editorial quality perspective, but a mathematical one looking to see if you check off the boxes in the formula.  Start with does your page include the keyword or phrase.  Google will look for contextual terms terms that provide context and meaning to understand what this page is about. In addition to the phrase, Google is looking at very specific sections on the page for those important terms and how many times you are using them in those sections. The sections include the title, meta descriptions and URL.      About Kyle Roof Kyle is responsible for the development and implementation of all SEO techniques used by the SEO agency High Voltage SEO and the SEO tool PageOptimizer Pro. Kyle is also the co-founder of I