How do you prevent burnout and enjoy everything you do? That's what Coach Nick Pereira (from HangoutWithCoachNick.com and the Freedompreneur Club on Facebook) stops by to answer for us. He tells us how to get into that flow state, start small and grow, PLUS go from invisible to influence with his five step model: 1. invisible (an idea in your head) 2. emergencence (cashflow and clients) 3. chaos (where you have more business than infrastructure) 4. systems (save yourself time and energy) 5. stability/influence (normal operations, scale) Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Our guest today is Nick Pereira. Now Coach Nick has been an entrepreneur for over a decade and as an author, trainer, founder and the president of the Freedompreneur's club, Nick has helped thousands of small business owners become freedom preneurs. What's up, Coach Nick? How are things today? Nick Pereira: Fantastic, Robert. Just an awesome day. Just got back from the gym so I'm feeling good. Robert Plank: Awesome, feeling pumped and all that good stuff. Nick Pereira: Yeah. Robert Plank: Cool, I'm just coming in from a walk myself so not quite the same thing but same idea, right? This, that and all that stuff. Nick Pereira: Yes Robert Plank: Cool. Could you tell us about who are you, what you do and what makes you special? Nick Pereira: Yeah sure. Well, those are loaded questions. As far as what I do, I help entrepreneurs become freedom preneurs which simply means helping entrepreneurs create their business in such a way where they can work when they want, where they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, with whoever they want doing the things they love to do. You know, as I know and any entrepreneur knows that if you're building a business, there's parts of that business that bring us so much joy or that are expressions of our joy. Then there's parts of the business that don't bring us joy and I help entrepreneurs create their business in a systematic way to allow freedom. As far as what makes me special, I don't really know the answer to that but I think the best people to ask are the people that work with me. One thing that I would say that the Freedompreneurs club has done, what I think is special and what I think is done very well, is we've created a real community. We've created people so when I'm working with people I don't put people on contracts. I don't make anybody give me time commitments. That's one of the things I guess that's special is many coaches and trainers will ask for a specific time commitment. I don't ask for time commitments, I simply ask for value. If I'm providing you value and you're getting value, you're going to stick around. It's a simple as that and I'm about to celebrate three-year anniversaries with certain people inside the Freedompreneur club and we have tons more that have already celebrated a year and two year anniversaries. I think what's special about what we're creating is people are sticking around, but they don't have to. There's no contract. There's nothing that says they have to, so we're truly creating a community of people that want to be there. I think that's what makes the Freedompreneur club really special. Robert Plank: Awesome. Along what we're talking about and as far as, you said that you're all about like the whole package, I guess, not just the business part of it but also people having the lifestyle they want, live where they want and all that good stuff. What are your thoughts on like, I guess because there's two extremes on the spectrum. On one extreme, you and I have both probably been to events where people talk about lifestyle and time management and then the focus is on just taking time off, which I guess is okay but a lot of these people they just say, "Oh, I just took two weeks off, three weeks off." I think, "Well, great," but what did you do for your business and the other extreme is like the Gary V and the Grant Cardone kind of stuff,

The expert on everything Disney, Jeff Barnes from TheWisdomOfWalt.com and author of "The Wisdom of Walt: Leadership Lessons from the Happiest Place on Earth" tells us how to live a great story. He shares how Walt Disney succeeded despite all odds, previous failures and existing competitors to create a superior product and experience. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: We have Jeff Barnes who is an author, professional keynote speaker, university professor, and leadership and success coach. His book is called The Wisdom of Walt. It's an Amazon number 1 bestseller in multiple categories, including personal success in business. We're going to be talking about a lot of fun, Disney kind of stuff today. How are things, Jeff? Jeff Barnes: Hey, Robert. Things are great. How are you? Robert Plank: Super fantastic. I feel like I should say it's magical or wonderful or whatever the proper Disney term is, but I have to admit I know almost nothing about Disney despite living in California. Jeff Barnes: We're doing the interview on a Monday, so let's just go with "happy, magical Monday." Robert Plank: Perfect. Happy, magical Monday. I'm going to start using that one every Monday. Jeff Barnes: Exactly. Robert Plank: Is there one of those for like every day of the week or am I just stuck with the one day of the week? Jeff Barnes: "Magical Monday" is pretty popular. "Have a terrific Tigger Tuesday" is another one that you'll hear every now and then. I like "wonderful Wednesday," which sort of goes back to the Wonderful World of Disney. Yeah, I mean, if you're really, really deep, you've got one for every single day of the week. I typically stick with "magical Monday" and then trust the rest of the days to take care of themselves. Robert Plank: Okay. Yeah, they'll all fall line after that. Jeff Barnes: Exactly. Robert Plank: Cool. It seems like there is this whole crazy, like subculture that's really cool, brands called ... this Walt Disney stuff that you happen to be in the middle of, so can you tell us about that and about yourself and all that good stuff? Jeff Barnes: Sure. 33 million people a year in the United States alone, Robert, go to Walt Disney or Disneyland and, within that pocket of 33 million, there are people who are just fanatics and obsessed and cannot get enough of it. Within Southern California, there is a love and a passion for Disneyland as a local park that beats almost anything I've ever seen to include love for a sports team, love for one's city, town, community, you name it, and part of that is the 61-year history of the park here in Southern California. I think a lot of it has to do with, in Southern California, everybody's from everywhere and there isn't any central place in Southern California, to include downtown Los Angeles, and so, over the years, Disneyland has sort of evolved into the public square for Southern California, and it really is the one place that all of us share together and, sort of like a narrative thread, it becomes the 1 place that sort of holds us all together as well. Robert Plank: What's pretty crazy about all this Disney stuff, because it's seems like there's no dark side to it, there's no one, anyone like saying anything bad about Disney the same way that like a sports team or any kind of usual theme park like your Great America or your Magic Mountain or something like that? Jeff Barnes: Disney is not perfect and they certainly have made their mistakes over the years, but, by and large, people are in because they love it and it is something very special and very magical and it really echoes back to I think a connection that starts in childhood. As I have gone around Southern California and really around the country in the past year promoting the wisdom of Walt, I meet people. Their family moved to Southern California in 1956 and all they could think about was, "Wow, we're going to get to go to Disneyland," or you meet someone else and their dad worked on the construction crew th...

  Get back to basics and shorten those challenging times in your marriage! Meet Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo, from OneExtraordinaryMarriage.com -- the podcast they've been running for 6 1/2 years. The three of us discuss a lot of subjects -- not only how they repaired their marriage and others can do the same, but also how they developed this advice into a podcast, a series of books, and a coaching program. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: On today's podcast we have Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo, the founders who are a leading source for couples on sex, love, and commitment on their number 1 marriage podcast where they have a bunch of bestselling authors and hosts, and they are our bestselling authors and hosts about entrepreneurship, marriage, and authorship. Welcome to the show. How are things, guys? Tony DiLorenzo: Excellent, Robert. Thank you. Alisa DiLorenzo: We're doing great today. Glad to be joining you. Robert Plank: Cool. I think we're going to have a lot of fun today. Could you guys tell me, I know I mentioned a little bit, but can you tell me what it is that you guys do and what makes both of you different and special? Alisa DiLorenzo: Oh my gosh. Well Tony and I are tasked. We know our mission is to transform a million marriages around the world. That is something that we've discovered over the last few years and we do that through a variety of ways. We do it through the podcast, the One Extraordinary Marriage Show. We do through it, you mentioned, the books that we've written. We've written books such as the 7 Days of Sex Challenge. We talk about trust, we talk about communication, we talk about all those topics that everybody wants to talk about but nobody is. We peel back all the layers for couples out there to go, you know what? You can have a conversation about this and the world isn't going to fall off its axis. Robert Plank: Interesting. You guys get right to the good stuff. Alisa DiLorenzo: Absolutely. Tony DiLorenzo: Yeah. I mean, our fist show that we ever did was called the 60 Days of Sex Challenge. Robert Plank: Nice. That's a great place to start off, right? Tony DiLorenzo: Let's start big or go home. Robert Plank: Hit the ground running. Kind of along those lines, I mean, what has you guys excited lately in this topic. Tell me something I haven't heard before. Tony DiLorenzo: Wow. What are we excited about lately? Man, we're excited about just impacting people's lives. As One Extraordinary Marriage has grown over the last 6 and a half years, our reach has just taken off. From the early days of the podcast where we would hear from folks here in the United States. I remember and Alisa does too, when we heard from somebody from Alaska and it was like, "Oh my gosh. We have somebody listening in Alaska." Now we have listeners in 160 countries around the world. Right now, what gets me excited and what gets me out of bed are the folks who come, hear us, start to implement, they're intentional about their marriage, and they take action, ad they have these amazing testimonies. They come and they're like, "You guys wouldn't believe what we did. We were listening to you share this. We picked up your book, connect like you did when you first met. We started asking each other questions. We started getting deep. We started being transparent with each other. Guess what? We had the best sex we've ever had in our 10 years of marriage." If that doesn't get me excited to wake up in the morning and impact more lives, I don't know what will. Robert Plank: You guys are teaching what you know, it sounds like. Alisa DiLorenzo: Well we are because our marriage the first 11 years was really nothing to write home about. Tony DiLorenzo: Nope. Alisa DiLorenzo: The fact that we're still together and we actually, as of this recording, are just under 2 months away from our 20th wedding anniversary. We look back at those first 11 years that were rocked with pornography, rocked with crazy financial debt with more zeros t...

Do you feel that sometimes you plan too much and don't take enough action? Sasha Laghonh from SashaTalks.com has the solution for you. She shares her secrets to internet traffic, keeping your emotions in check so they help you, and how you can get that tough love alternate perspective. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: We're here today with Sasha from SashaTalks.com and she's a seasoned MBA professional who specializes in organizational and human behavior which grants her a broad base from which to approach many topics. Hey Sash, welcome to the show. Sasha Laghonh: Hi Robert, thank you for having me. Robert Plank: Can you tell me about what it is that you do, what makes you special? Sasha Laghonh: What makes me special? Well, I have two parallel career paths. My initial career path has to do with business, I have a Bachelors from Austen University with business and also an MBA in Global Management. I started out along my corporate career path where I do a lot of business development and research in the market. That is how I work corporate contracts, helping out executives streamline their business plans and help them with their corporate strategy. On the other side, I also initially started out Sasha Talks where I was selling special counselling services. You're doing the readings and it's more metaphysical work and then a common person would say, well those two interests are really polarizing, because one is really rational and judgmental and the other one is really fluid and it cannot be measured. It got to the point where Sasha Talks started growing at a faster rate than I had anticipated, that I had merged my business consulting businesses onto Sasha Talks, so I could standardize the audience and I wouldn't be chasing two different worlds at the same time. Robert Plank: Okay, so how did any of this come to be? I know you said that you have this business background and you have this website. How did you get your counselling clients and things like that? Sasha Laghonh: Sasha Talks was already a part of our ID in theory by the time 2008 came along. When the economy started going down, a lot of my corporate opportunities started getting down sized because of budgets. I told myself, what are some skill sets that I haven't fully capitalized upon. That's when Sasha Talks was launched and I went out, I was doing radio shows, pod casting and at the same time, I was employed by third party websites where you get to defend your services. Whether people are paying you by the minute or buying small packages to talk to you on the phone, or for online chat. At that time I was pressed in between 5 consistent platforms, which are websites owned by private owners. That was providing a form of income, but it got to a point where I said that, if I am going to be helping other people off of third party website, why can I not do that through my own. At that time I slowly started marketing Sasha Talks and it picked up momentum through Blog Talk radio, BBS radio and basically building a lot of speaking engagements where you're marketing yourself out there. You're giving people samples of your work. You don't have to work for free, but you also have to encourage people to invest their resources in you. Slowly that picked up momentum and I've gotten this far because of word of mouth. The best compliment you can get is a referral. If people have tried you out and they've paid you for your service, they'll share the good news with other people, but if you have bad news, it will travel faster. You have to be mindful of what type of publicity are you attracting. Even though you cannot control the perception of the audience, at the end of the day keep at it and be consistent in what you're offering. Robert Plank: Okay. That makes a lot of sense. I like a couple of things about that. I like that, first of all, when you saw the economic downturn and you saw people getting down sized, you said, well I have the skill,

Rodney Hughes, author of the book "Selling Domination: Your Blueprint to Selling More and Generating an Extraordinary Income" tells us how he helps companies all over the world, especially those who don't even know what business they're in! (The money getting business.) He also details the four steps you can take when looking to improve any business' profits in 90 days or less: 1. How you business handles obscurity 2. Missed opportunities 3. What's already working that you can enhance? 4. Where are you wasting time and effort? Display TranscriptRobert Plank: We're talking about making money and building an online business. Our guest today is Rodney Hughes who is an author, international speaker and a high performance sales trainer who focuses on delivering results through collaborative and creative problem solving. Lots of cool stuff, welcome to the show Rodney. Rodney Hughes: Hey, thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Robert Plank: Cool, and I'm happy that you are here. Could you tell me about what it is that you do, and what makes you different and special? Rodney Hughes: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. For the last decade, what I've been focused on is I create sales and marketing solutions for various different organizations. I've worked with the Federal Government, non-profit organizations. I've worked with many different private sector organizations and what I do is I pretty much go in, figure out where the gaps are in the business and create strategies to solve that. Whether it be online sales and marketing solutions or whether it's in-person sales and marketing solutions. Robert Plank: Could you give us an example of that? Rodney Hughes: Yeah, yeah. As an example, I'll give you my most recent one. There's a gentleman that I'm working with, that I just got finished working with actually, who owns a ... He has a barbecue company. He does barbecue sauces and things of that nature. One of the things we did for him is we created a lead generation website for him, so that he can start collecting the contact information of the people that are interested in what he's offering, as far as sauces and things of that nature. We're helping him and we helped create a strategy that we're trying to get him to have at least 5,000 new subscribers over the course of the next 2 years, so that he can have a basis for driving online sales. Robert Plank: Awesome so you're making the whole website for him, an opt-in for him, traffic and all that good stuff? Rodney Hughes: Yeah, all that type of stuff. Then also helping him come up with online and offline strategies to actually drive that forward. Robert Plank: Like what? Rodney Hughes: Say it again? Robert Plank: Like what? What strategies are you using to get those 5,000 subscribers coming in? Rodney Hughes: This particular gentleman, he goes to various flea markets and various different retail locations. While he's out, what I mentioned to him was that it's one thing to get that immediate dollar, right? Which you definitely always want to drive sales but the reality is that sometimes situations come up, either people didn't feel like buying right there in that moment or maybe they might want to buy a little bit later or whatever, and so what we did was we said, "Listen. When you have people and you're giving out samples, hey offer this irresistible offer right here that's going to intrigue them and make them want to actually jump on your list. Then, once a week, you want to actually give a recipe of the week or just ... " I tried to teach him how to also do a little bit of video blogging as well, so that he can have other ways of actually engaging with these people once they get on his list. He's building his list primarily through when he's giving samples to people, he has an irresistible offer that he shares with them. They decide whether or not they want to jump on his list at that time. Robert Plank: Interesting. Are you seeing, with these businesses that you're helping out such a...

Marc Hoberman from GradeSuccess.com, author of the book Search and Seizure: Overcoming Illness and Adversity, tells us how to reconcile both our positive and negative life experiences. He didn't let his eppilepsy diagnosis define him, and instead used this experience to keep him grounded. Marc shares his breakthroughs he experienced with his struggle, as well as how he makes money online with SAT prep and online tutoring. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Today's guest is Marc Hoberman. He's a test prep expert and teen illness survivor, and he's going to be talking to us about teen illness, education, SAT prep, dealing with stress, speed reading and study skills, creating success in school and a whole lot more. How are things today, Mr. Marc? Marc Hoberman: Doing very well, thank you. I appreciate it. Robert Plank: Cool. No problem. I'm glad that you're here, so could you tell us a little bit about what it is that you do, and what makes you unique and special? Marc Hoberman: I've been a teacher for 33 years, and I've had a tutoring business for about 25. I do a lot of tutoring in person and online. I have tutors who work for me. We do a lot of educational consulting for parents as well, for kids who are stressed out over school, and things of that nature. I've been in the camp training industry for many years, so I deal with a lot of children different ages, teens also. Because of an illness I had as a child. As a teen at the age of about 17, I was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 17 after having a seizure, grand mal seizure unfortunately, behind the wheel of a car, I wrote my book, "Search and Seizure, Overcoming Illness and Adversity". Robert Plank: It sounds like because you've gone through it, you have these messages to help other people, too. Marc Hoberman: That's exactly right. I started the book a while ago and stopped it. Then, about three years ago, my son came down with irritable bowel syndrome, IBS. That and a couple of skin issues, and he started getting a little depressed. I was very methodical about looking into it and fixing it, and finding him the right people. My wife said, "How come you're handling this so well? I'm a wreck." And I said, "You know, I think it's because I went through it, and I realized as a teacher, I could certainly help other people." A lot of times the emotionality of the illness is worse than the physicality of the illness. Robert Plank: Interesting. As far as these illnesses and these things that hit us, is there a catchall or a one-size-fits-all, or a thing that we should all do no matter what hits us, or is it more of a case by case basis? Marc Hoberman: It's a little of both. My big mantra in the book is I didn't let my illness define me. I defined it. I else didn't become who I am in spite of my illness, I am who I am because of my illness. You really want to embrace illness, stress, anything that you have, and deal with it that way instead of fighting it in other ways. Robert Plank: As far as like what happened to you and what happened to your son, what happens to the people that you help out, do you look at it in terms of whatever gets in the way, is this something to be minimized, or do we roll with the punches? What happened with you from when you first came across this epilepsy thing into what happened now. what kind of breakthroughs and obstacles did you go through for that? Marc Hoberman: Minimizing it, absolutely not. My hope is that in dealing with it a certain way, it minimizes itself on its own. Certainly not to minimize it, for the person to minimize it. To be honest, I'm 54 years old and until I wrote the book, there weren't 10 people in the world who knew I had epilepsy. I had family members who called in were shocked that I had this. There's a stigma attached to it, I was embarrassed, I did lose some friends, not a lot luckily, but there was so much more involved with it than just the illness. I guess the turnaround was when I did open up about it,

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a "dumpster moment" that prevented you from getting to the next level? Dr. Reggie Padin has. He's the author of, "Get Out Of The Dumpster: A True Story on Overcoming Limitations" and tell us how he went from being a high school dropout living in a dumpster to someone who's found his purpose through soul searching and has become a dean professor, instructor, and coach. He tells us how to the make the right choices and find your next steps. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Dr. Reggie Padin is the author of an Amazon best selling book called Get Out of the Dumpster, a true story about overcoming limitations, and includes the story of how Reggie went from being a high school dropout, hauling garbage out of a dumpster by hand, to become a PhD, dean of a corporate university at a billion dollar company, a professor, an author, an executive coach, and a spiritual leader. Lots of cool stuff. Welcome to the store Dr. Reggie. Reggie Padin: Thank you for having me, Robert, it's a pleasure. Robert Plank: Cool. I'm glad that we have this cool story in front of us that I can't wait to unpack. The thing about this show and the people that I have on, lately I feel like I've had a lot of guests on and what's the most interesting part for me with anyone's story are the places they've failed, the places they've struggled. It seems like lately with my guests I've said where was your low point? Where did you struggle? I've been hearing a lot of, "I've never struggled. It's always come easy for me." Reggie Padin: What? Robert Plank: I'm thinking, "What are you talking about?" Reggie Padin: Wow. Robert Plank: I love the stories where people get stuck. Can you tell us a little bit about your story personally? Reggie Padin: I'm going to go in a completely opposite direction because I've struggled a lot. The title of the book, Get Out of the Dumpster is an actual real life story. I was in a dumpster because of the choices I've made as a young man. Primarily the biggest mistake I made as a young person was dropping out of high school. I dropped out of high school, married very young, started having kids right away. It's a recipe for financial disaster when you don't have an education. It so happens that during that time we were experiencing one of the worst recessions ever. It was tough. I had to dig deep and dig myself out of that situation, out of that dumpster which was a big struggle. I'm glad to hear that people that have not faced struggled in their lives. I have. The good thing in what I've learned personally is it doesn't matter the dumpster you're in. I was literally in a dumpster. What I found out is we all face dumpster moments. It doesn't matter the dumpster you're in, you can dig yourself out. It doesn't matter the struggle, you can do it, you can get out. Robert Plank: Cool, that's a pretty cool message. Tell us about a little bit what happened. You said that you dropped out of high school, you had the kid. What was the situation there? Reggie Padin: It was a tough situation. Again, I made the mistake of dropping out. The only jobs that I could find without a high school diploma, without an education, was really as a gopher, as a janitor, doing odd things here and there. I ended up working for a company that I didn't know at the time was experiencing financial difficulties, in fact they were going bankrupt. When a company's going bankrupt they have to make cuts. One of the things they cut was the waste management company. I got a call in from my boss one day and he called me to his office and he said, "I need you to do something." In fact he didn't say I need a favor he said, "I need you to do this. Go get one of the company trucks and back it up to every single dumpster around the company and I need you to go in there and haul all that garbage by hand, place it in the back of that truck and drive it to the landfill. That became my job. Can you imagine?

Kyra Reed from Made to Order Agency tells us about the power of social media including the story of how she was able to save the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles using internet marketing. Her social system consists of five points: Who are you? (brainding) Who are you talking to? (understand how your customers "feel") What are you saying? (content strategy) How are you selling? What is your growth & maintenance plan? (what platforms) Display TranscriptRobert Plank: We have, today, Kyra Reed. She's the co-founder of MTO Agency and author and business coach and is a nationally recognized industry veteran and a community-focused brand innovator. Sounds like lots of good stuff, so, strap yourselves in. Kyra, welcome to the show. Tell us about yourself and what makes you different and special. Kyra Reed: I've been in the industry 12 years now. I was very fortunate to have my first client in my agency in LA. The Roxy Theater on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in West Hollywood ... Legendary club, family owned ... I was able to at the very beginning of social media, go in and really help them save, not only the business, but the entire Sunset Strip. It was featured in "The New York Times," "TechCrunch," "Entrepreneur Magazine" and on and on. Lots of national publications ... Became one of the biggest case studies around music and social media to date ... That gave me a tremendous amount of insight. I had a lot of freedom to really play and explore and check out this new emerging technology. Really see what works, what doesn't because I've been there since the very beginning. That led me and my business partner to develop a process that we call "The Social System," where we help companies, actually, in our 5-point system accomplish everything that they need in their social strategy. No one has anything like it. Whether you're a solo-preneur or a Fortune 500 company, it scales. It's usable. It's simple, and it encompasses everything that you need. That's what makes me different. Robert Plank: Cool. What are the 5 points of that system, or is that a secret? Kyra Reed: No. We're happy to talk about it. It is something that we developed because we wanted to create some standards in this industry. Everybody seems to be an expert or a guru. The industry itself, can't decide on what are the specific processes that we should all agree with. What we came up with is very simple 5 steps. They boil down to this. Number 1, first thing you have to know is who are you? You got to look at your branding and your messaging. That has to come first. Second, who are you talking to? How do you look at your customers and really understand them from a social perspective, which means, how are they feeling when they come through that door? What is their emotional state? What is your promise to them and the needs that they have? This is a very different way of looking at your customers. Next is, what are you saying? That's your content strategy. We can't put your content strategy together until we know who you are and what you're saying. Thing is, most people want to come in, and they want to get right into that content strategy or right into growth strategy. It's impossible to do that effectively and authentically, which you must do when you're working in social media, unless we know who are you and who are you talking to. Who are you? Who are you talking to? What are you saying? How are you selling? Selling on social media is absolutely possible. You can do it very successfully, but again, you've got to know who are you, who are you talking to, and what are you saying, before you can get into the sell. The last piece of it is, actually, growth and maintenance. That's where your policies come in. Which platform should you be on? How are you going to grow your community? All of those things people want to start with, but they're not important. They're not something you can really focus on, until you know, who are you, who are you talking to,

Ben Gioia, author of Influence with a Heart and Marketing with a Heart, tells us how to use trust marketing for greater income, influence, and impact. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: We're here with Ben Gioia, who is a speaker, coach, trainer, and author of the number 1 bestseller, Marketing With A Heart. He's the president of influencewithaheart.com. Ben has helped AARP launch one of the world's biggest magazines with 32 million circulation, and he's a trained, or he's trained top business leaders at Stanford University, and supported the ALS Association in improving healthcare and quality of life for thousands of people with Lou Gehrig's Disease after almost dying 4 times in 72 hours on a hike in India. We're going to have to talk about that for sure. Ben received a gift, a fire inside to make a bigger impact. Today, he teaches entrepreneurs, visionaries, organizations, and leaders how to communicate with more influence by using more empathy, story, and thought leadership. Lots of cool stuff. Welcome to the show, Ben. Ben Gioia: Thank you so much, Robert. It's a pleasure to be here, thank you for asking me. Robert Plank: Awesome. I mean, yeah, I'm glad you stopped by. Can you kind of tell us, I mean, there's that little bit of bio there, but can you kind of tell us in your own words what it is you do, what's kind of driving you right now, and what makes you special? Ben Gioia: Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you so much. Gosh. Yeah, I'm going to, I guess, start this off, kick this off with a little bit about that story in India. Basically, I had this incredible hike, 72 hours, where I almost died 4 times, and it was ... My bus going, almost going off the road as we're going up a windy mountain curve. I mean, literally, the back of the bus was like skittering the edge and almost sliding off. The second time was running from a fire. It hadn't rained where we were in about 4 months, and literally, my guide turned to me at one point because he heard some agitated yelling, I couldn't understand it in English, off in the distance, and he said over his shoulder, "Run," and I said, "Run?" He went running off down the path. Third time, we came upon a poisonous snake that I wouldn't have seen at all, just right in the path, tiny snake. My guide fortunately stopped me, and then ... The last time was running into a mountain lion, kind of stumbling upon a mountain lion. I think we were surprised, he or she was surprised, and fortunately, the mountain lion ran away; so, that was a wake-up call or a series of wake-up calls that just made me realize, "What an amazing gift this life is, my life. If I'm here on this Earth, and I'm functional and capable, I'm going to do good in the world;" so I started thinking about, "How could I do that?" I pulled together talents, experience, all that kind of stuff, and that was the thing that brought Marketing With A Heart to the light; because I realized that there's so many people and good in the world, there's the whole idea of conscious business and transparency and ethical communication, all that stuff, and I realized that that needed to come into the marketing space as well. People felt good about their marketing, really would lead with value, be transparent, and really resonate and connect with the right audiences, so they could stop focusing so much on competition; and really focus on creativity and collaboration, and magnetizing the right people by speaking truthfully and honestly about themselves, who they served, what they do, and their secret sauce, and how that all makes it happen, so ... Yeah, so did that for a bunch of years, and then Marketing With A Heart kind of morphed into Influence With A Heart, which is what that is today. I launched that just a few months ago, and it's been a rocket ship since I changed that. Influence With A Heart was what, I realized, made so much more sense for who I am and what I want to do in the world. Right after that happened,

Kim Ades from Frame of Mind Coaching shares her secrets to identifying internal problems, overcoming limiting beliefs and challenging our thinking through journaling and getting a coach. She also tells us how to make huge changes in our own lives and shares how she setup her coaching business. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Today we're going to talk to a author, speaker, entrepreneur and mother of five. Her name is Kim Ades. She is the president and founder of Frame of Mind coaching and she's recognized as one of North America's foremost experts on performance through thought mastery. So Kim, I'm Robert, welcome to the show. Kim Ades: I'm really, super excited to be talking to you today. Thank you for having me on your show. Robert Plank: Heck yeah, I am right there with you. I know nothing about you, so can you fill us in on your website, yourself, what you do, what makes you unique and special? Kim Ades: I live in Toronto. I have five kids, as you mentioned. I run a coaching company called Frame of Mind coaching, we coach the highly driven population that is moving and shaking and highly frustrated. That's who we coach and we really look at their thinking and how their thinking is impacting their results. One of the big things we do when we coach people is we ask them to journal every single day for the duration of the coaching period and they share their journals with their coach. We go back and forth every single day. It's pretty intense and it's very very intimate. Robert Plank: Cool, so how did you come across this? What's basically your journey been? How were things out of balanced or misaligned years ago versus where you've come, where you are now? Kim Ades: I mean, historically, I used to own a software company. We used to build simulation-based assessments and the purpose of those assessments were to help companies make better hiring decisions. One of the pieces of my past is that we conducted hundreds of thousands of assessments and collected a lot of interesting data. The data said to us that there was really one main distinction between top performers and others. It didn't matter what field, it didn't matter what level of job we were looking at or what industry and that one distinction was if that person had a higher degree of emotional resilience, their likelihood of success was dramatically higher than the rest of the population. So that's one part of my past. The other part of my past is more personal. I was married, had a tough marriage towards the end, ended up getting divorced and my life exploded. I owned my last company with my ex-husband, ended up having to sell my shares and I had to recreate my life and one of the ways I did it was through the process of journaling. I journaled just to get everything out of my brain, all the worries, all the fears, all the anger, all the frustration, all the anxiety, all of it. I started to realized that journaling is very very powerful tool to help people move to a new place. That's how I, when I started Frame of Mind Coaching, I incorporated journaling from the get-go. Robert Plank: I mean, with all this journaling stuff, I kind of go back to it every now and then. I always hear about it, I hear it's this good thing to do, but I don't have a very good system or structure to do it consistently. Do you have some kind of formula like is there a set like a time of day you do it, is there a set prompt or is it a set length of wordage, length of time? What's the process for this journaling stuff for you? Kim Ades: There's so many different things. When we journal with our clients, they journal every day. They can pick whatever time of day they like. A lot of my clients journal right before bed. It's a funny thing, but that's when they journal. Their whole day is past and now they're doing a download so I have that. I have another set of clients that journal right in the morning, but remember this is journaling with your coach, so every time they journal,

Entrepreneur and martial arts teacher Matt Powell from the Pramek organization tells us why we fail, how to stop being "right" all the time, gain focus, break the cycle, set goals, and so much more. He's also the author of the book UNDO: Get Past The Past and Manage Your Future, which tells us how to cut ties to the past. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: After over two decades of teaching thousands around the world, Matt Powell know how to teach and motivate, think better under the stress of every day life, improve and grow, and create success. He has his latest book out called Undo: How to undo the past and plan your future. He has a website as well called pastless.net. Matt welcome to the show. I'm glad to have you here. Matt Powell: Hey I'm glad to be on. I appreciate it Robert. Robert Plank: Heck yeah. I understand that you have a lot of things to say and you have a lot of hobbies and you have this martial arts stuff, so can you kind of tell me a little bit about who is Matt Powell and what it is that you do, and what makes you unique and special? Matt Powell: I know what makes me unique and special. My mom might say something different. About 20 years ago, I started learning this strange martial art no one had ever heard of, and that lead me to spending time in Russia training at their schools in martial arts in the early 2000's, and then coming back over here and teaching over here. Over time, we built our own organization called Pramek. That's P-R-A-M-E-K. We have a website, pramek.com. That started off as just guys in a garage, and I built it online and then in real world into an international organization with teachers all over the world. The whole time I was doing that, I was also working my way up the corporate ladder into the corporate board room. I was starting online businesses. I was doing everything that I could possibly do. I'm not one of those people that sit still for very long. Over time I've published five books that are on Amazon, hundreds of videos on youtube, two dozen instructional videos for sale in the martial art world, as well as teaching seminars around the world. I learned a lot from that side of teaching, and teaching all those people in the system that we developed and the way that it developed. There was also the lessons learned of being in the corporate world and being an entrepreneur. I decided about a year ago that I would start to take these and combine them into more of a, kind of do what Pramek did for martial art, pastless and Undo what do for the personal growth sector. I started to focus on taking the concept that worked so well for teaching people, everybody from the special forces to soccer mom, and starting applying it to personal growth. It's a very methodically laid out system based on what we saw work teaching people under the most stressful situations that they could apply towards personal growth, personal success, and the happiness side of the world, you might say. Robert Plank: That's kind of interesting. Can you kind of tell me about this whole undo book and just basically, what are the steps, what's it about, how it all relates to the martial arts, the success and all that kind of stuff? Matt Powell: We developed this learning system in martial art that we called the CLM. I developed it with a couple of PhDs that had PhDs in adult learning and psychology, because we found that the way that we were taught didn't translate to the way that people learned very well if they were learning mental and physical skills. We developed over time this learning system that now all these other schools and systems have adopted as their learning system. We found that people were learning skills faster than they were learning in other skills by using this. I said okay. Let me look at ... It's all about the human brain. It's all about how the brain works, it's all about how the brain processes memories, how the brain forms habits. Let me take that over to the success side because wh...

Angela Ford tells us about online marketing and social media, and how she was able to use those skills to self-publishing market her fiction novels using Instagram, Facebook groups, contests, book tours, and more. Display TranscriptAngela Ford: I really got started in the online marketing, first of all, because I'm obsessed with social media, like a lot of the younger generation. It's just so attractive and so much fun, especially to get a lot of likes and comments on different things. That's initially what got me started and really attracted me to online marketing. After that, I discovered it was an excellent way to really reach people that aren't next door to you, in your neighborhood, or in the same city that you're in, but really reach out to them and help them with promoting their products or services. That's something that I've always been in the business of promoting products or services. I was a musician when I was younger, and after that I transitioned into blogging. Now, I have a book out. That's something that I really wanted to focus on. How do I get visible online? How do I help others get visible online? What do you need to do in order to get a fan base and get people that will talk about your work and promote it for you? That's really what got me into it. What really makes me unique here is that even though I do a lot of the digital marketing, I actually write fantasy novels. That's my huge passion project. That's a little strange, a little different there. It's a lot of fun for me. Then, what I get to do is not only promote those, but also promote my business. I do a lot with digital marketing. I work with a lot of creative entrepreneurs who have their own websites, their own blogs. Some of them actually sell products. Some of them do more of the courses and services. It really depends there. It's a fun way to work together to really strategize, be creative, and figure out, "Okay. What can I do today to get visible online, to get more clients, send people back to my website, and build that traffic, and build up a reputation on social media?" Robert Plank: That's cool. I especially like that you have your fantasy novel as your hobby, but isn't it cool if the hobby we have makes us some money, too, right? Angela Ford: Oh. Absolutely. I firmly believe that with what the entrepreneurial lifestyle, we all want to do a lot of different things. We're not just in it for one thing, like you just don't do a podcast, and that's it. I don't just do digital marketing for other people, and that's it. We all have different passions and different things that we're doing in our lives. Regardless of whether or not it's making money, but it's a huge plus and a huge bonus if it is. Robert Plank: Right. All right. As far as that goes, like as far as the social media especially Twitter and stuff like that, do you think that there is a dark side to some of the social media? Especially with the, you know, a lot of people putting in a lot of time, not getting a lot of traction, or some of the bots and the spam stuff and going down a rabbit hole. Do you see people using social media in the wrong way? Angela Ford: Oh, for sure. It's so funny that you say that, because every now and then I will get on Instagram or I'll get on Twitter, and I'll see a bunch of posts. I'm like, "Oh no. The marketers have come to down. They're ruining this social media platform, because they're really gungho promoting their next webinar, their next course, or they just have a ton of quotes there." It can be kind of frustrating. It takes away some of that real human connection when you get all of the spams and the bots coming in. Then, all of the posts that are really hardcore promotional. There definitely is that side, and it really isn't about promoting, promoting, promoting. The whole point of social media is to be social and to share authentically who you are, yourself, even if you're focused on one topic.

Mr. Marketology Jeff Beale can teach you to become an authority using the four C's: Content, Contacts, Communication, and Consistency. He tells us how to identify and understand our audience, optimize for social media, sell based on emotional triggers, and differentiate yourself from the crowd. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Our guest today is best-selling author and marketing strategist, Jeff Beale. He helps businesses leverage their knowledge to gain authority status in their industry, and then he uses authority marketing to generate even higher converting leads. Hey, Jeff. I'm Robert. How are things today? Jeff Beale: Things are going well. Thanks for having me on the show, Robert. Robert Plank: I'm really glad that you're on. The stuff that you do, you help people gain authority status and do authority marketing, so what does that entail exactly? Jeff Beale: Marketing basically in a layman's term is to become the go-to person in any product or service. Authority marketing is when somebody's hungry right on the street, they think of McDonald's, because, hey, McDonald's is an authority. When you're thirsty, you think of Coca-Cola, because Coca-Cola is an authority. Things of that nature. Becoming that authority no matter which industry it's in helps you leverage your credibility. It also helps you generate business based off the fact that whenever people think of what you offer or that industry, they think of you. It's just the process of building that credibility, building that brand awareness so whenever they think of that, you're the first person that comes to mind, and usually the first person that comes to mind will be the one that gets the business unless you do something to mess it up. Robert Plank: How does someone become an authority? Is it a matter of having a book or a blog, traffic, or social media or some combination? What does someone have to do exactly? Jeff Beale: It's a combination. Actually, the first thing you would need to do is to first identify your audience. Know exactly who your audience is and then their needs, and then the last piece would be to find out where do they go to get information. Identify, let's say your audience. A lot of people like to identify their audience such as, well, they are this age, this gender, this ethnic group. I'm talking more of the psychological. For instance, let's go back to McDonald's. McDonald's serve people that are hungry. Coca-Cola serve people that are thirsty. It can get as basic as that, but you need to really know your audience, then understand their needs. What is it that pains them, keeps them up at night, makes them pull the action trigger to do business with somebody? Once you understand that, then you can find out where do they go most often to find out who they want to do business with? What's the authority? Is it a magazine? A lot of people used to do the old traditional marketing, push marketing, on television and radio or a magazine. Nowadays, like you said, there's social media, there's bloggers, there's sites like Yo. There's tons of places that they go to to find out who is the best choice for what they are looking for. Once you find that out, then it's all about quality content. It's all about putting out the best quality information for them to make an informed decision. That can be several ways. That can be social media posts. That can be blog posts. That can be what we're doing right now, podcasting is a great way of doing that. It can be videos. It can be many different things that you could put out as far as content, the type of content, but you find out what resonates the most around your audience and you deliver your actual content in a way that they easily digest it, they can get the information, they can make an informed decision, and they feel comfortable doing so. Robert Plank: That all sounds like a pretty good plan, and that makes a lot of sense to me. How does this relate to what it is that you do?

Filip Valica from The Product Startup is a mechanical engineer who runs a podcast where he interviews small business owners and Shark Tank winners about Do It Yourself product development. He discusses the path you need to take to go from an idea for a physical product, to selling it in a marketplace. (Test your idea quickly, make a prototype, validate the market, iterate, etc.) He also touches on different ways to make money with physical products, from Amazon FBA, to selling on your own website, tweaking existing products from suppliers, and even licensing. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Filip Valica is the founder of The Product Startup, a site that provides a step by step blueprint to aspiring product creators wanting to bring their ideas market. Through interviews with successful small business owners, inventors and Shark Tank winners, he explores the intersection of his interest and experience, which is Do It Yourself product development. Filip, glad to have you on the show today. Filip Valica: Awesome. Thanks for having me on the show, Robert. Robert Plank: Cool, so in addition to what we just talked about, what is it exactly that you do? Filip Valica: By day I'm a mechanical engineer and an engineering manager. I work for companies to help take their products to market. Then at night I turn into a superhero you've never heard of to help other people kind of do the same with their own personal ideas. Robert Plank: Cool, so like with who and with what? Filip Valica: In my day job I work with, most of the companies I work with are in oil and gas, and some are in utilities and emergency vehicles. When I first got out of school, I worked for IBM and then I worked for a really tiny company. I went from working with like a 300,000 person company to like a mom and pap with 20 people. That 20 person company developed these products for, they basically connected the engine of an emergency vehicle and create a ton of electrical power to power like the Jaws of Life or other types of tools that a firefighter might use to get you out of a car. Robert Plank: That's cool. You take your mechanical engineering knowledge and someone has an idea, and you help them get it out there, get it patented, all that good stuff? Filip Valica: In a way. I'm doing it on my website and I'm not working with individuals right now. It's just a site where I put a bunch of information. It was a labor of love, so you could say. Our daughter was born about 16 months ago and the day that she was born I realized that you know what? If I don't get off my rear end and follow my passion and do something, then I'm going to wake up one day and she'll be in college and I'll be regretful. That day I basically started working on creating a bunch of content for a site and I launched the site in January of this year. Then I created a podcast in March, where I interview people that have been able to turn their ideas into products themselves. Yeah, the rest is history, so to speak. It's really just a information based site and a place where you can go to find how to take the next step if that's what you're looking to do. Robert Plank: Well, cool. Let's talk a little bit about that. As far as the site that you created and the content that you've created yourself plus the guests you have on, what's the most interesting, I guess, topic or case study that comes to mind right now? Filip Valica: Yeah, so I think most people will write in and say, "Hey, I have this really cool idea and I don't know how to take it to market" or, "What's the next step that I need to take? I've got a sketch of something and maybe I need to go and patent it, but what do I do?" To them it's probably the same thing that you guys have talked about in your other episodes. It's you really want to test your idea as quickly as you can, creating a concept prototype and validating the market, validating the customers. There's a process of all of this on the site for free,

Brian Lofrumento, creator of The Ultimate Profit Model, tells us about his online system to not only develop an idea into an information product (or coaching program) that serves a hungry and specific crowd, he also explains his webinar model (shatter existing beliefs and rebuild them) as well as how he fills up his webinars with attendees using Facebook ads. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Brian Lofrumento is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author. He's made a thing called the Ultimate Profit Model, and he's written a book called, "Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur." Brian is an internet entrepreneur, speaker, and author whose businesses have reached over 3.5 million people in over 200 countries. He built a six figure SEO agency at the age of twenty-four and has helped over fifty clients from around the US and over three thousand students from around the world grow and automate their businesses by implementing high converting sales and marketing funnels. Sounds like lots of good stuff. Welcome to the show, Brian. Brian Lofrumento: Thanks Robert. I'm super excited to be here and give your audience some awesome value here today. Robert Plank: Awesome. What exactly is it that you do, and what makes you unique and special? Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Great question. That's a loaded question, Robert, to start this out, but I love it. The big thing that I do is I really take people from saying, "Okay. I really want to be an entrepreneur, but I don't know where to go," to packaging it up, whether it's a product or service for an online program. Something that can pull in some serious profits for them. High profit margins. I help them find a market of people who are looking to actually buy that product or service. Robert Plank: Cool. Exactly how far do you take it? Have you dealt with clients who just have absolutely no idea what to do, or someone would have like a half written book. I mean, do you narrow down their niche? How far do you go with that? Brian Lofrumento: Yeah. Actually, there's an easy way to answer that question. The first thing that I always do with people is I ask them, "Who the heck are you trying to serve?" A lot of people when they do come to me they say, "I want to be an entrepreneur, but I don't have a business idea." I always argue that you don't actually need a business idea. You just need to determine and decide on who it is that you want to serve. For example, one of my most successful students that I worked with, he's a high school soccer coach. He wanted to be an entrepreneur, but he didn't know exactly what to do. He had no business idea. I asked him who does he want to serve, and he said he wanted to help other soccer coaches become better coaches. Once he decided who he wanted to serve, I simply asked him, "What's standing in between them and the result that they want, which is to become better coaches?" He started listing everything out. He said they don't know how to plan practices, they don't know how to deal with parents, they don't know what nutrition and fitness advice to give their players. He went through all these things, and we packaged it up into a $997 inner circle. He sells that to coaches all around the country, so that they can learn from him. They can get weekly access to him and go through these training modules that he has. It literally is from idea to actual execution and launch. I love seeing my students go, while they're working with me, go from $0 to $10,000 a month. Robert Plank: That's pretty cool. I think that what was packed in there a little bit is just the idea that you don't have to come up with a crazy, fancy idea, like you said. You just figure out who you want to serve and that kind of reminds me of early on for me, I was trying to think of what my next product or software program should be. One of my mentors at the time just said ... Something that's hot right at that moment was affiliate marketing, so he was like, "well, put together some set of tools that helps with...

  Sharon Bolt from Get Free Publicity Today, and author of the free report, "How To Write An Attention Grabbing Press Release" tells us how she was able to land a spot on BBC radio as well as a recurring segment where she appears on the radio regularly. She also tells us about press releases and what you may be missing from them. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Sharon Bolt is a publicity expert and founder of Get Free Publicity Today. She has contributed to more than 40 different local and national newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, and has received over $1.5 million in free publicity. That sounds pretty cool. Welcome to the show, Sharon. Sharon Bolt: Thanks very much for having me, Robert. I'm really please to be here. Robert Plank: Cool. I'm pleased that you are here. I understand that you talk about press releases and publicity, is that right? Sharon Bolt: That's right. Robert Plank: Cool, so could you tell us a little bit about that and how you got started with that, and what makes you different, and unique, and special? Sharon Bolt: Yeah, sure. People are actually a little shocked when I tell them about my first media experience because what happened, Robert, was I got myself booked on BBC Radio 2, which is a national radio station in the UK. That was without any prior media exposure. Now people are a little bit shocked about that but what actually happened was that I was introduced as a dog-training expert, answering dog behavior questions, when I actually had a complimentary therapy business and not a dog-training business. Dog training was passion at the time and I went on to do for the next 9 years. What happened was I saw an opportunity, I believed I could make a difference so I went for it. It was the start of numerous media interviews. Robert Plank: That's cool. You said that you had a therapy business and BBC Radio 2, they were looking for experts to talk about dog training so you were able to fit that in, is that right? Sharon Bolt: Well that's right. I had recently got 2 puppies and had been told that it was the worst case scenario because they're brothers, litter mates. I was told that they would fight for the top dog position, and they'd take no notice of me, and that I would probably need to re-home one. I had been on a mission it had to be a natural way of communicating with them, and I looked at my 2 puppies and said, 'You two are not going anywhere." I had embarked on this mission to save my puppies and what had happened was is that I had started to introduce what I was discovering and what I was learning to my complimentary therapy clients who had dogs. We were all getting amazing results. When I heard the DJ say on the national radio station that he was going to get somebody from the TV, a dog-training expert, on the show the following week, I thought to myself, "You know what? I can do that." What I did, Robert, is I sat down at the computer and I wrote to the host. It was just the normal email address. I didn't have his direct email address, it was just the general email address, and I said everything about dogs. Now I didn't make it about me at all. It was nothing about me, it was all about what I could do for him and his listeners. Then at the end I said to him, "You've got to give me a call because I'll be a great guest on your show." Naturally I told him I was a dog expert and that he should call me. Well, nothing happened. I got no call back. A couple of days later he actually said that he was also going to include the following week on the show, and he called them podgy dogs. There I was, Robert, in the subject line now, of the email, I wrote, podgy :04:01] dogs. I'm your girl." Again, I wrote this email and I explained why dogs were overweight, what the answers were, what I could tell him, what I could tell his listeners and that he needed to get me on his show. Nothing happened. Then it was the weekend and I went and did a dog-training consultation.

Jason Swenk talks to us about creating the resource you "wish you had" that satisfies the criteria of: 1. something you're passionate about, 2. something you're knowledgeable in, 3. an area where you have a unique advantage, and 4. something that is helpful and educates people. He tells us how he started, grew, and sold an agency, and shares some cutting edge techniques including the early bird list and progressive profiling with thank you pages. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Today's expert guest is Jason Swenk. Have you ever asked yourself how can I start an agency? How can I scale my agency? How can I generate more leads? How can I find time to do work on the business and not in the business, and what systems do I need in place, or even how do I position myself to sell my agency? We're in the right place. We're talking to the right guide. We're talking to Mr. Jason Swenk. How are things today Jason? Jason Swenk: A man. How's it going? Robert Plank: Super fantastic. This whole agency thing, or web agency, I've got to be honest. I've heard it thrown around. I've heard this term being used at live events. I've been to events where it's like these talks offer agencies only, but I have to admit after seeing it thrown around and seeing a few different, I guess, agencies, I'm still at a loss as to what an agency is. Could you fill us in a little bit? Jason Swenk: Yeah. It's basically a professional service firm that does marketing or technology for their clients. There's so many forms of a digital agency. The traditional agency everybody thinks of Mad Men, right? I create the Super Bowl ads, commercials, that kind of stuff, but on the digital side there's so many agencies that actually creates websites or do just social media, or mobile apps, or email marketing, or whatever it is. That's what a digital agency is. Robert Plank: Does it have to be a team? Jason Swenk: Yes, because if it's just one person you're a freelancer. Robert Plank: Oh, okay. You could have a 2 person agency technically. Jason Swenk: Exactly. Robert Plank: Well, cool. Now that were on the same page with that could you tell us about yourself and about your agency, and what it is that you do? Jason Swenk: Yeah. Back in 1999, back when Al Gore invented the Internet, thank you Al, I worked for a company called Arthur Anderson who was the paper shredding company of Enron, and worked for them for about 6 months. At that time I was a computer programmer and I really hated what I was doing but I didn't know what I could do next. I was just lucky my friend looked like Justin Timberlake so I created a website making fun of of NSYNC back in the day when they were popular, and it was called NSHIT. It got really popular and started designing websites for people because people were like, "Hey, can you design me a website?" I was like, "Yeah, sure." I was like, "Five hundred dollars," and they were like, "Yes." I was like, "Oh. Cool," and then the next person comes along and I was like, "a thousdand dollars," and I just kept going up until someone said no, and just started doing websites for a lot of cool people. I struggled for a couple years just because, we were always profitable, but for the first couple years I didn't know even what an invoice was. I didn't know how to run a business or really how to get it off the ground. I didn't have that clarity of where we were going, and then when I started focusing on that that's when we started making, crossing over the 7 figure mark and crossing over that mark, and all this kind of stuff going forward. Robert Plank: How much of this do you do yourself? Do you just manage a team or how hands-on are you personally? Jason Swenk: I sold my agency in 2012, so I ran it for 12 years and sold it. Now what I do, and I'll explain what I did in the past. In the very beginning I was doing everything myself. I was doing project management. I was doing design. I was doing development, hosting, everything,

Damir Butkovic tells us the amazing story of how he brought in 4 new recurring clients in 14 days just by sending a simple four sentence email to 20 prospects. He is an implementer for small business, quickly creating websites with WordPress, email marketing campaigns with Aweber and ActiveCampaign, payment solutions with PayPal and Stripe, as well as landing pages using ClickFunnels. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Damir Butkovic is talking to us today about internet marketing strategy and he's the creator of the magic calendar partnership program. He publishes daily marketing tips on his website at DamirButkovic.com.au and his clients have included clients from start-ups on a minimal budgets to consulting high end fashion realtors. Damir, glad to have you on the show. Welcome to the podcast. Damir Butkovic: Thank you. I'm glad to be here and of course thank you for the opportunity. Robert Plank: Awesome. I think we're going to talk about a lot of fun stuff, have a good old time on the show. Could you tell us what it is that you do and what makes you special and different than everyone else out there? Damir Butkovic: I realized kind of some years ago that I have this rare ability which I thought it's kind of a downfall. I have kind of, call it an analytical mind but what I can see when I talk to someone like the big picture, you know like people say oh I want to, I don't know sell stuff online, so I can see what they want, but I can also see all the moving parts and that's the part where people get confused so I can see, you know, I don't know from Facebook or I don't know website or landing page, or whatever, I can see all those parts which is usually, I can put them together and it makes sense to me. How to connect it all together while most people are too analytical they can't see, we call it, the big idea or they have the idea and they don't know how, it doesn't really exist and it's very complex for them. For me it's just normal and logical and this is why I love internet marketing of course, is, you know, already it's a lot of moving parts. I say they're not hard but there is a lot of little things. If you go on, for example, and create a Facebook ad, you've got to worry about targeting, you've got to worry about headline, about copy, got to worry about images, and it can be I don't know 20 percent text and the image so little things like that, not hard, for some other people, for them it's already a problem so I can see that part in the targeting and there is PR blasts and partners and SEO and all these things so I can see it all together, put it all together and obviously make it work. Basically from that part I can see the whole strategy and I can implement the strategy. A lot of people I guess have seen that. They see the strategy and their good at it but they don't even know how to implement it so I kind of have the tech background. I'm not the best quality in tech but I'm very good at it so I'll even know the best tools, which tools to use, to make it all work, or the budget or the easiest, I call it the easiest, and the simplest way so I kind of combine two things together so I would say that's the rare thing that a lot of guys and gals don't really have. Robert Plank: Cool. I like that way of thinking and that's kind of the way that I think as well where it's frustrating to see, kind of like you said, a lot of people they'll have a lot of ideas or they'll be really philosophical about the marketing but it's one thing to say well you should have some Facebook ads, you should have a high converting landing page, and I'm thinking okay it's great that you said that but wouldn't it be more helpful if you showed it to me. Wouldn't it be helpful if you broke down the pieces and why things are in a certain way. Wouldn't it be more helpful to see someone go from scratch to creating something that's fully working and how it's all the pieces put together? Would you say, Damir,

Charles Manuel from Berkshire SEO tells us the story of how we went from selling a speed reading course, to helping online businesses make money. Charles uses SEO, PPC, influencer marketing, and social media tactics to generate lots of new leads (and keep existing customers) for local businesses. He shares not only lots of common sense advice, but tells us about some creative ways he's used the internet to boost sales. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Our guest today is Charles Manuel. He is a pretty cool guy who knows about online marketing, search engine optimization, and he works mostly with small business owners to help them build effective marketing plans. We're going to talk about all kinds of cool 4-Hour Work Week type of stuff. Charles, welcome to the show. Charles Manuel: Robert, thanks for having me. Robert Plank: Awesome. Right before we started recording, you were telling me about how, I guess in college, you discovered The 4-Hour Work Week, and this whole internet marketing thing. Charles Manuel: That's exactly right, yeah. I picked up a copy of the book. I always like to study different business methods, because I did go to college for accounting, and wanted to be a financial advisor. I actually was for a few years. In college, I started playing around with starting small online businesses, and doing them primarily online in my spare time. The first thing I did was a speed reading course, and I developed the course myself by kind of taking the best parts of a bunch of courses I had taken, and decided to make one for college students. It sold horribly. I realized, "Oh, there's a lot more to online marketing than just looking up some keywords that you think will do well, throwing $1,000 at paper click advertising, and hoping it all works out." It takes a lot of planning, and research, and everything. I started digging into it little by little over the years, and I made another business, and had some success, and made another one. Eventually, I realized I could make a lot of money just helping out small business owners to do the same thing. To just use the internet to help them market themselves. I know so many plumbers, and contractors, and restaurateurs, and folks like that just in my area that still put an ad in the newspaper, and yet don't use their Facebook page. It just seemed really strange to me that they'd rather spend $300 or $400 a month instead of use something that's free. That's what I do. I help folks leverage a lot of stuff that's generally free, and oftentimes better than conventional methods. Robert Plank: Interesting. I'm glad that you brought up and you started with the SEO, the search engine optimization kind of stuff, because I think that a lot of people kind of try to tell you, "Well, just build it and they will come," or, "Just put up a website, and just get some keywords, and put up some meta tags, and people will just magically find you." It seems like that's a good place to start I guess, but that's not all the traffic methods, and then I guess as you found from your early adventure with the speed reading courses, that even if you do have traffic, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will buy it. Do you know of a marketer named Onyx Singal? Charles Manuel: Not familiar with the name. Robert Plank: I forget what his website is, but early on, I think his first product was something about how to get better grades. In the same kind of vein as what you were selling. What's always stuck with me, years and years later, is that he did the same thing, put out a website, tried to get some buyers, and he noticed that, number one, that college kids and high school kids don't have any money and aren't willing to put money into buying this course, and the majority of his customers were the parents of kids. There would be, like, a parent of a kid with bad grades. They would buy this book as a last ditch kind of effort. It still wouldn't work, but I think there definitely is something to that...

Naresh Vissa from Krish Media Marketing, a 21st century publisher who's fluent in web design, web development, and marketing -- author of "Fifty Shades of Marketing: Whip Your Business Into Shape & Dominate Your Competition" and "Podcastnomics: The Book of Podcasting... To Make You Millions" -- shares his best and craziest marketing techniques with us. He tells us about three ways to monetize a podcast (ads, existing products, and premium content), how to make money with porn sites, LinkedIn, Yelp, and more. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: My guest today is Naresh Vissa, and he's the author of Fifty Shades of Marketing: Whip Your Business Into Shape & Dominate Your Competition, and Podcastnomics: The Book of Podcasting to Make You Millions. Naresh, welcome to the show, I'm glad to have you here. Naresh Vissa: Thanks so much. It's a pleasure to be on. Robert Plank: Could you tell us what it is that you do and what makes you different and special. Naresh Vissa: I am a publisher by background, and a lot of people Robert don't really quite understand what that means when I tell them I'm a financial publisher. It's like, what is that? Really what I do is I use the online and digital world to sell information, whether it's investment information, financial information, personal financial information, or even books. I have a book publishing division. That's what I do, so my skillset is very, very strong in the online and digital marketplace. My company, Krish Media & Marketing, it's one of the companies that I have. We provide an array of online and digital marketing, and just general digital services for small businesses. This is what I call Robert the 21st century economy, because what I do, I'm a publisher, and as an online business person, this job wasn't around 15 years ago, or 20 years ago. It's a 21st century job. Robert Plank: Okay, and what you do exactly. You said you have your books and you have products and things. Is that right? What exactly is it that you've been putting out recently? Naresh Vissa: Yeah, so the the Krish Media Marketing side, we help existing businesses improve their bottom lines through the online and digital world. That could be we offer services as simple as web design, web development. Some more complex things like Google AdWords, pay per click, affiliate marketing, copyrighting, etc. Now on the publishing side, I said I'm a publisher. What we do is we sell investment research to individuals, so let's say Robert, for example, you don't want to put your money with a financial advisor, or a money manager, who's going to manage all your money. Instead, you can subscribe to our services, and we'll tell you exactly what to do with your money. We'll tell you what companies to buy, when to buy, what to sell, when to sell, what to short, when to go long. We provide economic analysis, and other insights so that our subscribers have a very firm grasp, and also total control over their money. These are subscription products that we sell. Two of my companies that do this, one is called Money Ball Economics, and the other one is called Normandy Investment Research. Normandy Investment Research focuses on options trading, and Money Ball Economics, is more for beginners, so beginner and intermediate type of traders and investors. Those are subscription products that we sell, and again, my skillset in the online and digital world helps me sell these products. It helps me find leads, market to them, and funnel them through our processes. Robert Plank: Well cool, so you said that this is a job that didn't exist 20 years ago, so can you tell us how you came across this, and how you developed the skills? I mean, how your even discovered the need for this kind of thing? Naresh Vissa: It happened completely by chance, Robert. I didn't grow up telling people I want to grow up to become a financial publisher. It kind of just fell in my lap, while I was in graduate school, actually,

Dr. Mary Wingo is here to talk about stress and her new book, The Impact of the Human Stress Response: The Biological Origins and Solutions to Human Stress. She answers the tough questions, and explains how to understand stress (adaptation to people or an environment). Dr. Mary discusses the major causes of stress, as well as how we can all live happier and more fulfilled lives with purpose. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Today's guest is Dr. Mary Wingo. She's the author of the impact of the human stress response and in her book she talks about the root causes of stress and how to manage it effectively, why the stress response is essential for helping to adapt to one's environment, the fascinating biology of human stress, the 5 major causes of stress in modernized society, and how to protect your health. Learn how to avoid overloading one body's stress response. Lots of cool stuff. Welcome to the show Mary. Mary Wingo: Thank you. Thank you for having me Robert. Robert Plank: I understand that you talk about stress and stuff like that. Mary Wingo: Yes. Absolutely. That is what I'm about. Robert Plank: Cool. I work from home. I don't know about you but I get stressed about stuff all the time and I think it might feel like as I'm getting older either the stress is more, or maybe I'm just more aware of it. What's the answer? Is stress of thing that we need to manage, or minimize, or ignore, or can we direct it into something good? What's the answer to this whole stress problem? Mary Wingo: First off is understanding the actual definition of stress Robert. The definition of stress, and it took a very long time to actually come up with a workable definition, but the definition is this. It's the rate of adjustment that you undergo in order to adapt to whatever an environment that you happen to find yourself in. The key is here, is that there's 2 aspects. There's 2 sides of stress. There's the actual, since we're talking about people, the human being, and the second component is the environment. It can actually be a matter of personal will or it can actually be something that's out of your reach, and that's a problem with the environment, and you just have to alter or change your environment. Robert Plank: Okay. For example, if someone transitions from a day job to being a full-time entrepreneur, or they had a big life change or something like that. That is, I guess what stress is, so if someone goes through that stress and overcomes it versus the stress kind of hangs around or gets worse, what's happening there versus someone who's actually dealing with it? Mary Wingo: Okay. You've touched on a really important point. Yes. Ultimately organisms, you are only supposed to be subjected to stress periodically, sporadically, but the way that modernized society is structured, a lot of us have, not necessarily horrible life-threatening stressors, it's not like a bear is chasing us every second of the day, but for most of us these nagging somewhat smaller stress, well there are some large stresses too, but that just go on day after day after day, and it's relentless. Stress mechanisms are just that. They are how we adapt. They are our adaptive mechanisms. It's not just the adrenaline. It's not just cortisol. It is a whole cascade of physical responses. The key is to be able to do what you can call to try to resolve the stress and not keep a nagging, incessant exposure day after day after day to it because when that happens that is when we get stress related mental illness and physical disease. In fact it's an exploding phenomenon in our society. Robert Plank: Could you walk us through an example or a case study of someone who you dealt with who had just a really bad problem with stress and you changed their ways and it fixed it up a little bit? Mary Wingo: Oh, I can use myself. Robert Plank: Perfect. Mary Wingo: I'll use myself because ultimately, when I was researching, this was decades in the making.

Dr. Chris Friesen, Ph.D from Friesen Performance, and author of the book, ACHIEVE: Find Out Who You Are, What You Really Want, And How To Make It Happen, tells us how to find our life's purpose with small changes and a number of easy techniques. He talks about the 5 minute rule to instantly overcome procrastination, the 10 minute rule to stop bad habits, the structure of your environment (great for finishing that "big" task you've been avoiding) and why it's so important to have your "why" (values, purpose, and mission). Display TranscriptRobert Plank: I have a quick question for you. Are you unsure of your life's purpose? Are you afraid you're living below your true potential. Do you have trouble staying motivated and focused on your goals? If any of those sound like you or they could sound like you or they do sound like you at times, we have Dr. Chris Frieson. He's the author of the book Achieve: Find out who you are, what you really want, and how to make it happen. He's going to be talking to us about all kinds of cool and fun mindset stuff. How are things, today Dr. Chris? Chris Friesen: They're very good. Thanks for having me on your show. Robert Plank: Cool. I'm glad to have you here. Tell me about yourself and tell me about this book and what you do and about all the cool things you can do to help people here. Chris Friesen: Sure, sure. I'm a psychologist. I'm trained as a clinical, forensic, and neuropsychological. These are fancy ways of saying trained to diagnose and assess people with emotional problems, criminal problems (of course that's forensic), and neuropsychological is brain problems like Azheimers, brain injury, stroke. That kind of thing. A lot of my work these days is really focused on what I call high achievers. These are just people a lot of them are athletes, professional. Some Olympic, but also entrepreneurs, writers, academics. People who just want to take their game, their life, to the next level. I do work with people and long story short I wrote this book you just described which is the first part of the High Achievement handbook. There's going to be three actual books in the series. This one is really about exactly what you said, finding out who you are, what's really important to you, what you really want, and to make sure that what you do with your life on the day to day basis is actually the right thing for you. Then, how to make it happen on a day to day basis in terms of being productive, efficient, that kind of thing. Robert Plank: That's cool. I think the people that we're making this show for are online entrepreneurs and I keep thinking back to when I had the day job mindset and now I have the entrepreneur mindset and it seems like, let me know your thoughts on this, but it feels like to me there's a lot of people who haven't quite woken up, yet. A lot of people are at their day job doing the nine to five kind of stuff and it seems like a lot of us have so many things holding us back, but we're not yet really awake. I think that a few years ago when I made the jump from the day job lifestyle to the entrepreneur lifestyle I had to almost relearn everything and the big thing that all these things that have previously been holding me back, they were still there, but I didn't realize they were there and it seems almost like making the jump and quitting the day job and starting a business and taking bigger risks brought all these little things in hiding to light. Does that makes sense? Chris Friesen: Yeah. For sure. When we have day jobs, and I'm actually just like you in a lot of ways. I worked in a hospital settings. I worked in a prison. That kind of thing. When I broke off and have been working on my own for about six years, now just completely on my own as a consultant I guess you would call it. It's just like an entrepreneur in the professional psychology coaching or sports psychology realm. When we're working for companies, their very structured.

Mitch Russo, former President of Chet Holmes, co-creator of Business Breakthroughs with Tony Robbins, and author of the book The Invisible Organization: How Ingenious CEOs Are Creating Thriving, Virtual Companies, talks with us about what mindsets, skills, and actions you must take to become an entrepreneur who perseveres and succeeds. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Mitch Russo has worked with Chet Holmes. He worked with Tony Robbins. He has a new book called The Invisible Organization. Mitch, welcome to the show today. Mitch Russo: Thank you, Robert. Great to be here. Robert Plank: I'm glad to have you. Could you tell us about yourself and what it is that you do? Mitch Russo: Sure. I'll give you a little bit of background first so you know who I am. I was born in Brooklyn, New York. I had a rock band up until the age of 17, and I probably learned more about business in my rock band than any other single thing as a kid. We booked gigs all over New York City. We probably were the highest paid bands under 18 years old in the entire state for a little while. Back in 1977, we were getting $500 a gig, which, in today's dollars, is actually ridiculous. Robert Plank: Especially for an 18-year-old, yeah. Mitch Russo: Exactly. We were so young, we weren't even able to drive our own van. We had to hire somebody to help us get to a gig because we were too young to drive, but I learned so much about marketing, about sales, about positioning, even about quality. It was really an incredible experience. Then I went on to... I moved to Massachusetts to take a job with a computer company, and I ended up in sales. I did a lot of cool stuff when I got to Massachusetts, but probably one of the most memorable things I did was I started a software company. I started it. Literally, as they say, it was a garage operation. I started it, literally, above my garage in the one room that nobody knew what to do with in my house. My neighbor and I got together and we built a company out of an idea that I had, and that grew to 100 people, and we had moved the company 5 times over the course of the 9 years, until we eventually sold it for 8 figures to Sage Plc in the UK. Man, what an incredible experience that was. Again, there's no better way to learn than to make all of the mistakes that we made and have to fix them or die. It's correct your mistakes or die, so you've just got to step up and make it happen. There were nights that we would be looking at the payroll and thinking... My partner and I would look at each other and go, "You know, we don't have enough money in the account to cover payroll." The two of us go into our wallet, and we started making the rounds at cash machines and taking money off of our credit cards to make payroll. I mean, it was that bad at one point, but later, everything went right and we were able to finally make things happen. You know the story of The Hero's Journey, Robert? Robert Plank: Joseph Campbell. Mitch Russo: Exactly. There were so many points in time when we were on the brink of failure, and we didn't quite know what to do, and then we just persevered. We just kept going, and then boom. It just happened, and it worked. That was a great experience, and I finished up with that. After I sold the company, I then went and worked for the people who bought us, Sage, and I ended up running the entire U.S. division for Sage, and I was actually completely done, at the age of 44, with millions of dollars in my pocket and theoretically able to retire if I wanted to, but I couldn't. I absolutely would be bored out of my mind, so I started investing in other people's startups. I started working with the venture capital community, and I started building a portfolio of companies that I invested in and friends that I made throughout the entire process. That went on until I got a call from a buddy of mine, Chet Holmes. Now, Chet and I had been friends since my Timeslips days, and he said to me, "Mitch, I need some help.

Damon "DaRil" Nailer, New Orleans native and author of "A Greater Taste of Success" talks mindset, passion, consistency, balance, and consistency. His message will help anyone who's looking for that combination of finding something you're good at, something you're passionate about, an activity or service where others receive satisfaction, and something you can do for free. Check it out right now! Display TranscriptRobert Plank: I am super excited to introduce to you today, Mr. Damon Nailer, he serves as an author, motivational speaker, talk show host, music producer, songwriter, recording artist, and business owner. Lots of cool stuff, how are things in your neck of the woods Damon? Damon Nailer: Everything is going well Robert I can't complain, just enduring some hot weather but besides that everything is dandy, I can't complain. Robert Plank: I see you're in Louisiana, we have some hot weather here in California but I prefer the hot. Damon Nailer: Well here it is extremely hot we have been having triple digit temperatures so its been pretty hot but like you said you prefer the hot out there but here, with the humidity, its just awful sometimes. Robert Plank: It just kills you, so all the more reason to stay inside and make some money. Tell me about yourself, tell me what it is that you do, and how you got started and your story and all of that. Damon Nailer: Well I do so much but most importantly I'm a music producer, a speaker, and an author and a business owner. I own a janitorial service and I do that as well. But I've just released an inspirational E-Book entitled "A Greater Taste of Success" and it's the second addition in my inspirational books. The first one was "The Great Taste of Success" and so this is the second edition. I've also just released a non-fictional book, that's actually a book about Revelation in the bible and we kind of talk about that, analyze and interpret and teach the content found in that book. I'm also a speaker so I do different motivational speeches, I do seminars, I do workshops, ministry opportunities for us to talk in religious institutions. I just speak in a variety of settings and like I said last but not least; I also own a janitorial service. We clean different buildings here in my city and so I just do all of those things. Robert Plank: It sounds like a lot of fun, but how do you keep all of that straight? How do you do the authoring and the speaking and janitorial stuff and then the motivation and the music? How do you do all of that? Damon Nailer: I always tell people to balance it out, I just consider myself part time in all of those things besides being a father, husband, and christian, those things are full time. But everything else is part time, and I I'm able to juggle my schedule and make the time to do it. I know with the writing and with the music, I basically do it as I'm inspired, as the inspiration comes and I'm able to write down a lot of information and i basically keep everything as I do my research and as I'm feeling inspired. Then when its time to create a project or do a book, I've already complied all the information and that's why it makes it easier for me to do different projects and to put together different books because I'm always studying, always compiling information, always being inspired and I just gather everything, and when its time we just put it all together. That's basically how I do it, just being part time with everything, and whatever it slowing the most, that's the direction I go in. Robert Plank: That's cool and would you say that just the fact that you have so many things happening at once and you kind of have to go at a super fast pace or else you fall behind. Would you say that, that helps your creative process a lot? Damon Nailer: Yes it does, it does because I experience so much on a day to day basis. I'm constantly meeting people and connecting with a variety of people, such as yourself, with a variety of great people.

Dr. Rachna Jain from Profitable Popularity talks to us about social media marketing, traffic, and results. She's noticed that many online business owners simply use social media to "chase a number" instead of making their efforts profitable. She talks about her M6 model, how to get noticed, and shares with us lots of helpful mini-breakthroughs and tips on how to overcome common issues you might be facing with your marketing. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Our guest today is Dr. Rachna Jain. She's the founder and owner of Profitable Popularity. She's the industry leader in helping people gain exposure online and teaching them to monetize that popularity. It sounds like lots of cool stuff. I'm super excited. Welcome to the show. Rachna Jain: Oh thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. Robert Plank: We were just talking before the show that we've both spoken at the same event and I know that you've used Backup Creator and Webinar Crusher. That's all about me, but I'm more curious about you and what you do. Where's your website and what is it that you do that makes you different and special? Rachna Jain: Yes, my website is profitablepopularity.com. Really that website and my whole business model grew out of the idea that a lot of people were building these huge followings in social media or trying to, but they didn't actually have a business model that they could make money from or be profitable. My whole goal is to really help people to become more well-known, but also to help them become more profitable and build a sustainable business at the same time. I tend to work with people who you consider to be thought leaders or visionary entrepreneurs, people who have a message and a purpose, and they are needing some help creating the business structures to be able to build an online business and gain attention and be able to make money from it. Robert Plank: I like that, and I think that what I see a lot happen with a lot of these people with social media is they either get too far down the rabbit hole or it ends up taking up all kinds of time, or they end up doing all these little tasks that seem like they're just a waste just to get a number appearing. Wasn't there like a service a few years where you could get your Twitter score or something like that? Rachna Jain: Yeah, there absolutely were and they still are services like Cloud and Empire Cred. They're always ranking you on on how much engagement you could get, and you get points for it. I don't know if you can redeem the points for anything, but yeah- Robert Plank: It feels good. Rachna Jain: Exactly, it feels good. I think that there's still a lot of focus. I think people have the false assumption that just because they're very visible, they'll automatically become very profitable. That is a mistake. I've had people come to me and they say things like, "Well I want to have 10,000 Facebook fans." I'll say, "Okay, so what are you going to do with 10,000 Facebook fans?" They really have no idea. They really are pursuing the number more than actually what the meaning of that could be for their business. I think that there's still a lot of desire to be seen and recognized and lauded and applauded and all those things without people really understanding that that's not all it takes to build a business. Robert Plank: What do they have to do? How do they get from being the person who chases the number to someone whose social media activity actually pays off? Rachna Jain: Absolutely. I use a model that I've developed. It's called the M6 model. It really relies on the idea of having an understanding of a very specific market, building a very strong message, and then building a business model that can support getting that message out. There's more steps to it, but those are the first three steps. I've been working online since 1998 and social media didn't even exist then. When social media began to become a force that it is today,

Accomplished pianist, composer, songwriter, and entrepreneur Kory Livingstone, author of the book Quiet Determination drops by and tells us what separates good business coaches from bad coaches, as well as what you should look for in a good coach. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: My guest today is Kory Livingstone. He's going to be talking to us about finding the right business coach and he seems like a pretty cool guy. He plays piano, does vocals, has a party band, The Fabulous Mercurys, so I can't wait to hear what cool business knowledge he plans on dropping. Welcome to the show, Kory. Kory Livingstone: Thank you for having me, nice to be here. Robert Plank: I'm glad to have you here. I really like when people put some or a lot of their personality into the things they have to say as opposed to just people saying I'm a business coach, I'm a turnaround coach and they don't really have much to say. I really like how the things that you have to say you've mixed them and combined them with your musician and the other business stuff you have to say as well. Kory Livingstone: Yeah, my core is a musician, but don't be fooled, oh, he's only a musician. My book which is Quiet Determination: Unlocking the Gates to Unlimited Success is based on the lessons that I learned while studying music. In order to be successful in music there's a mindset, there's things you have to do in order to be successful in music. Successful in music, successful in life is the theme of the book. These are the lessons that I learned while I was studying music and I apply them to everything I do in life. It's like a hammer. You can use a hammer to hammer in this type of nail, that type of nail, a screwdriver for this, that, all these things. These are the tools that are used in different situations. Whether you're building a house or a swimming pool or a garage or a wall or an addition, they all use the same hammer, the same tool. Just because you're a musician it doesn't mean the tools you use to be successful to become a musician are not applicable to tools you have to use to be a successful lawyer, a doctor, a mechanic, a maintenance man, it doesn't matter. You have to have certain tools or I should say a mindset to be successful in life, period. What I have discovered when I wrote my book all these tools... Actually, it's a mindset and you've got to have a certain mindset to be successful. Coaching you have to have a mindset to be coached, to be coachable. All the big businesses, all the big businesses right around the world they work on developing the talent within their own ranks either through seminars, conferences, take a course. This is coaching. It may come across as a seminar, whatever word you want to use, but the bottom-line is that it's coaching. They're trying to promote within their ranks, so they can really do... Everybody has talent. It's potential. Some of us use some of our talent, some of us use a lot of our talent, some of us use very little of our potential talent. It's there, so it's just a matter of getting it out of you and that's what a coach does. Robert Plank: That's cool. It seems like there's a lot of parallels and a lot of lessons that you learn from this area of being a musician that you now apply it in other areas is what you're saying. Kory Livingstone: Exactly, just as I had a music teacher, but really a music coach. Athletes, professional athletes have coaches. That's where a lot of people go wrong and think oh, gee, I'm not an athlete, so how can I have a coach, I don't need a coach. No, coaching goes right across, right across all walks of life, financial, even leadership. There's certain... Coaching is just an amalgamation of a whole bunch of different things; consulting, psychology, leadership, management, training, counseling. Now you don't have... This sounds like gee, in order to be a coach I should be a psychologist or something like that. No. Yes, psychologists are coaches,

Everyone has great ideas, but what matters is taking action! Mayer Dahan from Prime Five Homes and The Dream Builder's Project tells us how he's innovated in the real estate space to create luxury, eco-friendly homes while also championing a great cause in the Los Angeles County area. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Today's guest is Mayer Dahan. Mayer has a vision for a sustainable, environmentally friendly residential market and has continued to make a positive impact in Los Angeles. Dahan has a bunch of cool projects, a bunch of cool companies. This thing called prime five homes, dream builders project, and prime five homes was recognized as one of the top 15 fastest growing private businesses in Los Angeles, and a recipient of the best of 2015 in west Hollywood aware. More recently, Mayer was acknowledged as a 40 under 40 residential builder to watch by professional builder magazine in 2016. Lots of cool subjects to talk about. Mayer, welcome to the show. Mayer Dahan: Awesome. Thank you for having me on, Robert. It's an honor. I'm excited. Robert Plank: Well, cool. It's an honor right back at you. What is it that you do and what makes you different and special? Mayer Dahan: I think that's probably the hardest question to answer for me. What I do is very difficult to be categorized as one thing or another. Through my experience of growing up in this century with all the difficulties and the new economy and recessions and what not, I've come to the understanding that each person must have many hats and must cover many responsibilities, so in essence, what I see in my own private development firm, where we come up with the most innovative, beautiful, sustainable, Eco-friendly, luxury homes we can come up with and try to raise the bar as best as possible to try to merge people who are looking for the finer things in life with the concepts and ideas that are relatable to taking care of our environment, to giving our children a better, healthier world, to not ruining the gift we're given. Subsequently, our company has a foundation that I founded four years ago, back in 2013, that ... our premise is a charity for charity. We use our profits from our houses to go out in the world, support charities, have children's events, feed the homeless events, back to school, galas for children's hospital, and we try to cover the gambit. We're trying to help the world economically, from a for profit side, and we're trying to help the world from a non-profit side, which may seem like it's a lot of things that are going on, but in my opinion, that's the most balanced and healthy approach that we can take to secure that we'll have success and purpose in our future. Robert Plank: I like all of that. The thing that I've been ... the pattern I've been seeing with a lot of business owners I've been talking to lately is that, like you said, you can't just do one thing, especially in this day and age. A lot of us have maybe a scattered attention span. Some of us have multiple businesses, and it seems like the people who have been doing really well are the ones where the businesses they have either interrelate, or one relates to the other, right? This way, you don't have to switch gears so much. You don't see people who maybe own a dry cleaning business and a truck driving business. It's like in your case, where you have your real estate business, but then also the non-profit. Is that right, one connects to the other? Mayer Dahan: Yeah, absolutely. There was this very consistent idea that I had many years ago where ... to explain it to you in simple terms, everybody has great ideas, but if you have a great idea, and you just pull it out of the sky, sometimes that standalone idea might not do so well. I think if you have a company, there are elevated statuses, there are other parts of the market, whether that be PR, marketing, social media. Whether that be the non-profit element of it. There's so many turns and bends that a company,

Laurie Burton talks to us today about becoming a better speaker and having a better presence so that you overcome the fear of failure and aversion to risk, and instead, be captivating and charismatic in your delivery. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Laurie Burton is an internationally recognized innovator and author who has helped thousands of people improve their ability to communicate effectively, thereby creating more success in business and in life. She is the author of Presenting You, and her techniques generate dramatic results in an amazingly short time, from one-on-one coaching, to seminars, and corporate groups, promoting the use of each individual's unique passion, energy, and animation. She encourages attendees to her workshops to be comfortable with themselves, creating more effective opportunities to lead, inspire, express, convince, and sell. That sounds like a great list. Welcome to the show, Laurie. Laurie Burton: Oh my goodness, what a list! Robert Plank: What a big promise to live up to! Laurie Burton: Really! Robert Plank: I'm really glad that you're here and that we're on the show. I'm really glad that we're on this topic because I'm sure you've come across people like this, but I'm not normally a very good speaker, communicator. I don't like dealing with people. I'd rather they just kind of leave me alone. Over time, I've realized that if I don't have these skills, I would be held back, so over time I've kind of forced myself- maybe not forced, but just kind of practiced and learned to be this better person, even though it doesn't come naturally. Does that make sense? Laurie Burton: Oh, it's a perfect example of how so many people feel the same way, Robert. It's amazing, and that's what I'm here to do, is to encourage people and ask them to go out there and risk a little failure, but a lot of success. You've got to take chances in life. Robert Plank: It makes a lot more sense to do it that way, and a lot more fun than just sitting at home wondering, "What if?" Right? Laurie Burton: Yes! "What if," and being alone, shy and perhaps withdrawn, not a part of a group that you'd like to be a member of, being confident enough to speak for yourself, and stand up and say your name with confidence. Robert Plank: Would you say that a lot of what you do, or the difference you make, is it mostly that confidence thing? What specifically separates you from everyone else out there who does something similar? Laurie Burton: I talk a lot about you've got to have, number 1, energy. Where does our energetic core lie? How does it look? When we talk to people, when we present something, when we give a speech, where does that energy lie? Your energy speaks first before you've ever said a word. People are reading your energy level. That's what draws people in. That's really what is captivating. That's a part of charisma, so you've got to be aware of your energy and how it looks to others. We can practice it. I encourage folks to practice it in the mirror, this energy. Just look at that energy and freeze it. If it looks kind of boring and dull, bring it up and out and towards the mirror and hit that mirror with your energy. You know what I'm saying? It's so important. Robert Plank: I kind of do. You're looking at yourself in the mirror. What exactly am I looking for? Is it like a posture? Laurie Burton: Your whole body. Your whole body. It starts with your eyes. You can say your name. Say your name in the mirror. "Hi! I'm Laurie Burton!" Is there an energy that's projecting that out or is it, "Hi. I'm Laurie Burton." It's back. There is something I call the imaginary line. No matter where we are, even on a telephone conversation like we have now. I have to cross an imaginary line between you and me across the country, or I have to cross an imaginary line between my audience and myself. My job, as a speaker, is to project my energy out to that audience and keep them awake, keep them alive and energetic,

Ajay Prasad from GMR Web Team and creator of RepuGen software tells us how business owners need to focus on their repeat customers AND how to differentiate to reach their ideal customer. He works with urgent care providers, dentists, local business and more to increase (and in some cases, save) their business with Yelp ratings, SEO, PPC, website updates, reputation, followup, and more. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Ajay Prasad is formerly a marketer for a few Fortune 10 companies and he now owns GMR Web Team, GMR Transcription, and his brand new business, RepuGen. Ajay has focused his career on helping SMB's maximize revenue and reach through the internet. Ajay, I'm Robert. Nice to meet you. Ajay Prasad: Very nice to meet you, Robert. I'm happy to be here. Robert Plank: Awesome. I'm happy, too. What I want to know is, what is it that you do and how are you different from everyone else out there? Ajay Prasad: What we do is essentially we help small- and medium-size businesses maximize their sales from the internet. A lot of the business is now coming from the internet, so that's what we do. We are different from your typical digital marketing agency is, number one, we are a full service agency. We have all the pieces in one place. We are not a one-trick pony. We are very strategy-focused. We judge yourself based on what kind of return we are bringing for our clients. For our client, it doesn't take them to ... We don't do all these mumbo jumbo about ranking and where you are. We just look at it, say, "What kind of money you are making from the internet or how many views you are getting?" Then, we see if we can improve it. We come up with a plan, we tell them what the budget will be, and if they are struck with us, that means they are happy, they are getting a positive return on investment. We don't lose too many clients, which tells me we must be doing something right. Robert Plank: That tells you you are providing good service, right? Ajay Prasad: Yes. Robert Plank: That's cool, and I like that because I don't work with a ton of small businesses. I work with a few, and what I always hear a lot is that, for example, I see that you guys work with dentists and urgent care doctors and things like that. What I hear from some of these doctors, the dentists especially and the chiropractors especially, is that they get these robocalls all day long from these kind of, like you said, the other one-trick pony kind of agencies. All they do is say, "Do you want to have a better Yelp review?" I'm thinking, okay, a Yelp review is nice but what about the rest of it? What about a website, social media, stuff like that? Ajay Prasad: Yes. That is where we always tell them that one thing is not going to do anything for you. These days, now, to get business from the internet, of course you have to be found. You need to be found. Then, you need to have a really stellar reputation online, where the Yelp review comes in definitely, and the other things, and once you have these, then of course you have to be able to convert. That's what it takes for someone to contact you. After that, your service comes in. Really, most of the small businesses ... I always say that if the majority of business is coming from new customers, then you need to look inside and see what you are doing wrong, because the majority of customers should be getting really from referrals, especially for small businesses. As you do a good job ... Everything needs to be a peace offering. You cannot just say, "I'll get you this. I'll get you that." Unless you look at all the pieces of business together, it will not work. Because my experience is with larger companies, where we always knew that the operations is as important as marketing, and finance is as important as operations and marketing. We become more of a consultant to our client, not just bring them customers. In face, today I'm meeting with one of my clients where it looks like we are not getting the positive ...

Donald Mazzella, author of the upcoming book, "Recalculating: 97 Experts on Driving Small Business Growth" tells us how to make great decisions in business, whether it has to do with leadership, marketing, operations, human capital, or finance. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Our guest today is Donald P. Mazella. Donald P. Mazella is a political and lifestyle expert who's been seen on MSNBC, Bloomberg, and in the Wall Street Journal. He is the COO of Information Strategies Inc, a company that helps business managers improve profits. He currently oversees a prints and internet publication network centered around Small Business Digest, with more than 3.2 million opt-in small business readers and healthcare industry stakeholders. Cool. Donald, I'm Robert. Nice to meet you. Donald Mazzella: Good to be here. Thanks for having me. Robert Plank: No problem. Tell me about yourself. Tell me about what you do? Donald Mazzella: Basically, right now we've just put together a book, 97 Experts on How to Grow a Small Business, which will appear in September. We're expanding. Small Business Digest has been around since 2000. It's had it's ups and downs. Right now it's in expansion mode. We've been helping small business managers, as you say, add profits. Ultimately, how you do that covers 3 main areas: You grow your business, you grow your profit line, or you sell your business. It ironic, in today's world a majority of small business owners above the age of 50 wil tell you all they want to do is get out. Exit strategies are now becoming very important. Robert Plank: That's what you do, compared to everyone else? You're all about the exit strategy? Donald Mazzella: We tell our audience in our stories. I should also say, most of our stories come from other entrepreneurs, or from stakeholders in the area. We've had Marcus Lemonis on the program, JD Powers, John Scully. We generally look for the people who've been successful and ask them how they've been successful, how they exited. We try to get them to provide 1 or 2 nuggets of information that our audience can use, whether it's on our radio program, whether it's in our newsletters, or in our e-zine, or now in the book. We just try to get them to talk to our audience because who knows better how to do things than people who have done it. Interestingly enough, sometimes we get someone who failed because sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success. Robert Plank: Oh, yeah. When things don't go the right way, and they have to readjust and change direction. Could you talk about an example from your book? One of these big failures that jumps out at you? Donald Mazzella: Can I talk a success strategy because it happens to come to mind because everybody has a business card, but as one of our experts said, "You're business card should be one of your most effective marketing tools." She goes into detail. She actually has a test that's included in the book on what your business card can do, and how to do it. For instance, your name of your company. It should be immediately recognizable, or distinctive. If it can be both, it's great. That's one. Now to give you one about failure. 53% of all the people we've talked to over the years, we've kept a running tally, have told us the biggest single factore in failure is financing, not having enough financing. That's number 1. Ironically, number 2, and which is reason we labeled the book recalculation, is the fact that the industry was changing, they didn't realize it. I thought that was fairly interesting. Then the 3rd reason they said for failure was the fact they picked the wrong people. Those are the 3 major reasons for failure. It's consistent throughout the book, and through the years we've been on the air. If you asked them, "What's the success?" They'll tell you, Number 1, they picked the right people. Number 2, they happened to have the right service or product at the right time. Number 3, which I found interesting,

Joshua Belanger from OptionSizzle tells us how to remove the fear and greed, overcome common financial obstacles and take control of your own money. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Today's guest is Joshua Belanger. He was a once struggling professional wrestler delivering pizzas and is now recognized as one of the leading experts with trading options and alternative investment opportunities to generate passive income. That's a mouthful but I'm super glad to have you on the show Joshua. Joshua Belanger: Yeah. You need to shorten that, but thanks. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to rock the mic for the next 20 minutes. Robert Plank: Awesome. What is it that you do? Joshua Belanger: Listening to that, and listening to it a few different times I think the way that I've shortened it down is that I help investors get over the 2 biggest obstacles I've seen over the last 12 years. What are those obstacles or hurdles? Fear and greed, so that's what I look to help them with. Robert Plank: Isn't that the stereotypes, like the Gordon Gekko you're supposed to be? You're supposed to play to your strengths and stuff like that? Joshua Belanger: Yeah. Right. No one's successful at being fearful or also greedy, so it's about keeping yourself in check. When it comes to the marketplace you can get both of those sides of it pretty good. That's not a real good way to explain it but, fear and greed is really what controls the marketplaces, but you can't provide proper expectations on being fearful and greedy. That's what I look to sum up for people to be able to help them become successful. Robert Plank: You're saying that can take over if you don't manage it well? Joshua Belanger: Yeah, that happens for most people. Why do most people lose money? It's because they are either too fearful and also are too greedy, meaning that they don't, if all the greedy side they're not getting out of positions because they think, "Man, if I would've just had Amazon and I bought that IPO in 1995 I would've been up 2000%." No. It doesn't work that way, and the same thing on the fearful side of it when the financial crisis is going on, and the S&P 500 is at 666 and you're like, "Oh well, the world's going to hell in a handbasket." You could think that way but at that point you've got to say, "Maybe I should buy some stuff here." Robert Plank: That's like the weirdest thing because I haven't done stock trading in a couple years but when I did do it I was surprised at just how a number would take over, and then even I went through a stage where I would do some paper trading and be like, on certain days, say the price is this, and I played around with that, and the same psychological stuff like you're mentioning, like the fear and agreed, it still messed me up even though it wasn't real money, it was just numbers on even a piece of paper, but it's crazy how much, you have no idea how much all that dark stuff comes in until you're playing with your stock trading stuff. Joshua Belanger: All that dark stuff is all the stuff in your head. You're looking at stuff and you're making your own interpretation but there's millions of dollars traded every day, back and forth, and not back-and-forth meaning one side to another, but there's a buy and sell. The wonderful thing about the marketplace is that there's no other opportunity out there like the financial markets, meaning that you don't like Apple, so you could take the other side of the trade by selling it. You could sell short, say "Hey, Apple's overvalued here." You can't do that in anything. You can't go to a piece of real estate and, "Hey dude. You just sold your house for how much money," and like a new buyer, "I'm going to short that house." You can't go to Vegas with an edge and say, "Hey I want to take the other side of the trade." They'll take the other side of the trade, but with their edge, but you can't be Vegas. The only opportunity is in the financial markets with that,

Jon Haver from Authority Website Income and BrandBuilders and tell us how he flips website properties in his online portfolio, including the amazing story of how he bought a business for $50k and sold it for $350k just a few months later. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Jon Haver has been building online businesses for the past 7 years and just recently left his day job to pursue online entrepreneurship full time. His current focus is turning Amazon Affiliate sites into FBA businesses and has generated a 500% ROI. I don't know about you guys but I'm super excited. How are things today, Jon? Jon Haver: Things are great, it's a nice sunny day here and just looking out over some water at my [inaudible 00:00:42] office setup and it's fantastic. Robert Plank: Just living the dream. Cool. I understand that you're going to be telling us today about affiliate sites and about Amazon FBA, so could you get us all caught up and tell us about what exactly is it that you do? Jon Haver: Sure. I think like probably a lot of people I started out online just kind of as little bit of a hobby. Instead of playing computer games I was building a business, building up websites. Got more serious about it when my son was being born a few years ago and the model I picked at the time was building up authority sites, content-driven authority sites that make money by driving people to Amazon or other sites, but primarily Amazon Associates was my main passive income portfolio sort of income stream. One of the sites that I picked up -- like probably most people on the podcast had been hearing about -- FBA and how great it is. I, again, probably like most people, always had the struggle of chasing after too many shiny objects, so I always swore to myself that I wasn't going to jump into FBA until I had a competitive advantage. Then when I was looking through analyzing some of my sites in my affiliate portfolio, one of the sites I noticed was driving a lot of sales of a product that I was pretty sure was private labeled. I just flipped that model and said, "Instead of sending traffic to Amazon to a non-discreet product, I would send traffic to Amazon to a product that I was importing." I used an Amazon affiliate site to drive the growth of my FBA business that I started. Robert Plank: I like a lot of what you just said there and a lot of your thought process as far as you look at the portfolio you have, you look at the competitive advantage you have because, I don't know about you but a lot of the people that I chit chat with and my peers and people like that, they'll build up a site -- like you said, like an authority site for example -- and they'll just kind of dabble a little bit and play around. They'll get a little bit of traction but it seems like, especially with stuff like Amazon and Amazon Associates and FBA and Kindle and pretty much any hot, high traffic marketplace, there's always the slap. I think what I see a lot of are people, after trying enough experiments they luck out into something good, but then they get slapped down a little bit and then they just completely give up. I really like what you just shared there how you had this site that was linking to some affiliate products and getting like 5%, 15%, and then you said, "Okay, well the traffic's going from A to B anyway so I might as well just cut out the middle man," so you get more money from the same traffic. Is that right? Jon Haver: Exactly. With Amazon Associates, when the account's big enough you're getting 8%. My goal was to turn as many 8%'s into still make that 8% but also make -- whether it's 30% margin or 40% margin on my physical goods -- so turn as many 8%'s into 38%'s. Robert Plank: Cool, so how comfortable are you with sharing some numbers or niches? How detailed do you want to go into this case study? Jon Haver: Sure, I'm happy to share numbers. Because there was a sale I can't share much details about the ... I can share that it was kind of a fashion clothing pro...

David Barnett, author of "How To Sell My Own Business" talks to us about the process and specific things he does to sell a business, so you can avoid the pitfalls of dealing with an inexperienced broker and also save yourself the typical 10-12 percent commission brokers usually take when you sell your business. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Today's guest is David Barnett. He's the author of How to Sell My Own Business, a Guide to Selling Your Own Business Privately and Not Pay a Broker's Commission. David, welcome to the show. David Barnett: Thanks, Robert, for having me. It's great to be on with you today. Robert Plank: I'm happy to be talking to you. How to sell your own business, how do you do it? David Barnett: The book comes about because of my experience as a business broker. I spent 4 years working full time as a business broker helping people sell businesses and acting as an intermediary. I learned a lot along the way. 1 of the things, of course, that I learned is the majority of business owners would like to sell their business 1 day, but don't want to pay the huge fee associated with using a qualified business broker. When I left that industry, for a couple of reasons, I started thinking about my time as a broker. I realized, "You know what? There's a market and an opportunity to help people do this themselves without using a broker, which is what the majority of business owners want to do anyway." Robert Plank: That makes a lot of sense. Is it true? Somewhere I've heard some kind of statistic that 95% of the wealth is created by someone selling a business? Is that right? David Barnett: I'm not sure about that, but I know that over 80% of businesses that change hands do so privately, without the use of a broker. People are out there doing these deals anyway. What I kept coming across, as a broker and then later just working as a consultant helping people buy and sell businesses on their own, is that there's a lot of bad advice out there and a lot of people out there who don't quite know what they're doing. 1 of the things that I used to say to people when I was a broker is, "Hey, I'm an expert. I can help you do this successfully." because it is a complex operation. In my book, How to Sell My Own Business, I don't tell you everything you need to know to sell your own business. I tell you the process and I tell you what specific things that brokers normally do that the business owner does need professional advice to get done. You can get those things done on a fee-based service. What most brokers do is they'll say, "Look, I'll sell your business for you and I'll package it up and present it to buyers and I'm going to charge you 10 or 12% of whatever we end up getting for you." You can get those expert tasks done sometimes for a couple thousand dollars each. If you're willing to pay as you go through the process and hire experts like you would hire a lawyer, or an accountant, you can end up at the end of the day pocketing all the proceeds of the sale and just having some expenses along the way as long as you know the process and you know how to get from start to finish. Robert Plank: Instead of having someone do an all in 1 deal for you, you might have to do a little bit of hands on stuff yourself, a little bit of managing, but that way you just pay a flat fee instead of this percentage of what could be a huge amount of money. David Barnett: Yeah. When I was a broker, I sold a couple million dollar businesses and had to present people with some commission invoices for, in 1 case, it was $98,000. That's a really big pill to swallow. Robert Plank: Yeah, times 12%. David Barnett: Yeah, my bill was $98,000. Why did I have to charge that kind of money when I was dealing with these people? It's quite simple. As a broker, I'm taking on all different listings. Not all of them will sell. All of them require my time. If I'm going to work full time and have 10 or 12 businesses that I'm trying to sell at any give...

Anmol Singh from LiveTraders.com shares his journey from stock trading, to becoming an independent trader, then diversifying with rental properties, online training courses, software, and tons of other areas. He shares with us: his amazingly simple time management system that involves a simple notepad his distinction between a "gig" and a business (and only doing those things that you're good at, that you also have a passion about) that you should not only do what you say you'll do, but stop dreaming and take action Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Anmol Singh is a professional stock market trader and founder and CEO of multiple companies involved with education, finance, investing, social apps, real estate, all kinds of stuff. He's going to talk to us today about how he started those businesses and how he manages his time and runs those businesses. How are things today, Anmol? Anmol Singh: I'm great. Thanks for having me. Robert Plank: Cool. It sounds like you have a lot of stuff in progress, a lot of stuff you set up. How the heck did you get started with all this? Anmol Singh: It basically all started through trading. I was in my dorm room sitting back in university and we were figuring out different ways where we can perhaps get ahead rather than just looking for a job. That's how I was introduced to trading but just talking to my friends in the dorm room. Nobody really took any action, whereas I just went out there, researched about how the markets work, took a lot of courses, took a lot of education and then got started trading. After about 12 months or so of, I guess, dabbling in the markets and losing a little bit, I finally figured out my strategy and what I really wanted to do and how I really wanted to trade. From there it was a basically a snowball effect. When you're getting money in from trading, you have two things. Either you can withdraw it and you can spend that money, or you can take that money and invest it into other different businesses. I chose the different route. I chose to invest that money into other businesses. Robert Plank: Cool. I love that. It's a really nice comparison between you and your friends in college. I think that that's kind of the typical person, right? The typical person kind of knows about all of these things, does a little bit of reading, dreams a little bit, but doesn't actually take action. It sounds like you went ahead and made all the mistakes that there were to make and read all of the stuff there was to read. Then once you got past that initial little hump then all of these other things took off. Anmol Singh: Exactly. Taking action is what really differentiates people who achieve things from people who don't, because I could have sat in the dorm room and just talked about it. It was a fun discussion and then I could have gone out and done the usual thing or I could sacrifice maybe a couple of Saturday nights. Just sit in my dorm room and figure out what I should do next. It's those little things you give up, they're the ones that are going to get you to where you want to be. Robert Plank: Then, it's like you give it you at first, but then it pays off way, way later in the end. I think that I see a lot of people kind of fall into is that they'll talk a big game, or they'll talk about all the future plans and it's almost like talking too much about what you're going to do, almost makes you feel as if you've done it. Then once you've done it, you're not motivated to go ahead and do it. It sounds like you just went ahead instead of talking about it to every single person who'd listen, you just kind of quietly went and did your thing and then, well guess what? The thing that you're talking about can be your past actions, not your future dreams. Anmol Singh: Exactly. The way to think about this one is, you could either talk about what you're going to do, which is good too, you should always talk about your future goals, but you can either say, "Hey,

Tasha Scott, a "recovering victim" and author of "Don't Limit Me" shares her insights to get the most out of your day and become your best self. Tasha shares with us: how a coach gave her that safe place to resolve out one problem after another how journaling gave her a no-judgement zone how she discovered the best way to communicate without getting emotional (and avoid the extremes of being "too quiet" or a "complainer") and more! Display TranscriptRobert Plank: We're here with Tasha Scott and she has a new book that has ignited a movement, the "Don't Limit Me" movement. The movement challenges women who feel stuck, living their lives on other people's terms to take action and stop self-living. Tasha, welcome to the show. I'm excited to hear about how everyone can become their best selves and kick some butt. Tasha Scott: Thank you Robert, I'm excited to be here. Robert Plank: Tell me about yourself. Tell me about this "Don't Limit Me" and what makes you special. Tasha Scott: Sure, sure. Well I tell people all the time that I have been an entrepreneur all my life, literally it feels like because my first business was a paper route when I was in the eighth grade. Fast forward after just going through life, growing up, I ended up enrolling in court reporting school and learning how to be a court reporter. That's literally where my business was born, right after I graduated from court reporting school. In this journey, Robert, I was married. The first year of business was really good. In fact, I hit six figures my first year as a court reporter. What people didn't know though was that in the midst of business looking really good, my personal life was a mess. There was a huge disconnect between what looked like a public success and a private failure. There was a lot of lessons that I learned that year because one, I didn't have a plan for the growth of the business. All I knew was that I had a dream to be an entrepreneur. I had my goals and my vision, and I was ready to go. I accomplished everything that I wanted to do that first year, but I felt empty because of all of the turmoil that was happening at home in the form of marriage problems, financial problems, insecurity, all of those things that you would've thought money would've been the solution, but it wasn't. One of the things that I did, Robert, is I reached out for help. For me, help came in the form of a life coach. This life coach, when I reached out to her, she literally took me for six months. We had sessions over the phone, we met every other week. What I found out was that I was hiding behind a mask. I knew how to perform. I knew how to function, but I didn't know how to live. That's why I had the huge disconnect. I didn't really know Tasha outside of the business, outside of the role. What she did is she literally just walked with me and helped me to face some fears, and some of those fears had even stemmed from childhood. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success. All of those things we had to walk through and I had to learn to take responsibility for me. I had to get out of victim mode and stop thinking that it was everybody else's fault why I wasn't happy, why I was miserable, all those things including my husband. She really helped me to get my want-to back from life because when I faced my fears, I realized that it wasn't as bad as it seems. It literally just meant me owning it. It took me owning it, facing it, and moving forward. What happened, and I'm giving you the Reader's Digest version, was as I started owning my stuff basically, facing my fears, I started gaining confidence again. I started taking responsibility. I started to get to know Tasha. Literally what happened is as a result of my journaling, that's where my book was born, the "Don't Limit Me" book because one day I looked myself in the mirror, Robert, and I said, "Tasha, don't limit me." I realized for the first time I was the only one holding me back.

LinkedIn master Mike Shelah talks to us about the ABC's of LinkedIn: Always Be Connecting, Always Be Cultivating, and Always Be Customizing. Use the LinkedIn social network to find your dream job or get an "in" with whatever joint venture you want to achieve. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: We're going to be talking about LinkedIn with Mr. Mike Shelah. Now, Mike is a LinkedIn-made man. He is a sales pro who rocketed his way to the top. Thanks to effective networking skills. Mike teaches others how to harness the power of LinkedIn, infectious, enthusiastic, and practical. I can't wait to talk to this guy. Hey, Mike. How are things today? Mike Shelah: Robert, things are wonderful. Thank you so much for having me on the show. Robert Plank: I'm glad to have you, and the big reason is because ... I mean, this site called "LinkedIn." Maybe I should get logged in right now. LinkedIn. I have an account. I filled stuff out. I've made a group. I've done a couple different things, but I really don't get it, so I'm hoping that you could clear a bunch of things up about it today. Mike Shelah: Yeah. I am happy to do so. Because of people like you, I have a career, so I am grateful for that. Robert Plank: Nice, so tell us about it. Mike Shelah: The first thing that I like to say is what LinkedIn is not, and it's not Facebook. A lot of people are very familiar with Facebook. They enjoy it, and they engage on it on a regular basis, and then they look at their LinkedIn profile almost next to never. They occasionally log in to see if they have new invitation requests. They'll use it rather heavily if they're looking for a job, and sales professionals to some extent are better at using it, but even most sales professionals really use LinkedIn incorrectly. Here's what I mean by that. Over the years, I've developed what I call the "ABCs of LinkedIn," and I don't mean always be closing. Most people think of Alec Baldwin in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross where he goes, "Always be closing. Coffee is for closers." I think that might be one of the most despicable things that's ever happened to sales because people really look at sales that way that you have to beat people over the head with a hammer in order to get them to buy your product, or you have to trick them, or you have to manipulate them, and that's not what sales is. The most important piece of sales is if you imagine the products and services that your company offers as a circle, and then you imagine your customers' needs as another circle, and then you imagine your competitors' needs as a third circle. Robert Plank: Okay. Mike Shelah: There's a spot where all three of those circles lay over each other, and specifically, there's a spot where your circle lays over your customers' circle and your competition's circle doesn't, and that's the value edge. That's the differentiator that makes you the preferred vendor over your competition, and LinkedIn can do such an effective job of helping people sell. When I say sell, I like to remind people that looking for a job is temporary sales. Very rarely are salespeople out of a job for a long time because they're used to selling themselves, and most people that are not in the sales world, they don't embrace the sales mentality because they don't want to be viewed as salesy, and I can appreciate that. Robert Plank: Got you. Mike Shelah: There's a lot of horrible examples, but LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful tool to find clients and to find your dream job, and I'll start with the first ABC which is "Always Be Connecting." I did a speaking engagement for the Baltimore Business Journal here in Maryland a couple weeks ago. I had a great audience, and when I began speaking, I told the audience, "I want you to look to your left. I want you to look to your right, and what you should have seen are people." Human nature inclines us to sit next to people we already know, and if you do that, you're doing networking wrong.

Melissa Krivachek talks to us today and shares how to get anything we want in life (better relationships, money, clarity, focus, less stress, and more abundance) by focusing on just one area at a time. Attain peak performance whether you're an introvert or extrovert, even if you "think" you can't do it or you "think" you aren't creative enough. Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Our guest today is Melissa Krivachek, and she has written five books and is a three-time international bestselling author. She's been honored by the National Council of American Executives at the top one percent of U.S. executives in both 2015 and 2016, has been featured on the cover of Evolution Magazine, all kinds of cool stuff. Melissa, welcome to the show. Melissa Krivachek: Thanks Rob for having me. Robert Plank: I know literally nothing at all about what it is that you do, so what is it that you do? Melissa Krivachek: I love helping people not only tap into their passion but monetize it and help them realize, you can have everything you want all at the same time, love, success, happiness, money, and clients. Robert Plank: That's a big promise. How do you do it? Melissa Krivachek: Well, you have to focus on one area at a time, so everyone comes to me for sales. The reality is they think they want sales, and they ultimately do want sales. The thing that's holding them back is something in their personal life from keeping them moving towards the direction of whatever their goal might be, if it's more money for the new house, the new car, whatever that is. I'll give you can example. I've got a client in Canada. She had initiated a divorce with her husband. As a result, he committed suicide. Every sales decision she made was based on his approval, except he wasn't alive to give her his approval. Now after four months of working together, she's made well over a hundred thousand dollars. She's sold all of his assets because she held onto them like they were going to make or break her. She's relaunched both of her companies, and she's traveling the world. Now she doesn't have a home base, which is amazing. I've had clients have all kinds of different problems in their personal life, which carries into their professional life. The thing that they're always trying to solve is how do we get more clients, how do we get more sales, how do we drive revenue. Robert Plank: You're going after the underlying causes, like a therapist or life coach almost. Melissa Krivachek: I'm not a therapist. I have a background in clinical psychology and years and years of sales leadership and management experience, like sixteen years. I love sales. I'm super passionate about it and sort of obsessed. At the end of the day, I know every aspect of my own life that I've changed. I've gone from over three hundred pounds to almost a hundred and ninety pounds, dropping from fifty-seven percent body fat to thirty percent and going from having no money, repossessed car, fifty grand in debt, five maxed out credit cards, six days in jail, and being homeless for thirty-six days, to running a multimillion dollar company over the past seven years. All of this has transpired because you have to do it step by step, and you have to find the underlying causes of what's holding you back from obtaining whatever it is that you want. Robert Plank: Dang. Being in jail, that's pretty scary. How did you get from there to here? What are those steps to fixing all of it? Melissa Krivachek: Well the first thing is just realize what you need to fix. You have a mountain of debt, don't conquer the entire mountain at one time. Do you have tons of weight that you need to lose, don't try and think that you're going to go to the gym for three hours a day and you're going to lose the weight. Pick one area of your life whether it's sales, health, finances, your relationships, your self-esteem or confidence, and then just focus on that one area and put all your time, effort, energy,

Chris Miles from MoneyRipples.com tells us how to get our financial situation in order. We cover everything from an easy tool (and app) you can use to track your in and out (plus business AND personal) expenses called Mint.com. He also tells us what to do whether you're a spender, saver, or steward of your money. And a whole lot more! Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Today we're going to talk with Chris Miles, the cash flow expert. He's a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients. How are things today, Chris? Chris Miles: Just fantastic, man. How are you doing? Robert Plank: I am super. I'm fantastic times a thousand. So you say you're a cash expert. I don't really know what that is, and when I think of cash flow expert, I think of Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki. Is that kind of along the same lines or is that different? Chris Miles: Take Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman and then totally do the opposite of the advice that they give, and that's basically what a cash flow expert is. Robert Plank: All right. Chris Miles: Closer to Kiyosaki, yeah. What I really help people do is one, increase income, and then two, make sure we get expenses down any way we can but not to the point where you're living on rice and beans. Robert Plank: Okay, so not as crazy as Dave Ramsey gets? Chris Miles: Definitely not that crazy. It's really about how to have lifestyle freedom, be able to really enjoy the life that you have and get your money working for you so you're not always working for your money. Robert Plank: I mean, that sounds good to me because you never know. Any day you might get hit by a bus or something crazy might happen. Chris Miles: Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly it, man. Robert Plank: I'm seeing that your average client finds $33,000 per year laying around, and I'm seeing that you have all these skills and all these things you can do for people. The thing that really jumps out for me is you can tell people how to find $4,000 in 45 minutes. That's pretty crazy. Chris Miles: Yeah, it's actually not too hard. That's the funny thing. Especially if you're a business owner. Business owners, they leak more money than anybody that I've seen. It's not just what you can lose at home, it's what you can lose in your business. I'll tell you, sometimes the biggest money leaks we have is the money that we never make in the first place, the money that we don't earn, the lost opportunity cost, right? Robert Plank: Right. Chris Miles: Things like that. When I'm working with somebody one-on-one, typically I find about $33,000 a year or so. That's pretty average. Robert Plank: Where the heck does $33,000 come from? Chris Miles: It comes from two places. Well, two general places I mention. One, increasing income, or two, maximizing the expenses you're doing. For example, one place that's easy that almost everybody will find something is starting to track your money. It's interesting because a lot of business owners that I work with, they'll say, "Hey, you know what? Chris, I always thought that the way to financial freedom is just make more money. If I just make more money then I'll solve any money problem I have," but what they're finding out is that as time goes on, the more money they make, the more they end up spending, too. Robert Plank: Oh, yeah. I've noticed that, too. Chris Miles: Yeah, it's Parkinson's law. It's human nature. We tend to have our expenses rise to meet wherever our income is, right? Even if we free up money, you'll end up finding a way to spend that later on and say, "Man, wasn't I just like this a little while ago? I feel just as broke as I was before." I get a lot of people that say that, so what I have them do first and foremost is to start tracking their money. A great way to do that in your business, first and foremost, is use things like QuickBooks to kind of track your expenses and income and everything coming in.

Alex Genadinik, whose Android app is ranked #1 in the Google Play store for the term "business" has 87 courses on uDemy and has sold to over 66,000 students. He's going to tell us how he sells on a high traffic platform called uDemy (which is as "hot" as the iTunes app store was years ago), how he comes up with ideas and gets traffic to his video courses. Resources uDemy Marketplace (uDemy) Email Alex (Email) Get a Discount on All Alex's uDemy Courses (uDemy Courses) Display TranscriptWe have a really special guest today, he knows a lot about this platform called uDemy.com, his name is Alex Genadinik. He's a three-time Amazon best-selling author, creator of some of the top mobile apps for entrepreneurs, and a prolific online instructor with over 80 courses on uDemy. You know what Alex, I'm looking at your uDemy page and I'm seeing you have 66,000 students, you have almost 1800 reviews, that's pretty dang crazy so welcome to the show. Alex Genadinik: I'm excited to share everything that I know about uDemy with your audience. Robert Plank: Awesome, so just to make sure that we're all on the same page, could you explain to us what uDemy is? Alex Genadinik: Yeah, uDemy is this really rapidly growing place where their model is anyone can learn anything. It's basically the idea of elearning that's been around for maybe the last 20 years, but they've really taken it to the next level and they're making it mainstream. It's high quality, really good learning, things like that. Whereas I think everybody is familiar with elearning here and there, but before it was kind of hacky you know, it was spotty, you didn't know what you were getting, maybe you got it in a university, but this is like ... uDemy is legitimately ... They have I think over 20 or 30 thousand courses on all kinds of topics and they're high quality courses so it's a fantastic marketplace for ... Literally anyone can learn anything but also anyone with expertise can teach and make money. Robert Plank: That's pretty cool because I think that sometimes I'll want to learn a new skill or a new piece of software, I'll want to know Photoshop or Google Analytics and the choices in front of me used to be either to try to go through some free YouTube videos and I would get sometimes old information or I'd buy a Kindle book and sometimes get just words and no screenshots, or something like Lynda or something. I've used uDemy a few times as a buyer, like I'd pay $10 or $20 just to learn something really specific. As far as you selling on uDemy, what kind of stuff are you selling? What's your favorite course on uDemy, I guess, that you're selling? Alex Genadinik: For me, my favorite course is, I have a course ... Mainly I teach people entrepreneurship, business, and marketing, and my favorite topic is marketing. The more advanced the marketing technique, the more they are my favorite. Because it takes more creativity and more insight and more experience to really become proficient at them. My favorite course that I teach is it's called "Marketing Strategies to Reach a Million People" and it's got everything, right? It's got social media, it's got SEO, and it's a really long, like 14 hour course with I think over 120 different lectures. I really take a person from being a new marketer and take them through almost everything, like offline marketing, social media marketing, SEO marketing. Often the combination of those things, right? Because sometimes social media platforms have a big search component, right? YouTube for example, or iTunes for example, and not only search, but there's secondary algorithms like the recommendation algorithm right, like in podcasts. If you like this podcast you will also like this one, on Amazon if you like this book you will also like this one. I take a person from very beginner to pretty advanced and understanding how to leverage those SEO and even more complex algorithms online and really get as much traffic to their business as possibl...

Loren Weisman from LorenWeisman.com, Leveraging Smart, and the "Wait What Really Ok Podcast" tells how to dial in your message with the hot, warm and cold members of your tribe... Display TranscriptRobert Plank: Loren Weisman is going to talk to us about the marketing and branding worlds, and connecting businesses to audiences and doing that with a more direct style of engagement, conversation, and communication in order to create authentic conversions and so much more. Tell me what about everything that it is that you do. Loren Weisman: Well Robert, I came with ... I'll summarize it quickly. I came from a background in music. I was a session and ghost drummer which meant that I worked behind a lot of people for a lot of years, about 700 albums in very behind the scenes fashion. I saw the largest successes, the biggest failures, the smallest successes, and everywhere in between. As I went to producing music, I went over to television, I started to venture out and see that a lot of the blueprints around marketing and branding really applied to every type of business from real estate to restaurants, import, export, hair styles, lawyers, and everywhere in between. A lot of people spend 20 some years getting into music. After 20 some years in music, I found myself opening some new doors and talking a little bit more about branding and the different levels of engagement and conversion with businesses outside of entertainment. Robert Plank: Okay. What's really cool about you coming from a music background is we all come across those people who have really good talent or they're really passionate about some subject. It's a shame because they don't know how to get themselves out there or they don't know how to build their own brand, their own tribe, or their own list, or any of that stuff and it's just like you kind of have to both sides of it, right? Loren Weisman: Absolutely and that's where it flies so much into business as well. When you think about that band that you saw and you just love them and you couldn't understand why they couldn't go anywhere while the band you weren't as big a fan of became superstars. The same thing applies to business. You could have the greatest concept. You could have the best business plan, but if you don't have the branding, the marketing behind it, even to go into the funding stages, you're going to sit there and spin your wheels. I'm sure that there are so many amazing entrepreneurs out there, maybe even some listening to this show that feel like, "Wow, I've got this concept but it just won't catch. Is it my concept?" Usually the answer is no. The creativity, the improvisation, the ideas that people come up with are amazing. It's just the fact that they're not quite connecting with the ability to market that out to whether they're soliciting for funding, partnerships, networking, money, or just sales. Robert Plank: If I'm getting this right, so what it is that you do is that you were a consultant mostly for musicians. Is that right? Loren Weisman: I used to be for musicians. Now I'm the ... Like I was sort of in the back for musicians, I'm the consultant in behind businesses and actually other consultants. A lot of the business advisors out there, I work behind them with branding projects that they're working on. I do work with some individual clients, but I like to be one of the guys behind the curtain of other guys. Then looking from a whole of what they're developing with a given client and then saying, "Okay. I see this as a possible run. I see this as an area where developing at a lower cost." You might say to a client of yours, "This needs six months of development in this area." Then I would come in and say while you're working, doing this with Robert, let's talk about the branding before this product or service is even out there and slowly begin to allocate a little time to create and build the brand of that non-existent product yet so that upon launch or upon solicitation for f...

My business partner for the past 7 1/2 years, Lance Tamashiro, is going to share with us how he "cracks the free traffic" code on Twitter, Fiverr, iTunes, Amazon... using just a few simple rules: Model what already exists so you can reverse engineer for an easy starting point Know where you're at -- check out your existing rankings, clicks, etc. Login to that "platform" or marketplace once a day so they see you're active and checking Send external traffic whenever possible -- for example, send Twitter traffic to Fiverr or Amazon Know which variable you want to improve and watch that number improving with small tweaks and tests (once per week) Use relevant keywords to give users of that platform a better experience and to "please" the owners of that platform Resources Profit Dashboard (Fiverr course) Lance Tamashiro's (Blog) Display TranscriptRobert Plank: We're going to talk about traffic. Lance Tamashiro has been my business partner for I think about 7 ½ years. The reason why he became my business partner is because some of the things that he was doing both back then and now pretty much blew me away. When I first came across this guy, Lance Tamashiro, he was doing this thing called JV giveaways where you have a product to sell, you go and you sign up for this thing and you get all these leads of these new subscribers and buyers coming in. Then I saw him doing this thing where he would pay people a dollar per new subscriber that they sent to his list. Then I saw him doing something else even crazier where he would go and contact other Internet marketers, other people in the same niche as us and go and say, "Hey, I see that you have a list. I see that you mail to it pretty frequently. How about I give 300 bucks and then you just copy and paste this message that I give you." Nothing on the Internet ever happens without traffic. It's really easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if you just make a really good software product at membership site whatever, it's really easy to think, "Well, I'm just going to build it and then they will come. All these people are going to flood it, and come and buy from me, and see what I have and love what I put out," but unless you're actually actively focusing on multiple methods of traffic, free methods, paid methods, all these different things, then you're going to have a real struggle with your Internet marketing process whatever niche you're in. The good news is we have Lance Tamashiro to talk about all kinds of things traffic-wise, what's working right now, the strategy of what's always worked. How are things today traffic-wise, Mr. Lance Tamashiro? Lance Tamashiro: Man, things are awesome. The one thing about traffic that I think is so important that everybody understands right off the bat is that there is no silver bullet. We're doing business on the Internet so it's not like it is if you have a storefront in a mall where there's just people walking by and you're trying to figure out how to get them into your store. You're competing with the Internet. The one thing that I see so many people doing wrong with traffic first of all is they find … And we've fallen into this trap in our business, is we find something that works and then we just put all the eggs into that basket and that's all we focus on. Then a year later we're like, "Whoa, the traffic's not the same." I think that understanding that there are so many forms of traffic on the Internet that you have to get one set up get it working and then move to the next. The balancing act is sort of maintaining multiple sources of traffic at once. My big message is don't put all your eggs in one basket with traffic. We've seen multiple businesses go down because of that. Robert Plank: For me, there's a balancing act, 4 different ways. On one hand I'm tempted to try 20 things at once. Let me try retargeting, Facebook, Ad Words, Bing, all these different things, then my focus is split all these different ways.

Today's Sponsors: Income Machine, Podcast Crusher and Make a Product "You are rewarded in public for the things you practice in private." -- Tony Robbins Catchphrase of the Week: Content Piggy Bank: What Would It Take For You to Record Just One Quick Video Per Day? Resource of Week: X-Mirage to mirror iphone/ipad and record it on your computer Quote of the Week: "If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way." -- Napoleon Hill Quote of the Week #2: "Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out." -- Robert Collier Quote of the Week #3: "Don't wish it was easier. Wish you were better." -- Jim Rohn Become Better: 30 minutes to say something that could be said in 1 minute? System & Routine 1. Small goals: 10-minute spurts or 500-word days. Create a sense of urgency to avoid Parkinson's Law (and possibly run a countdown timer) 2. Update an editorial calendar so you know what you're writing each day (Seinfeld productivity where you want to "avoid the broken chain of events") 3. Use writer's block to perform more research 4. Wake up an hour earlier (Elmore Leonard) Tools & Mechanics 5. Delegate transcription and speak it out instead (MakeAProduct.com) 6. Use Google image search to find relevant images (don't forget to source them) 7. Grab a YouTube video and explain your reaction to it (before or against) 8. Break down pages into paragraphs, into talking points + time Mind Hacks 9. Read a lot 10. Unplug distractions 11. Write your chapter/article titles as questions and paragraphs as questions, then delete the questions later (record yourself and send questions and answers to yourself via instant messenger) 12. Use a daily prompt 13. Break up your monotonous routine: go for a drive, walk, swim, run 14. Combine a task you don't like to do with one you do like to do, i.e. Write a quick blog post by the pool 15. Set a fake meeting schedule on your calendar and use the time for yourself Bonus: Toughen Up That Writing Avoid "ing"... say "set" instead of "setting" Repetitions: remove "click here" every 2 sentences. "Please" every 2 sentences. Words to stop using: Try, start -- Trick, loophole, hacked -> secret -- Work, learn -> discover, uncover Tone down these words: Money-back/refund Words to use: System, formula, roadmap, blueprint, Machine, Push button, Secret weapon, Magic bullet

Today's Sponsor: Make a Product Quote of the Day: "You cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes'." -- Stephen Colbert Thought of the Day: Is internet marketing a scam? Yes, if you believe that going in. Classic fear of success, self sabotage, self-fulfulling prophecy Nine Rules of Content Creation Questions Must Be Answered: so if you're stuck, answer a series of questions (asked TO you by one single imaginary person) that lead to the end Solution: Fix a real problem that the marketplace is asking about, and lead to a call-to-action if possible WWHW: Why, What, How-To, What-If (the basis for any start-to-finish piece of content) One-Take Content: write (or talk in video) the way you would in everyday conversation (no "fancy talk") Mindmap: rearrange to figure out the categories, hierarchy, and sequence of what you're explaining Notes: Have bullet points in front of you to keep yourself on track, don't leave things out, and unpack in the correct order, but don't script anything Content Muscle: the more you put out blog posts, podcasts, webinars, and videos... the easier they become Content Piggy Bank: instead of living paycheck-to-paycheck, record more than you need and schedule it out Demo or Magic Trick: show what you're building towards, explain what you're about to show, show that thing, and show it again Be sure to grab our Make a Product course to up your game with content creation and self-publish your own book (on Kindle and CreateSpace) in just 56 minutes.

Question of the Day: Why is offering a 50% discount a really bad idea with your online business? Today's Sponsors: Income Machine (setup your website today) and Podcast Crusher (setup your podcast today) Quote of the Day: "The fears we don't face become our limits." -- Robin Sharma Thought of the Day: Don't have "just" a traffic or AdSense or guitar course. add a buy button even if you don't have time for anything else offer: create a package or solution, not just a "product" (4 modules + 3 bonuses, what else can you throw in to make it complete?) hook: what's the one thing that tells people, I need it now? (that takes 10 seconds to explain) basic copywriting: benefits (what you can do with it) instead of "just" features (what it is), Attention-Interest-Desire-Action ordering deadline: close the offer (take a risk) countdown clock explain reasons not to wait followup: send multiple emails or make multiple posts explaining why they should buy now waiting list: don't "just" close an offer, add an optin form so they can sign up for updates when you re-open multiple levels of urgency: bump the price, remove a bonus, remove the payment plan price training: stick to your guns with the deadline. Train your customers to take your deadlines seriously. evergreen content: re-market your pitch webinars, podcast episodes, PDF reports and blog posts for re-launching later

Quote of the Week: "It doesn't matter if the thing you're creating is stupid or has been done before. What matters is that people use it." -- Jack Ma Quote #2: "A year from now, you'll wish you had started today." -- Karen Lamb Today's Sponsor: Profit Dashboard Resources Mentioned: Four Daily Tasks Group, Make a Product, Podcast Crusher, Time Management on Crack Wake up early, preferably at least 30 minutes before you normally would (your brain runs out of "good" decision making power as the day goes on) Sleep a solid 8 hours: eat a spoonful of raw honey just before bed, don't use the phone right before bed, breath 4 seconds in and hold for 7 seconds then exhale for 8 seconds, and count from the number 300 backwards from 3 if that doesn't work, use the Sleep Cycle app to wake you up Make your bed first thing in the morning (it gives you one thing you accomplished today) Meditate: Take 1-2 hours of "quiet" time in the morning: don't listen to music, stay off the computer, and walk (or drive or run) to think about making your next move and conquering the day Take lots of breaks throughout the day to recharge (AWAY from the computer) and take at least 1-2 days away from the computer per week Drink Bulletproof Coffee: Wake up at 5AM and blend together 2 cups of low-acid unsalted coffee + 2 tbsp MCT oil + 2 tbsp ghee butter or unsalted irish Kerrygold butter. Abstain from eating anything else until 2PM in the afternoon. Drink tons of water instead of soda Read a book instead of watching TV (this is what Bill Gates does) and get a hobby outside of internet marketing or parenting Journal: spend 5 minutes getting the clutter, thoughts and problems out of your head (you don't need to solve them, just get clarity) Write down your Four Daily Tasks instead of just winging it (fourdailytasks.com/group)

Today's Sponsor: Dropship CEO Amazon Selling Course (Feedback Patrol tool included) Tim Jensen is one of our favorite Dropship CEO students. He and his wife in Onalaska, Wisconsin sell $1,000 of inventory through Amazon from retail arbitrage (scanning in items at discount stores and mailing them in) with no employees, from their living room and one-stall garage: "Amazon Retail Arbitrage" FREE Report Part 1: Big Picture (long term with Amazon) invest in inventory scale: invest the profits that come back in inventory turnover: sell frequently (30-90 days after purchase, or dump what's not selling) outsource some tasks: receipts, taxes, payroll Part 2: Flexibility sell evergreen items Use CamelCamelCamel.com to see if Amazon is selling the item you want to sell (so you can avoid it) Part 3: Pay Attention to Detail make sure your UPC code matches the listing follow the rules, there is no flying under the radar supply and demand: people pay higher prices for convenience Terms Tim Uses inventory: the items you're selling supplies: tape, boxes, etc. sourcing: where your items are coming from UPC: barcode SKU: stock keeping unit FBA: Fulfilled By Amazon MF: Merchant Fulfilled prep: bubble wrap, packing, labeling, etc. RA: retail arbitrage OA: online arbitrage wholesale: purchase items in bulk PL: private label (your own brand name)

Today's Sponsor: Backup Creator (starts at just $7) Today's Quote: "The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake. You can't learn anything from being perfect." -- Adam Osborne Morning Routine Wake up early, make the bed, break up the day, drink water, exercise Four Daily Tasks spaced throughout the day (and don't "cheat" or be an idiot about your schedule) When you're "blocked" -- stop, don't force it Website Backups WordPress, Backup Creator Set automatic offsite backups (set it and forget it) Amazon S3, Dropbox, and Google Drive Flow State Get to ANY money making level as fast as possible (Profit Dashboard for Fiverr, Income Machine for WordPress) Figure out your click-by-click process: support desk, installing WordPress, recording podcasts, creating YouTube videos... that way it doesn't matter how many you have to create Get rid of the clutter: more ideas, more possibilities, split focus is NOT good -- knock out what needs doing and be done with it. Click to Claim the Backup Creator Plugin Right Now

Today's Sponsor: Website Remote (99 cent trial) "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." -- Leonardo da Vinci Only think three "content ideas" ahead (i.e. podcast episodes) Have your own system or weekly structure. Promote ONE thing this week, email every day, and have a webinar in the middle if possible Don't check email, Facebook, or Skype for a few days. The world will still be there when you come back. Four Daily Tasks: all money making tasks, and one of them is some form of content creation Don't Force It: if you can't seem to get anything done, get away from the computer, but also get away from TV and your phone (possibly, read to collect your thoughts). Get back "in state." Stop Multitasking: Turn off all pop-ups and keep your phone out of your office (or in a drawer) so you can focus on those money-making tasks It's Just One Hour: Time yourself and put even one focused hour (all other windows closed) on a timer for your business Clear files off your desktop every week (into a monthly "overflow" folder) Don't have a notebook filled with ideas. I have one single piece of paper and one pen on my desk to take notes, then I delete them. File everything away and have it on auto-backup. I have a G-SAFE external drive and Cloudberry Backup running every night to Amazon S3.