Joe Apfelbaum, CEO of Ajax Union, has had quite an entrepreneurial journey and wants you to live a life of purpose, on purpose. Topics covered: how to get past the rough years, discover your reason, develop an abundance mindset the difference between being "satisfied" (a temporary solution to hunger which is a slow painful death) and being fulfilled (self aware and successful with perspective) how to focus on one thing: how Joe went from being spread too thin with seven side businesses, to making a lot of income in a short amount of time (less is more) Resources Ajax Union (Facebook) Joe Apfelbaum's (Blog) CEO Mojo (Website) Ajax Union(Website) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvpQzKaHSXI

Petra Monaco from PetraMonaco.com wants to give you more confidence and a bigger vision, so you can push yourself further. She also provides coaching for authors to deal with mindset, accountability, and excuses. She sells a course about how to start an Etsy e-commerce store selling handmade goods.

Douglas Karr from The Marketing Tech Blog stops by to talk about monetizing a blog. The game has changed, and search engines now reward quality over quantity. This means that to build trust and authority, you should spend more time on your content, republishing and update content as needed. Educate your customers early, and inform them about helpful tools or how something in your business was created. Create an editorial calendar with 12 subjects and 4 subtopics to keep your content marketing consistent.

Laura Pennington left her job as a 7th grade teacher to become a freelance writer and virtual assistant. She has advice about getting initial clients, scaling your business, and filling your schedule with nothing but your ideal clients. 1. evaluate your own experiences: you don't need to have been good in the past (office skills, data entry, phone calls) 2. work samples (logos, write a white paper, write blog posts) 3. marketing plan (job boards, contracts) 4. long-term marketing (cold calls, chamber of commerce meetings, trade shows conferences) Resources Your Way to VA (Website) Six Figure Writing Secrets (Website) Laura Pennington's Courses on Teachable (Courses)

Deborah Ager from Radiant Media Labs and creator of The Book Activation Method wants you to embrace your fear and use it to move forward. She also wants to get a book out of you in the following steps: 1. master market and idea 2. align with mission: book sales, speaking, which publisher, authority 3. mining your material: blog posts, existing presentations, themes and ideas 4. mark out the tools: find the time/space to write, calendars, Evernote 5. map your mind: get messy with a mindmap 6. brain to book: break to-do list into do-able chunks, word count or time goal, schedule, write or speak 7. marketing

Rob Slee, author of Time Really is Money, wants to help you scale to a: $50/hour business (where you are the value proposition) $500/hour (where you manage employees) $5000/hour (where you only deal with the culture, niches, and business model) $50k/hour (changing industries) $5m/hour (changing the world)

  Nathan Hirsch from Freeeup.com has several insights about outsourcing your team in the departments of biz-opp, e-commerce, marketing, and web development. Nathan began his entrepeneurial journey wiht a business that re-sold textbooks, and has since branched out to supplying workers for e-commerce businesses. Visit the Freeeup Marketplace Page on Facebook

Corinna Essa from Social Media Worldwide wants to help you and your social media marketing efforts. She has a unique strategy when it comes to social media, which involves spending $1000 on an initial ad campaign to a free offer with no call-to-action, to then retarget (cookie) your best prospects and run ads to that already-engaged-audience. Resources Social Media Worldwide (Website) Social Media Worldwide (Blog) Social Media Worldwide (YouTube)

Gerald Leonard, author of The Culture is the Bass, has advice for you on developing a company culture that works. If you're tired of miscommunications and employee turnover, and you want a team that works together, then you'll want to tune in to discover the seven principles you could be missing; vision: interest in a goal or dream values: actionable items that govern behavior buy-in stories best practices environment execution

Larry Becht from The Expert Media Group has a lot to say about ClickFunnels, his preferred tool of choice for setting up landing pages and funnels, especially since it now includes "Backpack" for running an affiliate program and "Actionetics" for tracking your visitors. Larry specializes done-for-you website setup and you'll want to hear his thoughts about hiring a professional to setup your pages quickly.

Marty McDonald from Bad Rhino Inc. stops by to share some interesting social media marketing strategies that can apply to any business, online or offline. Marty shares some case studies with Victory Beer and Blind Squirrel Apparel and how he's been able to track improvement with his clients while being entertaining with his content and marketing specific calls-to-action.

Can you relate to having "too many ideas" and you're not sure if any are any good? Maybe you've done the legwork for this website or that website... registered some domain names, setup an empty WordPress blog that will "one day" hold your membership site... maybe you've bought some resale rights content... Maybe you've recorded some interviews, videos, audios, or written some sort of report down that you one day want to put into a membership site... a site where someone pays you to get access. And then what happened? Life got in the way, right? Something came across that was more urgent and you had to switch gears to make money now... Or you came across something more exciting and you said... I'll put my current hopes and dreams on the "back burner" to try something else... I'm not sure about your current situation, but many people that are currently struggling with making money and creating a profitable membership site have this problem: -- not enough time, too distracted, too overwhelmed, too stressed out -- confusion about what to do next or what to "click" and generally getting FRUSTRATED with websites in general And even worse, the "sting" every time you check your internet marketing business on your phone or your computer. I'm sure you know what the sting is: there's a little of bit of that sting or that anxiety when you check your email, stats and sales and the number is either at zero or you wish it was way higher another bill for that web host, a quick charge for those handful of domain names you didn't use... should I continue renewing those domain names every year or cut some of them loose? And then what was I paying that yearly domain fee for? thinking about or browsing through the massive clutter of half finished projects, ideas, websites, and files... just a huge mess... sting wondering if this will all be worth it and feeling the "lifetime cost" of all the little e-books and things continues to pile up and sting... Can I tell you what my personal opinion is (which you can say is either right or wrong) about you, your upcoming membership site, and the future of you and your online business? You may have heard that you should narrow your focus down to just one website at a time, dedicate X days or X hours to getting it done... Maybe you've also heard that you should make the simplest, ugliest, most no-frills site as possible that DOES have a buy button, so you can get just one member and go from there... And... what is/was very reassuring to me is that after you FINISH that first money making site (FINISH meaning you get one single paying member) then not only does it become a lot easier to make your next site (because you've done it before), it's actually more fun because you now know this money making thing "works" and isn't just a hobby... So can I tell you what I "think" you should do today? Unsolicited Piece of Advice #1: Drain the Website Swamp Your previous websites, business expenses, half finished sites, etc. don't matter. If you have a mess of a folder, a mess of 10 half finished sites and you aren't making progress on any of them, isn't it time to clean up the mess and drain that huge "swamp" of stuff? Get some simplicity, clarity, focus? I'm no neat-freak, but if I sit down on the couch to relax and there's papers or "stuff" on the counter, I get huge amounts of anxiety... enough where I can't calm down and I can't think... not a good mental place to be. I'm the same way with any clutter on my desk OR if I have a ton of files on my desktop OR a ton of dangling unfinished projects... Put it all away. You can bring "the mess" back to the forefront after completing just one membership site... so how do you do that? Unsolicited Piece of Advice #2: Make it Pretty and Perfect "Tomorrow" Priorities. What do you need in order to take payments online? a domain name (.com name such as membershipcube.com that people can type in to find your site)

Morgana Rae, author of Financial Alchemy, gives us a healthier, and more productive, approach to handling our relationship with money in the following steps: Uncover the Root Cause of your financial situation (hint-it’s never really about money) Personify the root cause into your "Money Money" Get rid of your Money Monster by any means necessary Meet your new relationship with money—your "Money Honey" Dialogue with your Money Honey Take concrete, measurable action Resources Financial Alchemy: The Book (Book) Morgana Rae's Website and Blog (Website and Blog) Does Money Love You? (Website) Money Honey App (Website)

Tashayla Williams from Life Embodied Therapy, a substance abuse counselor, has created a revolutionary new movement for eliminating blocks and achieving fulfillment through artistic and musical forms of expression.

Bailey Richert from Virtual Summit School has made a living by creating online training courses based on website creation and product creation skills. She shares not only how she comes up with product ideas, but how she develops sales letters by re-using the "language" prospects give her. She also explains her 90-day process for running a virtual summit, including: Month 1: planning, speakers, branding Month 2: creating and recording interviews Month 3: launching, speaker followup, execution

Have you ever wanted to be more in control, be more determined, make better decisions, miss less opportunities and overcome fear of failure? Aaron Walker of View from the Top stops by to not only share his story with you, but how explain how you can find significance and authenticity through the power of the mastermind and an abundance mindset. Resources Free Personal Assessment (Website) View from the Top (Website) View from the Top Community (Website) Interview Valet Service (Podcast)

Motivational speaker Todd Lemense gives you the baby steps to lose your ego and eliminate distraction so you can live up to your full potential. Eliminate toxic people, become a better communicator, and practice better habits daily to improve your self-esteem.

Brian Basilico from B2B Interactive Marketing and the author of The Bacon System has a lot to tell you about content marketing. He records monocast or single-person podcast episodes, transforms them into written transcripts, and records expert interviews.

Gina Catalano, the author of Tandem Leadership, an important guide that tells you how to work with others, whether that's an equal business partner or a "number two." She'll help you identify your value system and find that complementary person who is neither your opposite nor your clone, so that you can stop holding yourself back and continue to scale your business to new levels. Resources TANDEM LEADERSHIP

Lindsey Anderson aka One Click Lindsey has the answers for you about how to build SEO and social media traffic, and run pay-per-click ads. She'll share the important components of a landing page and what to split test, for example, long or short copy. She also tells us about her 12-part autoresponder sequece to convert cold traffic into warm leads, and make sales.

Corey Porier from The Speaking Program and The Passion Cure has interviewed thousands of high-earners and high-achievers and discovered their commonalities. The top three qualities that he's seen over and over again are: 1. focus or the ability to go all-in: take that single pass and say "no" to most ideas 2. life-long learners and leaders: successful people can sift through the ocean of information to find that small amount of wisdom 3. live with passion: successful people have found their purpose

Cythnia Stine from EGrowthPartners is an expert Amazon seller and she wants to help you avoid the loss of your Amazon seller account. Cynthia explains how to build buyer trust, get reviews, keep your account in good standing, and even re-instate your account if necessary.

If you're not measuring the metrics in your business, then you don't know where you're at! Scott Gombar explains how he uses tools such as Google Analytics, HubSpot, and the Google Search Console to increase search engine rankings, organic traffic, conversions, and therefore sales.

Adam Force from Change Creator Magazine tells us how to be a social entrepreneur, which means we don't only make a profit, but make an impact and cause social change.

Damon Damarr from My Lucid Credit tells us how to obtain your credit report (and therefore check your credit score), and clean your credit yourself, which can mean lower interest rates and more opportunities (and options) for you.

Kurt Elster from EtherCycle and E-Commerce Bootcamp (coupon code ROBERTPLANK) tells us about Shopify, an easy platform to setup an e-commerce store and take payments. He walks us through a case studies of one of his clients, Everest Bands and the steps they took to setup their e-commerce presence: 1. Create Shopify account (14-day trial) 2. Setup payment options 3. Configure shipping 4. Products 5. Categories 6. Theme 7. Copywriting & Unique Selling Proposition

Dr. Joe Martin from Real Men Connect talks about being a positive role model for success. You must question the order or priority of your values with your Creator, with your spouse of partner, with your children, with others, and your calling. Many people see success as a black-and-white proposition and how it relates to their occupation (job), compensation (money), education, and reputation. Instead, redefine them by asking these four questions: 1. Am I leading my family? 2. Am I loving others sacrificially? 3. Am I leaving a legacy? 4. Am I teaching other men?

Michael Ross from Mainstream Life Solutions and author of A Clear View: Unleashing the Power of a Positive Self-Image wants people to live full, impactful lives. He says that if we can find optimism, it will overcome negativity, give us a better perspective, and lead to better self-esteem. You must improve your values, choices, and your destiny. We are not our thoughts or our history. Business is just people, people are just business, and people are of value.

Kelly Roach, the Unstoppable Entrepreneur, understands that you might be lacking knowledge, lacking sales expertise, and that you're probably overwhelmed. She wants you to package yourself to get clients, fill in your gaps by finding the right resources, and limit consumpting by identifying your "why." Even Olympic athletes have coaches to get feedback, discover blind spots, and assess readiness.

Get ready to hear Michael Jackness from Ecommerce Crew tell the story about how he went from one success to another: from affiliate marketing online poker, to buying and selling domains, to running an e-commerce business.

Ric Thompson from Done For You Solutions wants to know... do you want more time in your life? How about more money and freedom? Outsourcing, outtasking, and creating systems will get you to where you need to go. Dream it, think it out, task and break it down, and then do it -- hire someone faster, cheaper, or better so you can leverage those 24 hours in your day over and over again. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Our guest today is Ric Thompson. He's the CEO and Founder of Done For You Solutions. His website is DoneForYouSolutions.com and he's helping small businesses around the world put into action the principles he teaches every day as far as outsourcing, as far as getting more leverage in the day, as far as improving the operations of your small businesses. We're going to have a lot of fun, we're going to talk about a lot of ways that everyone listening can get more done in less time and have more fun and remove themselves from the business, so how are things today, Ric? Ric Thompson: Things are fantastic, Robert. Great to be here. Robert Plank: Awesome, I'm glad you're here. As far as what it is you do and as far as outsourcing, what would... Just to make sure we're all on the same page, what is outsourcing and as far as outsourcing goes what makes you stand out, what makes you special? Ric Thompson: Great questions, thanks for that. There is some debate like a technical or legal definition of what outsourcing is. There's a blurring of the words of outsourcing and out-tasking. Without being too anal, shall we say, in general outsourcing is having other people get tasks done that are not inside your company. They're not you, they're not your employees, that you are going beyond those boundaries to get tasks done that have to get done for your business to grow and to succeed. Robert Plank: Okay, great, so then how do you stand out from everyone else who teaches this kind of thing? Ric Thompson: Great question and, of course, a lot of folks do. A lot of folks have heard about the Four-Hour Workweek and getting a virtual assistant. What I came to the realization of was before VAs and outsourcing really became the hot trend I had already been doing that. I had sworn off having employees years ago for a variety of reasons and realized rapidly that you can't rely upon one person to do all the things that need to get done in today's modern world of technology, of business building, of marketing. You've got to have a team. Whether you have... I used to have employees, I had a team, I got away from that, went into the outsourcing and found it was exactly the same thing, it didn't matter. One virtual assistant couldn't do everything. When I started Done For You Solutions back a few years ago I said, okay, I'm going to build this company based upon what I know what works for me which is let's get a team going. Instead of the virtual assistant company I'm a virtual team company. I've got web developers, I've got graphic designers, I've got, yes, virtual assistants, too, and I've got coordinators to help the clients move all that forward. The idea is that with another company if you have a single hole that you need to fill and a VA can fill it, great. For us we fill a wide range of those day-to-day holes, if you will, for website work, for research work or customer support work. Again just a wide range of that, that worker B did A type of stuff, so hit the button and get an entire team instead of having to build yourself one by one. Robert Plank: That's cool and that sounds like... If you hire all these little specialists as opposed to the jack of all trades person then that way you have the best people for each job. You have the best writers, or the best graphic designers, or the best virtual assistants and things like that and because... First of all because you have this team of specialists then you can get the best of everything. The other side of that is that you also don't have to risk your business on some stranger,

Wouldn't it be great if you could tap into a supercomputer and make any decision or solve any problem quicky and easily? You can, and it's called your subconscious mind! Amy Coello stops by the program to tell us how to dream better, remember our dreams, and even set ourselves up for lucid dream, so we can make money while we sleep. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Amy Coello is going to be talking to us about spiritual dream interpretation, and she is the wife of Robert Coello and the mother of 11 children. A successful author, teacher and business owner with 20 years experience in the legal field. She's currently filming the show "Journey into your dreams" so Amy welcome to the podcast. Amy Coello: Thank you so much for having me. Robert Plank: Glad that you're here so just to kind of kick us off I have two quick questions for you, but I think they're easy questions. The first question is why are dreams so important for us, and the second question is what makes you stand out as opposed to anyone else who does this dream interpretation stuff. Amy Coello: Well they're important because... I've been teaching on dreams for well over a decade I traveled internationally. I've studied every culture out there. I've studied the psychology of dream interpretation the young and the old and the understanding having a tour of a brighter understanding, and everything in between. I really wanted to hone in and grab on what is this. I've always been a dreamer. Of course everybody is a dreamer. One time I had a dream that was so specific and it actually came to pass. It flipped me out. I was like wait a minute there's got to be something to this. I kind of honed in on that, and when I realize I could interpret dreams it was like this parabolic language. This hidden language. I kind of dove in this study and culture. I come from the corporate world. I am in more analytical. I've been in law for 24 years. I ran my own company for a number of years it's kind of like a odd change for me to move from corporate over to spiritual understanding and I think that's what makes me different in that I combine the two. A lot of corporate people either teach from a corporate aspect, and spiritual people teach from a spiritual aspect. Very rarely do you find that type of market where it's both We're starting to see this kind of a up-rise people in the corporate world saying hey there's something bigger out there why don't I take my spiritualism and bring into what I do every single day. Dreams are important because they give divine guidance and divine wisdom, and they will actually give you very specific information about what to do next. They will guide you. I run a mentorship group of corporate people. The mentorship group is called dreams for launch. It's basically gain your dream assignment project into intervention, and bringing that to a place where you launch it. Putting a action play into those dreams. I'm giving an example because it's so interesting because just last... three nights ago I had this dream. It was a very very specific and very clear. I was directed to do a info product on the freedom spirit which basically means how do we walk in love, peace, joy, patients kindness gentleness and self-control. How do we stay in that and not I've home at 5 o'clock in the evening and somebody cut us off and we draw the finger and start cussing. How do we stay in that so that we can hear relevantory information. The moment you step out of that peace love Joy... the moment you step out of that you don't hear anything. Really you're just like fair game to lack of control, chaos, stuff like that. In the dream, I was given this dream and it was a very specific info product to sell and in the dream I was given the introduction. The dream told me, God told, me circle the introduction around perfect love cast not fear. I woke up and I'm like hey that's the next info product. Here we go how can I lose? I think that's why it's important because we have ...

John Lagoudakis quickly rose in the ranks as a top 100 Clickbank affiliate and has since transitioned into authority sites, list building, and automated webinars. Listen in as he tells us how to break into niches and attain absolute focus while making money online. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: John Lagoudakis is one of Australia's leading internet marketers and back in 2007, he stumbled across affiliate marketing, and within two years was able to go from zero dollars online to being one of ClickBank's top 100 affiliates worldwide. He's been featured in the New York Times best seller, Get Rich Click, list for his book, and has authored several books and has a long running internet marketing podcast. Today, John helps businesses to get more exposure online, more leads, and to make more sales. How are things today, John? John Lagoudakis: Great. Thank you, Robert. Appreciate you having me on your show today. Robert Plank: Awesome. I'm glad you're here and I'm sure that having you on, we'll be able to fill in the gaps for a lot of people. Your whole business and everything you do is through this process called ClickBank. Is that right? John Lagoudakis: That's how I got started. It was a great place to start. There's many ways to get started online. I chose ClickBank. That was really big back in 2007. A lot of people were making good money from it. You didn't have to have your own product. You can promote other people's products, their commissions, excellent. Anywhere between 50 to 75% of the sale is yours. Sometimes even 100%. That was rare. It was easy to promote, too. Back in 2007, you could go onto Google AdWords. You had heaps of traffic. It didn't cost you too much back then. You could do it back then. You can't do that now. It was just very easy. I opened up a Google account, promote the ClickBank products. You could see your commissions instantly. I was totally guilty of this. I think many people are guilty of this. We log into our affiliate accounts and want to see, have we made a sale yet? Have we made a sale yet? It was a fun, easy, way to get started and I had success with it. Robert Plank: Awesome. A couple of things about that, one is that I'm kind of hearing that a few times you're mentioning that maybe in this day and age, is ClickBank still a good option for people to use nowadays? What's changed in the past 10 years or so with ClickBank? John Lagoudakis: ClickBank is still a fantastic place to get started. How you promote your ClickBank products is very different today. As I mentioned, you can't use Google AdWords as an affiliate. You can create your own... Sorry, I should clarify, too. What I mean by that is, I was sending people from Google that would see my ad, that would click on my ad, and they would go straight to the product sales page on ClickBank. It was just my direct affiliate link. You can't do that today, but what you can do is send traffic to your own website where maybe you're reviewing products or you're an authority site and you're recommending products. Whether through your email list or directly on your website through links and banners. You can do it that way, send traffic to your own site and then from there, send them to ClickBank. Robert Plank: That makes sense. What you're saying is basically, just to make sure everyone is all on the same page here, ClickBank is this platform where anyone who wants to sell anything, make a website and then take payments and deliver a product, can deliver that in ClickBank. The power of what you're saying is that they have a huge network of affiliates. If anyone has something to sell on ClickBank, then there's all these affiliates already ready to promote, already plugged in. Then from the point of view of anyone who's first getting started, looking to make that first dollar online, they can register with ClickBank as an affiliate and promote something there. Having said all that, what you're saying is in the past ten years or so,

Dr. D Anthony Miles from MDICorpVEntures.com has 20 years of industry experience in branding, followup marketing and customer service and can tell you how to get that blind customer loyalty despite the growing competition. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: We're here with Dr. D. Anthony Miles, he's a PHD and entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Miles Development Industries Corporation, a consulting practice and venture capital acquisition firm. Dr. D. Anthony Miles is an award winning professor, a researcher, a leading expert who provides expert testimony, he's a radio talk show host, and executive producer of Game On Business Talk Radio Show. He's nationally known and has a new book out. He's a best selling author of Risk Factors and Business Models: Understanding the Five Forces of Entrepreneurial Risk, I'm super excited to talk about that. How are things today Dr. D? D. Anthony Miles: Great, thank you for having me today Robert. I really appreciate it. Robert Plank: Cool. I'm glad you're here. Can we talk about how you're different, just to start us off? Sure, there's lots of PHDs and lots of people who say here's what you should do in business, but what makes you stand out as opposed to everyone else? D. Anthony Miles: I think what makes me stand out from a lot of academics is I have over 20 years of industry experience to back up my academic work. I would say I'm active in the business world. I'm always doing things, I'm always doing partnerships, I'm working on different ventures. I would say that I have more of a duality to my skills and experiences because of what I do outside of the academic world as well as what I do in the academic world. I'm also a statistician, so I'm always working on statistical things and looking at different things. That's what gives me an edge over, say someone who's just a professor. Robert Plank: Okay. Yeah. Either someone who's over educated or has the experience but not the education, not the way to express it and make it easy for others. D. Anthony Miles: Absolutely. I think nowadays colleges and universities are looking for people with an industry experience as well as academic. You probably went to college like I did and you most likely taken a class from a person who's never had a real job, only works out of the TA and then they're trying to tell you about business strategy or they're trying to tell you about industry things. Robert Plank: Oh yeah. D. Anthony Miles: Sometimes I think business students need a little bit more from there professors. They need someone who's actually been out in the jungle, who's actually had to learn the school of hard knocks as well as the school of education, all of the above critical. Robert Plank: That's cool. Yeah, me in college, I was a computer science major and that's an area, that's a field where in the real world things change drastically with computers, with programming languages and Facebook. Computers get faster and all of this and when you're dealing with a professor who's in his ivory tower, still kind of teaching the same thing he taught 30 years ago really doesn't cut it as opposed to someone who had the same duality as you. Those are my favorite kind of teachers because they would know what to say but then they would go off on a little bit of a tangent or use a real example or a case study. I thought, "Okay, great. This is really reinforcing the long term, the ever green academic stuff," but also the nooks and crannies, being in the trenches, being in the jungle as you put it. D. Anthony Miles: Oh, absolutely. One of the critical factors as why I won an award as an adjunct professor. The reason that I was strategic and how I taught my students is I could always relate something from my experience. I worked in retail, I use to be a loan officer, I actually used to be a collector. You can't be a good loan officer unless you're a good collector. I was out there in the jungle. I re-pod a car,

Focus now and expand your brain later. Audrey Bell-Kearney from HerTube.tv shares her unique story with us and tells us how she created a marketed a line of plus sized dolls and created her own content distribution network. HerTube.tv Dasia Doll "What's Your Big Idea?" Book Talk Business With Audrey Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Audrey Bell-Kearney is the founder and CEO of HerTube Media Network, which is a media marketing production distribution and consulting firm that curates and produces digital content for clients and helps them get exposure for their business. Now, Audrey sounds like a pretty amazing woman. She created a plus-sized fashion doll. She has a weekly radio show. She has a documentary. She has all kind of cool stuff. How are things today Audrey? Audrey Bell-Kearney: Hey, everything is wonderful today. It's a beautiful day down here in Georgia. How about with yourself? Robert Plank: Super beautiful in California. About to take a walk a little bit later, but in the meantime, just enjoying the entrepreneurial journey and all that good stuff. As we get rocking and rolling here, what would you say makes you stand out from the crowd? What makes Audrey Bell-Kearney special? Audrey Bell-Kearney: I think, for me, it's my ability to be a good listener to people and help them clarify what they're doing, help them clarify the journey that they're on because I find that- and I didn't know I was a good listener until I actually went to a job interview one time, at Comcast as a matter of fact, and the interview person asked me, "What do you think your greatest skill is?" And I said, "Listening," and she said "You are the only person that answered that question correctly." She said, "It's rare that I find somebody who say, 'listening.'" I would say that listening and helping people pretty much clarify what they want to do with themselves, with their business, with their lives, and things like that. Robert Plank: Would you say that this whole thing about being a good listener, is this just something that comes naturally to you or do you see other people kind of messing up? Is it just a matter of just slowing down, being 100% present? What's the trick to being a good listener? Audrey Bell-Kearney: I think being 100% present and really being concerned about what someone is saying to you, because a lot of times people are talking and you're not listening. For me, if someone comes to me with a problem, I'm present. I'm there. When I'm there, I get to be able to find out exactly what it is they're going through. My mind is so weird because it starts planning out, while they're talking to me, it starts planning out the solution right away. I didn't really recognize this until people started saying to me, "Oh my God! You're so good at this. You're so good at this." It was just something that came natural for me. It's kind of like I'm a listener, and then I play it out. I can figure it out in a picture in my head, like this is what you should be doing. I remember there was a gentleman who told me I was a clairaudient and I never knew what that meant. He said, "Clairaudients are people that listen. They learn by listening. They learn by hearing what people are saying." He said to me, "They're really to the point. They really don't like to beat around the bush. Get right to the point." It was so funny because I said, "Oh my God. That must be what the problem is with my daughter and my husband because they like to tell a story, and they want to tell you a long story. For me, I'm like, "Okay, what's the point? Let's get to the point." I think it's something that I was pretty much born with, didn't recognize it for a long time, but people kept telling me, "You're so good at that." Robert Plank: I mean, if you're good at it, just go ahead and play to your strength. I appreciate that and I think that the average person probably doesn't pay that much attention. I think about in a lot of the conversations that I have,...

Could you use some extra money to scale your online business? Do you want to test the marketplace demand for your physical product? If so, Kickstarter and Indiegogo are your tools and Zach Smith from Funded Today is your guide to raising capital for your business using crowdfunding. Funded Today Crowdfunding Success Matrix Funded Today Blog Crowdfunding Cashback Network Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Zach Smith is going to talk to us today about crowdsourcing. Now Zach is a serial entrepreneur, never having had a real job his entire life. He is always starting, selling, running, and managing businesses. Zach loves helping others turn their dreams, ideas, and inspirations into successful companies, and this passion lead to his creation of Funded Today LLC, which is America's most successful crowdfunding firm, and the largest provider of crowdfunding marketing services worldwide. I'm excited. Can we talk about it? So you guys strap yourselves in. Zach, how are things today? Zach Smith: Doing real well. Thanks for having me on your show today, Robert. Robert Plank: Cool, I'm glad you're here, because this is a new topic that I don't know much about, but I've seen it kind of take off. I've seen it get popularity. So crowdfunding, what the heck is it? Zach Smith: So crowdfunding is basically a way to raise money, that over the last few years has become extremely popular. There's a lot of different types of crowdfunding, but we'll just cut out all of that. The part of crowdfunding that we focusing on is called rewards-based crowdfunding, and that means that people essential preorder new ideas on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. So let's say I've invented a cool new watch, and this watch does all kinds of fancy features. I might have a prototype of just one such watch. Well I film a video, I talk about this watch, I talk about how I want to bring it into mass production, and I tell people for $250 you can preorder this watch that I have on my wrist, and I'll make one for you just like the one I have here, and then people pay $250 to get this watch. There's no catches, there's no strings attached. You don't have to give up any equity in your business, and people do this to the tune of millions and millions of dollars. Funded Today, like you mentioned in your intro, has done that more so than anybody else in the world for thousands of different inventors now. Robert Plank: Awesome. So you're the guy to talk to. I've seen every now and then... Before the show started recording we were talking a little like, Indiegogo and Kickstarter, people have used that to bankroll movies and TV shows and stuff like that. Plus on the practical side, every now and then I'll see something. I'll see someone will invent a camera that allows them to talk to their pets and dispense pet food remotely. Zach Smith: I saw that one, yeah. Robert Plank: Yeah, that's the most... That's the one that comes to mind the most when I think of crowdfunding and Kickstarter type of stuff, but it's also practical enough, something like a multimillion dollar movie and stuff like that. Using the watch example, someone says "I'm going to design the watch." So what are the steps then? I guess they sign up for a site like Kickstarter, they make a webpage. I guess maybe they can make a prototype or a graphic, and then people can preorder the watch. So the thing that I was curious about as you were explaining it, let's say that you, Zach Smith, say you can preorder this watch for $200. I preorder the watch and then what happens, because I've seen some of these say we need a hundred backers or something like that. What happens if they don't get adequate funding for that project? Zach Smith: Yeah, great question. As an entrepreneur, you want to know how much it's going to cost you to build this watch, so let's say that your MOQ, your minimum order quantity, is 1000 watches. You've talked to manufacturers, you've talked to suppliers,

Luke Bender from LukeBender.com shares his Instagram expertise. Instagram is a super popular social network (500 million users, second only to Facebook), where users can only post pictures as content. He shares his 30 minute per day strategy to get the most out of this high traffic social network: post between "every other day" and "once a day" research hashtags: find huge Instagram pages similar to yours and copy those tags follow people to get followers (you're limited to 60 per hour but shoot for 100 per day) Resources Typorama (generate quote pictures) Later app (for posting) Iconosquare (analytics) Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Luke Bender is going to talk to us about Instagram. He's an Instagram marketing expert. He helps businesses and online entrepreneurs build a targeted audience, generate leads, and make sales using Instagram. Luke, what's happening with Instagram today? Luke Bender: Oh exciting things are happening. Robert Plank: Cool. I'm glad to hear and I can't wait to get all the details on that. Instagram. I know next to nothing about it. I know about Facebook, Twitter, maybe a little bit of Pinterest. I know that Instagram is a place where I guess people share photos and they can like stuff and there's hashtags, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. Could you explain to us what is Instagram exactly and how does it fit in with Facebook and Twitter and all these other platforms? Luke Bender: Yeah. Instagram is a huge social media platform. It, I think, just recently reached 500 million users, so it's about second to Facebook. It's strictly photos, so you upload photos and it goes into a feed. It's a great place to just connect with your audience and build an audience and grow your business. I'm really excited about it and I think the future of Instagram still looks good. Robert Plank: Awesome. It seems to me like one of those weird sites, sort of like Snapchat or something where maybe I'm too old to understand it. Like you said, 500 million users, and I see on some of these sites where there's a lot of people using them, a lot of people just really cleaning up on it. Okay, so Instagram. You can only post photos. In the context of us, internet marketers, business owners, stuff, people who have things to sell, what do we do there? Because I can understand if you're Kanye West or Kim Kardashian or like a celebrity, but if we're a business, what kind of photos are we posting on Instagram? Luke Bender: Yeah, definitely. It is interesting because it's mostly photos. You actually can't post a link in the caption. You only get one link on Instagram and that is in the bios. When you're on the main page viewing someone's Instagram page, you get one link there. It is interesting in that aspect. I would say if anyone's creating educational content or content around a certain niche, you can take like, what I really like to do is take quotes. If you're writing blog posts, you just take original quotes that you create and you can kind of use apps, there's one I use called Typorama, so you can actually create quote pictures within this app and those do really well, especially if they have to do with your niche and you're providing value or motivation or inspiration, any type of those pieces of content. Then I like to, if anyone's building an audience around their own personal brand, I really like to encourage people to give a little bit of their personal life and actually really establish that I know I can trust with their followers because I think that's key when people start following you. You want them to really know who you are. That way, you can engage with them and they'll be more interested in your stuff. Mix it up between, I really like quotes and then personal life stuff. One thing to keep in mind is that content on Instagram does need to be good pictures because it's primarily pictures. It needs to be good looking stuff. I would just encourage people to maybe learn how to do a bit of ...

Jill Lublin from Publicity Crash Course (phone number: 415-883-5455) tells us how to use publicity to heighten our profile and increase our own visibility. It's done with press releases, local business journals, and fitting into the news. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Jill Lublin is an international speaker on the topics of radical influence, publicity, networking, and referrals. She's the author of 3 best selling books, "Get Noticed, Get Referrals," "Guerrilla Publicity," and, "Networking Magic." Her latest book, "Profit of Kindness," comes out soon. She's a master strategist on how to position your business for more profitability, and visibility in the marketplace. Glad to have you here Jill, how are things? Jill Lublin: I am really doing great, thank you Robert, glad to be here too. Robert Plank: Cool, so I understand we're talking about publicity and PR, is that right? Jill Lublin: Well yeah, because the truth is everybody needs it no matter what business they're in. Robert Plank: Right, and I think that we all fall in this trap, and I think that I fall in this trap, except for the times that I remember to get myself out of it. It's really tempting to kind of be the artist, and I say, "Okay, well I have my skill. Maybe I'm good at making websites, making products, making videos." I think, "Oh, wouldn't it be so great if I just made a website, and everyone just somehow found me? Everyone somehow noticed me, everyone found me and bought from me?" Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, unless you have a secret, unless there's some kind of secret way around that. Jill Lublin: Well as you say wouldn't it be so great if? Yes, it would be so great if that were the truth. The truth is that every business owner, whatever phase you're in, in business. Starting midway, halfway, 10 years to even 20 years of business, you need publicity to get your word out there. It's really key, and that can be simple things like having ongoing visibility building activities where you're networking, and have a great message. It's really important that people know your name, and have familiarity and trust with name recognition. Whether it's of your product, or your business. Whether you're a brick and mortar, or a consultant or coach. Publicity applies to all. Robert Plank: Know, like, and trust? Jill Lublin: Know, like, and trust, that's really what it does. You're building familiarity in the marketplace, you're building credibility, you're building visibility, you're building what I like to call the, "I've heard of him somewhere syndrome." That people know who you are is essential, absolutely. Robert Plank: When we're talking about publicity, just to make sure that everyone's on the same page and even to make sure that I'm on the same page, what does publicity entail? What are the sub categories or the actions with that? Jill Lublin: Well a couple things. I have a very broad view of publicity. I wrote the book, "Guerrilla Publicity," so my feeling is publicity happens from the minute you walk out your door. You're doing publicity, so what it entails is having a great message that's consistent, and persistent in the marketplace that people understand and appreciate what you do. Even if they don't appreciate it, they certainly at least understand it and know it. I'm really a big believer in what I like to call, "5 year old language," that making sure that people are talking in 5 year old language, and putting your message in front of people as if it's an ongoing theme so that you're consistent. That's really a key to success is consistency in the marketplace, big key. Robert Plank: What is this 5 year language? Does that mean that I'm using the same words that I used 5 years ago? Jill Lublin: No, 5 year old language. Robert Plank: Okay, so explaining things so that a 5 year old could understand it? Jill Lublin: Simple. Exactly, being very simple. Keeping things simple, that's a big clue that you're mastering your message.

Do you want to make more sales and money? Do you want a larger following, and most importantly, do you want an easier time growing your business? If so, Alysha Rushton from GetClientsWithSpeaking.com shares the seven steps to landing clients and sales from webinars: 1. Connect with your audience: intend to give quality information 2. Engage with your audience: open with a question or a quote 3. Tell your story: but avoid a lack of overstanding and avoid over-telling that story 4. Share content: teach people something, help solve a top-of-mind problem or little piece -- pull out one part of the offer and explain it, get them hungry but don't overfill, go deep but not wide 5. Amazing free gift: solve another problem or go deeper -- because you're here, it's free 6. Give offer: "another tip" 7. Wrap-up: the rest, Q&A, call to action -- information alone is not transformation, link to checkout page at the beginning and end Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Alysa Rushton us the women's voice igniter and six figure coaching mentor. She's a master certified public speaking instructor and sales coach, who teaches heart-centered entrepreneurs how to craft, package and promote their authentic message and shine their light so they can magnetically attract their ideal clients. She's the founder and CEO of Magnetic Messengers Academy and the creator of popular programs like Get Clients with Speaking and Profitable Workshops that Rock. Alysa's clients and students go on to do great things like publish books, speak on TED stages, become featured experts on the news and more. I can't to hear about how we can all jump on that train. How are things today Alysa? Alysa Rushton: They're great, thank you Robert for that great introduction. I'm super happy to be here today. Robert Plank: Cool. I'm glad that you made it. Can you tell us about this public speaking thing and what it is compared to the other ways of getting yourself out there, and what makes you special to talk about this kind of thing? Alysa Rushton: Okay. Well, let me address the public speaking thing first. I think you sort of talked about makes me special, but I'll address that in a second. The first thing is is that public speaking's really fascinating in that today we live in this really online world and it's very fast paced and we're all in this online business game and we want to get clients. What's really amazing is that public speaking is such a brilliant way to help you get clients because no other way can you actually connect with people and really let them feel your energy and experience you and what it's like to not necessarily work with you, but what it's like to be with you. What I see happen a lot in today's online business world is that many people are putting out free gifts and this content and that content but when you show up either on a webinar or in a live event, it's really something remarkable and people are with you for a longer time. They really can get a sense of you and what makes you special, and therefore you can start to really attract in your ideal clients which believe is what makes a brilliant business. Robert Plank: Awesome. When we're talking about public speaking, did I hear you right in that when you talk about public speaking, you're counting not just live events but also online webinars and things like that in that whole mix? Alysa Rushton: Indeed I am, yeah. Robert Plank: Cool. I'm glad that that's part of the topic here. I was just thinking as you were explaining that to... I don't know, maybe like seven, eight years ago when, I'm a computer programmer and I like to keep to myself and not talk to anyone, things like that. Then when good webinar is picking up and having all these online launches and these kind of things are picking up, I realized that I had to step it up and if I remained hiding in my little cubby hole, then I was going to get past over again and again. I would just have competitors outdo me over and over again unless ...

If you want to grow your business, the easiest way to do that (the low hanging fruit) is to increase your conversions. Mike Caldwell, the Marketing Medic, tell us how you're leaving money on the table with your business and what you should do to make more sales with your websites. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Can you tell us about what is it that you do on internet, how you got started, and with this funnel so specifically, what makes you stand out? What makes you different and special with funnels? Mike Caldwell: I think the first question was how I got started, and I got started because I actually met Russell Brunson, the founder of ClickFunnels and DotCom Secrets, on a bouncy castle obstacle course in the Caribbean Sea. We became friends. I found out what he was doing. I'm an entrepreneur. I had some home-based businesses that I needed to promote more heavily online, and I ended up enrolling in one of his mastermind programs. I was able to learn directly from Russell Brunson, the master himself. One of the first things we did is I live off-grid here at the place we call the Ark, and Russell built a funnel for me. It wasn't converting very well. I was responsible for the traffic. I was getting insane traffic coming into the funnel, but it wasn't really converting. Most funnels don't convert right out of the box. They require numerous iterations to make sure you have the offer right, the messaging right, so that it converts. Before we were able to do that, word got out that I was ridiculously good at driving traffic from Facebook. I was hired by a Bootcamp Gym to drive traffic for them. I was driving traffic. Again, the same thing happened. I drove traffic to their website, but it wasn't converting. They allowed me to rebuild their entire Bootcamp funnel for them, and our first month we spend 300 dollars in Facebook ads. We did 11,000 dollars in gross revenue. Robert Plank: Awesome. Mike Caldwell: From there, things snowballed. What I've always done is I always... I'm a paramedic. I was a paramedic and firefighter for 12 years. I was actually Canada's top paramedic for training. I was the area ambulance manager for the helicopter base in Ottawa, Canada. I had more skills than probably anyone else in the country, but what I learned is that it's the ABC's airway greeting circulation, the basics that save lives. I apply that same foundation to all my marketing campaigns, and I find that by sticking to the basics, that accounts for 80 percent of your traffic and sales. Robert Plank: Would you say that... Was that the big reason why you were able to turn around that one client's funnel? Like you said, that... You said that, didn't Brunson build a funnel for you, and it first didn't convert? You had to go back to the basics, follow the steps, and see from the beginning what wasn't working? Mike Caldwell: That's right, yeah. That's where I've come up with... I wish it was 3, but it's 4 things. 3 would follow my ABCs, but for a landing page funnel to work, I think you need 4 things. The first thing you need is an offer. What a lot of people don't understand is that they want to provide the offer that they want to give instead of the offer that their audience wants to receive. If you can do your research and know what the audience wants and create that for them, then you're going to be in a lot better shape than if you have some document that you prepared 4 years ago that you've never done anything with. "Hey, I'll just give this away for free, because I already have it." That doesn't have the value that's required to get somebody to take that next step into ascending into your funnel. The first thing you need is the offer, and that offer has to come with a promise. What pain does that offer promise to relieve? The second thing is a promise. If I give you my email, then you're basically promising me that you're going to relieve me of some sort of pain. It's great for me to promise that to you,

Stop listening to everyone and just choose three mentors! That's what Johnson Emmanuel from Clients Attraction has to say about internet marketing and success. Johnson changes businesses in three ways: optimize for revenue, optimize for freedom/lifestyle, and increase impact. Johnson shares his initial successes online, his role models, and the various ways he increases conversions in funnels such as decreasing cart abandonment or increasing follow-ups. Resources High Ticket Client Attraction Blueprint (Podcast Guest) Emmanuel Johnson coaching (Skyrocket Your Revenue) Nick Unsworth: Life on Fire (Website)

Steve Lubetkin is a baby boomer who's reinvented himself through blogs, Twitter, podcasting, audio/video recording, and documentary videos. You too can succeed in podcasting if you avoid talking too much "inside baseball", if you use checklists AND if you become a podcast producer instead of focusing solely on your own podcast. The Business of Podcasting: Steve and Donna's book Being the Media Trafalgar Communcations (Donna Papacosta's website) Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Steve Lubetkin is the managing partner of Lubetkin Media Companies, LLC and he is widely recognized as a seasoned technology futurist. The Philadelphia Business Journal has named him as one of their social media stars for his work in podcasting. He's using technology for decades. He has included an email address on his business cards since 1988. We're going to talk about a lot of fun stuff, a lot of cool podcasting stuff, how are things today Steve? Steve Lubetkin: Real good Robert, thanks for having me on the podcast. Robert Plank: I'm glad to have you on, so can you tell us about who you are, what you do and what makes you stand out, what makes you different? Steve Lubetkin: Sure, I like to tell people I am a baby boomer who has reinvented himself. The economic crisis of the last decade are making that necessary for a lot of people and it happened to me about 12 years ago when I exited a 30 year corporate career doing public relations for large companies, and needed to find out what the next chapter was going to be. The likelihood of going back into a corporate job at that point was kind of small, so what I decided to do was to reinvent myself. The initial thought I had was to continue doing what I was doing which was providing public relations advice to senior corporate executives and that was a very, very competitive market so I decided to look for something a little bit less competitive where I would have a unique specialty. Because before I went into corporate PR I was a radio journalist and production engineer, I looked back at my radio roots and this was right about the time in 2004, 2005 when what we now call social media but back then called new media was coming up over the horizon and it was mostly blogs and a little bit of Twitter and podcasting. My wife pointed out podcasting to me because she heard a radio show about it, and I started listening to what people were producing and I realized immediately that producing radio shows for corporate clients could be a really good way for them to tell their story effectively in kind of a radio format. The problem is most of the people who were doing podcasts at the time were doing a pretty amateur job of it, and I recognized immediately that the tool could be used if the skillset of the person producing the podcast was at a more professional level. Because I had the radio background and had worked in news I sort of felt that I had the right tools and just needed to reeducate myself about recording and editing digitally because I grew up in the 1970s and 80s when most of the tools we used were analog. We recorded on magnetic recording tape, we edited by using a razor blade against that magnetic recording tape and you can't do that today, or you can but there's not too many people working that way. It's much more efficient to work digitally. Robert Plank: No more Scotch taped splice all those things together. Steve Lubetkin: No exactly, and that's exactly how it was done. I set myself up to learn how to do that and once I learned how to do that I started putting myself out as a podcast producer and we began to get some clients for that. Over the years the business has morphed several times. We do a lot of audio podcasting but we also have expanded into video. We do a lot of video podcasting and documentary style video, elevator pitch style videos and things like that. What really focused me on the podcasting piece was that it's portable and people can listen to it wherever they are,

Thoughts are information-carrying energy and Antonia Hall gives us the tools to use those thoughts to achieve balance, inner peace, find the joy zone, and even enjoy creative juiciness in every area of our businesses and everyday lives. You deserve the best in life! Antonia tells us how to use visualization to understand what you want and where your goals are, breath work for daily consistency and inner peace, and to treat yourself right to have enough downtime to reset. Antonia Hall: Official Website The Ultimate Guide to a Multi-Orgasmic Life by Antonia Hall Antonia on Twitter Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Today's guest is Antonia Hall. She's a renowned, award wining author, self-improvement guide and multi-orgasmic living expert. Her teachings offer ways to bring more pleasure, joy, creative flow and meaning into one's life in and out of the bedroom. This interview can go all kinds of different directions. How are things today, Antonia? Antonia Hall: Things are wonderful. How about yourself? Robert Plank: Super fantastic. Looking forward to the cool weekend but also had a great week. Could you tell us about who you are and what you do and what makes you different and special? Antonia Hall: I am an entrepreneur myself. I run a communications business and I am an award winning, best selling author. Robert Plank: Awesome. About what? Antonia Hall: Well, my book is the "Ultimate Guide to the a Multi-Orgasmic Life" and it's how to bring that joyful, creative juiciness that is there for the taking into every area of your life. Robert Plank: How do you do that? Antonia Hall: Well, you know, because your focused on entrepreneurs and it's wonderful. When you are an entrepreneur, it's ... hopefully, you're living your dream. You're doing what you love, you get to create for yourself, which is amazing. It also requires wearing a lot of hats and that can keep you super busy, so there are a lot of techniques in my book that help with balancing and mindset. Mindset and visualization are critical tools to use. Robert Plank: I agree with that and I think, I don't know, I didn't realize how important the mindset stuff was, especially in working from home and setting your own goals and motivating yourself. I didn't realize how important that was until maybe a few years ago. I just thought that it was either built in or I just had to wait until the productivity and the flow state and all the kind of stuff would click. Could you tell us about that mindset stuff and what's important specifically for happiness and for flow state and all that kind of cool stuff? Antonia Hall: Yeah, absolutely. For me, I find it so intriguing the physics behind it is that physicists have told us that the universe is comprised of a unifying substance of which we're all apart. The Eastern philosophy has told us that for thousands and thousands of years. That's important because thoughts are information carrying energy. David Bohm's hologram concept all tells us that every part of that whole is within each piece of us. We are apart of that and that means that if we can see ourselves as the co-creators that we are, you'll see how what you're thinking and what you believe to be true is mirrored in your everyday life. Robert Plank: In what kind of way? Antonia Hall: You've got to look at what's going right. There are a lot of things that can get thrown at you when you're an entrepreneur. Seeing those challenges as opportunities for growth will completely shift everything and put you back in the place of power. Robert Plank: Can you give me an example of that? Either with maybe your self or someone else where maybe you or they were stuck in a certain kind of way of thinking or certain kind of state or just couldn't crack a problem, and then you used some of these tools to get them to where it needs to go? Antonia Hall: Absolutely. If you have a mindset that tells you that life is going to be full of challenges,

If you want to change your results, then you'll need to either change your actions, or the way you THINK about those results, if not both! Jay Roberts, creator of the DeBox Method, has a new way to deal with struggles, knee-jerk reactions and those daily emotional reactions such as doubt, fear, anger, etc. Each of those potential problems are "boxes" that can be dealt with by leaning into that discomfort, staying with it, and stay with it until the box is empty. Feel the fear, use the fear, then move on with comfort. Debox Revolution Website Debox Revolution on Facebook Debox Revolution: THe Book Debox Revolution on Kickstarter Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Our very special guest today is Jay Roberts. Jay's the founder of this thing called Deboxing. It's a revolutionary self-help method that will free your mind from trauma, anxiety and emotional hangups and stress, leaving you free to live your life, have inner peace and be the real, more confident, happier you. I'm down for all of those things. Those things all sound awesome. How are things today, Jay? Jay Roberts: They're really good, Robert, thank you. Thanks for having me on. Robert Plank: I'm glad you're here. Could you tell everyone who you are and what makes you different and special? Jay Roberts: Wow, yes. Us English, normally not very good at sort of tooting our horn so to speak. Robert Plank: You're all about the self-aggrandizing, right? Self-deprecation. Jay Roberts: That's kind of our way isn't it, the Brits. We tend to hide behind screens a little more. My name is Jay Roberts. I am 44, currently as we're recording this. I'm married. I've got two children. A son who's nine and a daughter who is seven. I've kind of ended up in this field not by design actually, but I was in the home business field for a long time. The fact that you're kind of talking to home business owners resonates with me because I've done a lot of that stuff. Really, over the years, have ... I always kind of fell short. I was kind of pushing. I had some mini-successes, but kind of always fell short, like invisible shackles holding me back. It was that that lead me to kind of stumble upon this natural ability that we all have that's kind of changed everything for me in a short space of time. Robert Plank: What natural ability is that? Jay Roberts: We all have a natural ability to psychologically self-heal. An ability to remove the root cause of our emotional struggle. Let's face it, as home business entrepreneurs trying to make a go of it, the self-doubt, the naysayers, the peer group, the wife or the husband don't quite believe what you believe. There's always those elements of doubt where you just keep on doing yourself, almost like you're proving everybody right. I think in the end when you're looking to try and to make a go of something, make a success, of course, we talk about mindset. The moment I used to hear mindset, I used to switch off. I don't know how you feel about like the term mindset. What do you feel about the term? Robert Plank: It was something for where, I don't know, like five or ten years at least I would always hear about this mindset thing. I'd think, "Oh great, that's like Tony Robin stuff or there's going to be some guy shouting at me or telling me to jump up and down." As soon as I started listening to some of it a little bit, I didn't go crazy, I just kind of used it like every couple of weeks. If I felt like I was kind of in a little bit of a slump or could use a boost, it was crazy. I think that what I had to do was get to the point where I could accept all the ... almost like the borderline hokey stuff, the foofy-doofy stuff. Once I was able to kind of take that in, then it's something where I go back to that, not everyday, but every few weeks if I need either a boost or to get back to being a happy person I guess. Jay Roberts: I think the problem is a lot of it ... like I call it woo-woo fluffy stuff.

Doren Aldana from My Testimonial Engine tells us about an easy to use tool that will help any business (online or offline) get more reviews from customers on strategic review sites such as Yelp, Google+, Facebook, and more. This tool also cleans up negative reviews and even prevents bad reviews from happening as much as possible. Doren unpacks the ways he transforms 20% of any businesses' database into rave reviews and referrals using what he calls the "magic wand letter." Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Doren Aldana is the CEO and President of MortgageMarketingCoach.com and the Founder of My Testimonial Engine, the number one software for helping service-based local businesses collect and share client reviews on autopilot. As a result of his clients' extraordinary success, he has won the prestigious Best Industry Service Provider Award three years in a row. That's pretty cool. Welcome to the show, Doren. Doren Aldana: Hey, thanks so much for having me man. Appreciate it. Robert Plank: I'm glad you're hear. Could you tell us about what it is that you do and what makes you stand out, what makes you different and special? Doren Aldana: Yeah man. I'm a father of four, the fab four. I'm a husband. I'm an entrepreneur. I've got a couple of businesses. One we provide marketing solutions to mortgage professionals at MortgageMarketingCoach.com. Another, which I think we'll be drilling down into deeper, is the Testimonial Engine. It's a software by service and we help business owners, generally service-based business owners, but business owners in general attract more five-star rave views from their happy clients and to get them on review sites like Google Plus, Yelp, Facebook. You name it, we cover it. That almost keeps me out of trouble between the two businesses. Robert Plank: Nice. Just enough to stay busy. Doren Aldana: That's right. Robert Plank: With this Testimonial Engine, how does it work? What's it all about? Doren Aldana: It's all about the big problem that a lot of business owners are either consciously aware of or subconsciously aware of. That is it's generally a pain in the ass to get reviews from their happy clients. It's cumbersome. It's time consuming. They might send out an email and rarely will they get a response. They might chase them around with phone calls or send out something in the mail asking them to send it back, postage paid. Generally speaking, it's really not an easy feat to get clients, customers to submit reviews. We make that easy, breezy, lemon squeezy by putting the whole thing on autopilot. Essentially it's as easy as uploading their name, email, phone number, etc. into our system and then just set it and forget it. The system does all the heavy lifting for them. It asks them for the review. It asks them to copy and paste that review onto other review sites that they want to build a reputation on. It just makes it much more expedient for the business owner to get positive reviews and to get those reviews on review sites as well as share them on social media, like Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter so all their fans and followers are seeing all these awesome rave reviews from their happy clients in the news feed. Of course, that's just another way to build their brilliant brand and to position themselves as the only logical choice, building their business at the speed of trust. Does that answer you question, Robert? Robert Plank: Yeah. It answers and it kind of gets me off on a whole cool, fun direction, which is you mention in there that okay, getting reviews and stuff like that for any business is kind of a hassle, kind of cumbersome, kind of time consuming. A lot of people don't do it. How does your system get this done when just normally emailing them doesn't work? Doren Aldana: Generally speaking, when you just send out an email asking them to submit a review on Google or whatever platform you happen to be using, if it's a review site like Google or Yelp or any other review site,

What does success mean for you and your team? Paul Potratz from PPADV.com shares the unique way he runs his business and sets up his company culture where he encourages his employees to make their own decisions and mistakes (including the interview process for that). He tells us how to build a quality brand, get back to basics, and provide a "Nordstrom" customer service instead of a "Macy's" one. Compete based on your brand, not on price! Potratz Agency Paul Potratz: Free Strategy Tips Potratz Floral Shop & Greenhouses Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Paul Potratz is the COO of Potratz, a firm in Schenectady, New York, I hope I said his name and the city right, that works with businesses in the US, Canada and Copenhagen on creating top funnel brand strategies, consumer engagement content on websites and social media, and sales training. Sounds like lots of good stuff. How are things today Paul? Paul Potratz: Good. Good. How about you Robert? Robert Plank: Super fantastic. I see you're in upstate New York. I was there about a year ago. I fell and broke my ankle in two places there, so I don't think I'll be going back. Paul Potratz: That's not the norm here. I mean it's a bunch of Italian food and senior citizens. Robert Plank: May I just had to go to your exact city, not just the general area maybe. Paul Potratz: That's probably what it was, yeah. Robert Plank: In your general area of Schenectady, New York and wherever else the world takes you, what would you say that it is that you do and what makes you different and special? Paul Potratz: We work with business owners, but we work with business owners establishing a brand and getting new clients. That's kind of it in a nutshell. That's our ad agency portion. In the last few months I've started to expand out of that because the agency does well. What I mean by expanding is working with business owners or future business owners of how to get their business going. Robert Plank: Okay. Do you have any cool stories ... Do you have any cool, interesting, almost like cutting edge things that you're doing to help these businesses recently? Paul Potratz: Yeah. Matter of fact I do. I'm asked that question a lot, what's cool, what's new, what's cutting edge? We can definitely talk about dynamic retargeting and gmail ads. We have workshops here at our office a lot and what I've done is I'm like let's go back to the basics, because with all the new technology and everything we forget about the basics of how to answer to phone, how to actually proof our emails, how to send emails, how to build an email data base ... To kind of take all that back, because there's so many things swirling through my head, it's all about brand. I feel like that's what people are missing because of all the online ... The digital marketing pay-per-click, is they don't establish a brand, and if you don't establish a brand all you have is sell by price, die by price. Robert Plank: What should be people be doing to establish that brand? Paul Potratz: You've got to decide what is it that you ... What is your product, what is your service and how does it improve one's lives. You've got to decide how does it really help someone. The workshop I was in a few weeks ago ... I was in Virginia and I was trying to get the business owners to understand how does your product or service improve somebody's life. I gave them a little test or a task to do to come up, work together in groups, and they just couldn't get out of the sales pitch. That's what they wanted to do, is pitch their product and not talk about how their product or service was going to help somebody save time, save money, improve their life. Robert Plank: They were lacking what's in it for me then? Paul Potratz: Exactly. You've got to think selfish. You've got to turn yourself around and not only in that negative, but you've got think why does someone want to do business with you other than price. Most business owners,

Mental health speaker and drummer Mike Veny from TransformingStigma.com and Unleash Your Groove, who was hospitalized three times, expelled from three schools, and attempted suicide by age 10, gives us simple exercises we can use to become more focused, free up aggression, and become the person we really are. Mike has battled depression, anxiety, and OCD -- and talks to us today about how he's using drum circles to empower people connect authentically with each other and form a mission statement in life. He also tells us how he uses operations manuals and checklists to keep his businesses running smoothly. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Our guest today is Mike Veeny. Now, have you known someone who lives with mental health challenges or do you want to learn to better manage your own mental health challenges or even better, how do you really transform the stigma surrounding mental health? Well, our very important, special, VIP guest is going to take care of all that and more. How are things today Mike? Mike Veny: I'm doing wonderful. How are you Robert? Robert Plank: Better than ever. Just getting kicked back on this Monday morning. Ready to do some of the entrepreneurial life style stuff. Mike Veny: Cool, and hello to your listeners out there. Robert Plank: I'm super glad that they're listening and that you're here. Could you tell us about yourself, Mike, and what makes you different and special? Mike Veny: What makes me different and special ... Robert Plank: Oh yeah. Mike Veny: I'm Mike! That's what makes me different and special. No, I am a mental health speaker and I'm also a drummer and I have a very unique business that really helps people who are struggling with mental health issues, a big topic in this country right now. At the same time, I work with corporate America with drumming to teach adults how to work better together in the workplace like me. Robert Plank: Interesting. Cool, so I mean out of all the stuff you've listed, the drumming sounds like super crazy and out there, which is something I love, so can you tell us about that drumming stuff? Mike Veny: Well, I started playing drums in the fifth grade and the reason I started drumming was because I heard it on Sesame Street and I always just liked the sounds of the drums and for some reason I was struggling with mental health issues and behavioral health issues. In fact, I was hospitalized three times in a psychiatric hospital and expelled from three schools for behavior problems and actually tried to take my own life at age ten. Drumming was the only thing that calmed me down and made me feel good. It worked better than the other medication they were giving me. I decided to become a professional drummer, not just because it is cool. I mean, it is pretty cool if you're a drummer, but also because it was my medication. I'm thirty-seven years old and it's still my medication that I use and what I love about it is, I'm able to share it with others. I do a very advanced form of what we call drum circles, and a drum circle is typically when you have people in a circle drumming and jamming along to grooves, but I have created a lot of activities and games for adults to use with drumming to not only play great music, but to learn some lessons about working with each other. Robert Plank: That's awesome. Did I hear that right that you don't medicate or anything like that? It's all just these drumming exercises? Mike Veny: Yeah and when it comes to mental health, and for any of you listening out there, seek the guidance of a doctor whenever you have any kind of issue. I worked with my therapist and just basically came to the conclusion that I was going to try what we call alternative medication, which is exercise, meditation, good friends and music. Robert Plank: Cool, so instead of maybe like the short cut way, which seems easy, but seems to have these other side effects, you kind of found your own way to make this thing work. Mike Veny: Yeah,

Suzy Prudden from IttyBittyPublishing.com has been on Oprah and is responsible for many books becoming bestsellers. She tells us that your book is a business BUILDER, not a business card, and that you can create an "itty bitty" book in just 15 pages to market yourself. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: We're here with Suzy Prudden who is a legend. She is an internationally acclaimed speaker and seminar leader. A New York Times best selling author from before the internet. A fitness expert, a body and mind pioneer. Hypnotherapist, success coach, radio host, publisher. She's been on Oprah, Good Morning America, and the Today Show. It sounds like there's nothing she can't do. How are things today, Suzy? Suzy Prudden: Robert, they are fabulous. They just keep getting better. The older I get the better they get. Robert Plank: That's what I like to hear. Everyday is the best day of your life because every day is better than before, right? Suzy Prudden: Yes. I had a friend of mine say to me one time we were are a party. I said to him "I'm having the best time ever." With annoyance, he said "You always say that." I looked at him and I said "Yeah, I do." Then he realized that it was the best time ever. It didn't mean that the other days weren't any good, it just meant that this was the best. If every day is a best day, you're having a best life. Robert Plank: That sounds like an amazing message. Can you tell me- You sound like an interesting person- Can you tell me about yourself and what it is you do? And what makes you different? Besides the obvious. Where to begin? Suzy Prudden: Do we have an hour? Do we have three hours? Basically, I started my career when I was 22 in 1965. What happened was, my mother told me I couldn't date the boy I was dating, so I ran away and married him. That was when I was 19 and then I had to support him because he went back to school. At 22, then I decided to have a baby. Nothing made any sense, you have to realize. I started a fitness school because my mother was the nation's foremost fitness authority. I became extremely successful and I've written nine books on fitness, two books on body/mind. I've done television, I had my own show on NBC in New York as fitness reporter for the Today Show. Had an amazing career. In '81, I divorced him. In '83, I sold my business and I retired at the age of 40. Then I had to figure out what to do with my life, but I didn't know who I was so I became a workshop junkie. Then I started making up new thoughts, programs, and body/mind programs. I just kept making stuff up and it kept working. Then I became a hypnotherapist and a body/mind technologist. Everything kept leading me forward to the place where I am now, which is taking all of my skills and helping entrepreneurs create seven figure businesses starting with writing a small book which we call Itty Bitty Books. Which started with when my sister took my name off of a book that we were writing. When I saw that my name wasn't there, it meant that I didn't have to write the book anymore, but I could have authors write books and that's what I'm doing now. An author writes an Itty Bitty book, which is the 15 steps to whatever their expertise is. Then we help them create a business which will help them make between six and seven figures within three to five years. It's exciting. Robert Plank: It sounds like it. That's a pretty crazy story. I love how one thing kind of lead to the next logical step as opposed to not necessarily drifting around, but one kind of thing ran its course then it transitioned you into whatever this next stage was. Suzy Prudden: Then I forgot to mention that eight months after doing Oprah, I ended up homeless because I didn't pay attention to my money. I spent it all. I took ten months- I never lived in my car, but it was a very educational experience. I knew it would change my life and it did. This was in the '90s, 1990. It caused me to have a different viewpoint on life and the importa...