133: Building a ghostwriting agency with Lacy Boggs
In this episode, I speak with Lacy Boggs , director of The Content Direction Agency -writing high quality content and creating bespoke content marketing strategies for online entrepreneurs.
Determined to stay home with her baby about 8 years ago, Lacy quit her regular job as a journalist, started writing a food blog and eventually started ghostwriting for some big authors. She has an amazing talent of being able to write content from each client’s own tone of voice, so this led her to starting her own agency. She started as a solo freelance writer to growing into a team of 10 while only working 20 hours per week.
Listen here to learn all about how Lacy grew The Content Direction Agency, how her incredible team is able to produce content that is used to its full potential, and why the agency model was the better decision for her to scale her business.
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132: Building a successful HubSpot agency with Kieran Flanagan of HubSpot
In this episode, I talk with Kieran Flanagan, the VP of Marketing with Hubspot- an inbound marketing, sales, and service software company. After helping many Saas businesses grow their traffic, users, and revenue, Kieran joined HubSpot because he was a believer in the “inbound movement.”
For anyone who is a HubSpot agency partner, this is a must listen to. Even if you’re not, learn how you can build a relationship and partner with a larger tech company like HubSpot and build the dynamic to grow on the back of a partner program.
Tune in to learn why some agencies have done really well versus ones that have struggled. One thing we speak about is being fully committed and focus on becoming a partner rather than dabbling in other platforms. In addition, Kieran speaks about the 3 stages in customer experience, what makes you more authentic in the way you do business, and what can differentiate you from the competition when it comes to content creation and publishing as well. You don't want to miss the valuable information in this episode.
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131: Building a productized bookkeeping service with Meryl Johnston of Bean Ninjas
On this week's episode I sit down with Meryl Johnston of Bean Ninjas, a productized service focused on bookkeeping i.e. tracking day-to-day transactions in Xero.
Meryl came from a background in accounting where she worked on a lot of custom projects that took a lot of time to scope and scale. From this experience, she was able to look back on all the flaws and backtrack to create processes solving those problems.
There are some great tidbits on systemized scaling in this episode. Meryl and I agree, it's all about going to market and then figuring out how to deliver. Generating leads and making sales isn't so much the problem - it's working out how to deliver the service and having the right teams members and processes in place to deliver well.
Tune in to hear about the evolution Bean Ninja, from the early stages of figuring out what types of customers to market to, through to delivering great experiences for people they enjoy working with.
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130: Building a community around your brand with David Sherry of Death to Stock
In this episode I talk with David Sherry about how to build a tribe and community around your brand when building a business. David came up with a premise and after failing at asking others to hire/pay him to make it happen, he finally decided to give himself permission to make it happen himself.
He built the premise behind Death to Stock to a bootstrapped company now generating 1.5 million in revenue with a team of only 3 people. He has spent no money on advertising and built his community organically through word of mouth. Incredible!
There are some powerful insights in this podcast - the episode isn't about tactics, it's about mindset shifts. Mindset shifts are where the breakthroughs happen. David's success came through making people feel like they're part of something unique and special. People become excited about what's coming next, they care about what you're putting out and they want to be involved (or give you their money). Tune in to get inspired by his mindset tips and branding insights.
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129: Lessons from my mentor, Alex McClafferty of WPCurve
On this episode I sit down with my coach and mentor Alex McClafferty. Alex is one of the co-founders of WPCurve, a monthly recurring subscription and productized service focused on supporting Wordpress sites for a small monthly fee. WPCurve is an awesome service that Alex and his co-founder grew and sold to GoDaddy.
While his startup success has become legend in this space, Alex has a lot to share when it comes to the unpretty parts of the whole journey. From starting off small, to growing, to the emotional turmoil of selling, to what it's like to going through the process of being bought by a huge company.
Don't miss this episode to learn from Alex' acquisition journey and for tips on leadership and building strong teams to launch a successful productized service with.
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128: Growing your business through a personal brand with Chris Ducker
In this episode I chat with personal branding expert Chris Ducker, founder of Youpreneur. Chris has built call centres employing hundreds of people and built up Virtual Staff Finder which now runs without his involvement.
People often ask me how I've gotten to where I am now and one of the secrets behind my success is thanks to building my personal brand. I've been working on and building my personal brand for 5 years now. Having a brand like this is fire! It's a strong foundation and baseline to build businesses on top of.
Don't miss this podcast if you want to learn how to use your personal brand as a means of growing personally and professionally, and as a strategy for building a businesses on top of.
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127: The Lead Cookie Sales Playbook: Our sales call script
Over the last 16 months, I have built and refined a sales call framework that I use over, and over again. I read books, learned from others, and refined until I had a rock solid sales call flow. I never wing it, I have a refined flow that I take every customer through which can get me to a closed deal in 30 minutes. In this podcast, I share with you my sales call script & framework.
Blog: The Lead Cookie Sales Playbook: Our Sales Call Script
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126: 7 LinkedIn Outreach Frameworks that generate results Part 2
Part 2: Frameworks 4-7
At Lead Cookie, we have run over 150 Linkedin outreach campaigns. Each one for has different value propositions for different types of businesses. Through these campaigns, we have come across 7 core frameworks that we use over and over again to generate results for our clients. In this podcast, I am going to share each of these frameworks in more detail and provide you with some examples.
Blog: 7 Linkedin Outreach Frameworks that Generate Results
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125: 7 Linkedin Outreach Frameworks that generate results Part 1
Part 1: Frameworks 1-3
At Lead Cookie, we have run over 150 Linkedin outreach campaigns. Each one for has different value propositions for different types of businesses. Through these campaigns, we have come across 7 core frameworks that we use over and over again to generate results for our clients. In this podcast, I am going to share each of these frameworks in more detail and provide you with some examples.
Blog: 7 Linkedin Outreach Frameworks that Generate Results
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124: My plan for Zero to $60k in 90 days for my new business
This week's podcast is a special solo episode which I'm also recording for my Youtube channel. After 18 months of building a productized Linkedin Lead Generation service up to ~$60k in MRR, I've decided that it's time to start a second business. In this podcast I am going to talk about my new venture and my 90 day plan to go from zero to $60k in collected revenue. And over the next 90 days, I am going to be sharing the journey and updates along the way as we strive toward and hit this $60k collected goal in Q1 of 2019.
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123: Building a content marketing agency with Say Gabriel
In this episode, I speak with Say Gabriel of Anansi Content Solutions. Anansi helps businesses or organizations connect with the people who want to throw money at them! This is done through effective communication and content.
Say's work revolves around being the bridge between the creative empathic space of understanding the people served and what they need and value by creating positioning statements and messaging around a company's brand so that people can reach them and connect with them. Just hearing this description, which essentially defines Content Marketing, gives you an idea of the power of choose the right words to convey meaning.
Communication skills sit at the core of a good business, tune in to hear about Say's work, including how she creates content and acquires customers.
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122: Revolutionizing an industry with Josh Elledge
In today's podcast I sit down with Josh Elledge of UpMyInfluence.com. Josh got his start with a business called SavingsAngel - despite having no money to get the business off the ground, he managed to generate over 6 million in revenue by landing free media coverage because he was convinced 'exposure is everything'. He was right and he learned so much about the power of exposure that his whole career took a shift and he became a consultant to help others harness the power of good exposure.
Nowadays Josh is all about giving back and empowering people to apply everything he learned. Through Up My Influence he teaches people how to do their own PR and has built a service based platform and productized offering agency that is disrupting the public relations industry. The old way of doing PR just doesn't work any more and now Josh is using social media to help thoughtful entrepreneurs turn into media celebrities.
In this podcast you will gain insights into how to increase influence, authority and revenue. It's all about creating wins for others who are more influential than you and building meaningful connections by being genuinely helpful.
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121: Winning new consulting clients with David A. Fields
David is the author of The Irresistible Consultant's The Guide to Winning Clientsand The Executive Guide To Consulting. He joins us on the podcast today to discuss how to get better at the sales part of consulting.
David's background was on the corporate side of marketing research and sales. He then became a consultant with a boutique firm and worked his way up to partner and then branched off with a colleague to start his own consulting practice of their own. His partner departed after only a matter of weeks, leaving him without a rainmaker to bring in clients.
Tune in to hear the story of what steps he took to turn himself into a rainmaker and learn about the consortium model that made him a successful expert writing guides on how to make sales in consulting.
This episode will have you rethinking how you write emails to clients and you'll learn to avoid common pitfalls by anticipating client's responses and getting everything on the table while negotiating.
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120: Productizing content marketing with Madeleine Lambert
Madeleine is the CEO of Content Refined, a content marketing agency built to scale offering productized content marketing packages. The agency is made of up herself, her business partner and a business manager working in tandem with a remote production team and project managers. Together they they bring in over 50K a month in recurring revenue!
Tune in to hear Madeleine share about how a life experience brought on the opportunity for her to suddenly get everything off her plate and hire other people to run her business... so she go could on pregnancy leave.
There are great takeaways in this episode, including insights on how Madeleine and her team acquire new customers, how they review and consistently update SOPs and how they handle churn.
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119: Mike Michalowicz on Profits & Process
On this week's podcast we have Mike Michalowicz, the author of Clockwork. Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, Surge, and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.
Mike's book Profit First helped me to pay down 15K of credit card debt all while paying myself a better salary. He's gone from being an entrepreneur to becoming a full time researcher and writer. He touches on behavioural psychology and breaks down real applicable strategies that can help you to live a wealthy lifestyle.
All too often the reality is that entrepreneurs often work their tails off without getting paid and Mike's aim is to change that. Tune in to hear us dive into 3 of his books: The Pumpkin Plan is all about niching down and figuring out your ideal customer, Profit First shares a system for paying off credit card debt, and Clockwork is all about getting your business to run more efficiently without you. Bigger is not necessarily better, you just need to have the right strategies.
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118: Building a community around your target prospects with Chris Ortolano
Today's guest on the podcast is sales nerd Chris Ortolano of Outbound Edge. Not only does Chris do sales consulting for companies, he's also the creator of a community I always recommend to people: Sales Stack Slack.
On this episode we learn a bit about his sales process and the buyer journey at Outbound Edge, but what you really don't want to miss out on are the tidbits about how his Slack community came together and how it brings value to over 1,500 sales professionals. Through this Slack channel the pros connect and share their knowledge, discuss tools of the trade, converse about hiring processes, leadership and more.
The biggest takeaway here is learning how to build something similar to this community so you that people gravitate towards you and seek you out as a thought leader.
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117: How to get more out of Linkedin with Alex Pirouz of Linkfluencer
Alex Pirouz is the founder of Linkfluencer, Australia's Leading LinkedIn Training Company.
Through Linkfluencer, Alex is on a mission to transform social selling on Linkedin and build the next generation of influencers. What influencer marketing breaks down to is essentially becoming an expert in your space. People want to deal with experts. They want to work with people who are featured in the media and who are recognized for what they know.
In this episode Alex shares his thoughts on why he believes influence is the key to business here and now. In 2018-2019 it is more important than ever to be an influencer in your field and if you don't have influence in the next few years, you're simply not going to exist.
Influence is all about making a positive impact on other people's lives at a grand scale. As an entrepreneur building a startup, you have a responsibility to have an impact. Don't miss Alex's insights on what's coming down the Linkedin pipeline and how you can get started now.
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116: Becoming a Hands Off CEO with Mandi Ellefson
This week on the podcast I speak with Mandi Ellefson the author of Hands Off CEO. Mandi's business is all about helping entrepreneurs and agency owners to live the dream by building a company that can run without them.
Here on the podcast we're all about location independent businesses based on freedom and in this episode Mandi shares her 5 step process on how to free up 10 extra hours per week and use that time to make your company run without you.
One of the challenges stopping owners from stepping away is that the foundation of the business itself is the owner and the owner's knowledge. As the business owner, you're always at the center of everything, constantly catching things to make sure everything goes forward. The business is so dependent on the owner that it's hard to sell and be confident that the team can grow without them being around to keep things from falling apart.
Sounds familiar? Tune in to hear Mandi's process, so you too can work towards becoming more of a hands off CEO. It's all about structure and she's broken it down in the roadmap she shares with us.
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115: Transitioning from agency to SaaS owner with Mike McDerment of Freshbooks
This week I speak with Mike McDerment, author of Breaking the Time Barrier and CEO of Freshbooks, the hugely popular invoicing and accounting software built for owners, not accountants.
Mike left business school in his 4th year and started an agency building websites in the early 2000s. He started off building basic websites for his clients and quickly learned the importance of going beyond creative pages to validating the conversion science behind each site using SEO, Pay Per Click and conversion consulting.
Tune in to hear the story behind the 'ah-ha!' moment that pushed Mike to get his agency to a point to where it could run without him so that he could move into his parents basement to build the software now known as Freshbooks.
Don't miss Mike's advice on the importance of customer proximity and hear his book recommendations for learning through the startup building journey.
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114: Consulting success with Michael Zipursky
On this week's podcast I speak with Michael Zipursky, CEO, author of The Elite Consulting Mind and coach to elite consultants. Michael is in the business of helping consultants to scale and grow, to attract more clients, to increase fees and win more proposals. But mainly, his intent is to create what he has coined as 'meaningful success', which refers to not only generating more revenue but also aims to create the right business structures that allow consultants to have more freedom and flexibility so that they can do the things that bring them joy in life.
His website ConsultingSuccess.com was born out of a desire to create a place and a community where consultants can share stories of lessons learned and mistakes made while growing their business. Today there are over 900 articles, resources and videos on these topics, with aims to help consultants connect and learn from one another on how to grow their business.
Don't miss this episode to hear all about how Michael's unique experience building a successful consulting shop in Osaka, Japan taught him new ways to create and build relationships, and also showed him that being open to doing things differently can lead to more meaningful success.
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