Recent Updates
215: Stop Leadership Malpractice: Discover the New Business Model, Refine Your Process and Get Optimal Employee Performance with Wally Hauck
Wally Hauck is a seasoned business consultant with 20 years of experience helping leaders improve their management techniques. He specializes in teaching organizations how to have fearless conversations and optimize employee performance. Wally is the author of the book "Stop the Leadership Malpractice," which explores innovative approaches to leadership and organizational improvement. His work focuses on challenging traditional management models and promoting a more collaborative, process-oriented approach to leadership.
Wally Hauck, author of Stop the Leadership Malpractice: How to Replace the Typical Performance Appraisal, realized that many employers and managers can actually kill their own business by not communicating properly with their employees. If you'd like to provide a better customer experience have self-managing employees, then you need to ask these three questions:
1. What process in the business isn't working?
2. What is the first 15% of that process?
3. What should be done to improve that process?
He shares not only great business advice, but a few case studies and examples along the way.
Quotes:
“When an employee makes a mistake, you need to look beyond the obvious and identify the unseen factors at play—unless they’re doing it intentionally, which is highly unlikely.” – Wally Hauck
“The answers are with the people that are actually doing the work.” – Wally Hauck
“If you're evaluating employees for mistakes they make, we're performing what I call leadership malpractice.” – Wally Hauck
Takeaways:
01:15 Leadership success hinges on having fearless conversations that help employees improve performance without creating fear or blame.
11:39 Most workplace problems stem from broken processes, not employee incompetence, so leaders should investigate system issues first before criticizing workers.
14:08 Effective leadership means partnering with employees to identify and fix root causes, not controlling them through threats or punitive metrics.
16:31 Traditional performance management models that judge employees create distrust and encourage cheating, while collaborative process improvement builds stronger teams.
24:25 Organizations should focus on creating operational values centered on respect, agreement-keeping, and customer service to drive self-management.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:48 — 26.4MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS
214: HootSuite, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Demystified: Share Content, Engage Others, and Network with Social Media Manager Debbie Peck
Debbie Peck is a seasoned social media manager and online marketing strategist with over 14 years of experience in internet marketing. She founded Crush Marketing Group and created Social Media Kindergarten, a comprehensive course designed to help entrepreneurs navigate social media effectively. As a certified social media manager and Facebook ads specialist, Debbie focuses on helping coaches, speakers, authors, and thought leaders expand their online presence.
Social Media Manager Debbie Peck from Crush Marketing Group has a two-pronged strategy for getting traffic from social media: share content from scheduled posts, and engage other users actively on a daily consistent basis. She logs into HootSuite once a week to schedule posts to drip out weeks in advance. She also comments, shares, likes, retweets, finds new influencers, and checks her insights regularly. We're talking about 3-5 posts per day on Facebook and 8-10 posts per day on Twitter. You can also contact her directly at debbie@crushmarketinggroup.com.
Quotes:
“Social media is a place where you want to network and create relationships, while at the same time using it as a traffic source for you to distribute and share your content.” – Debbie Peck
“If all you're doing is sell all the time, people just tune out, they don't want to listen to you anymore.” – Debbie Peck
“A single article, blog post, or video can have a significant impact on social media. You don’t need to share the entire piece—just small, valuable snippets that capture attention.” – Debbie Peck
Takeaways:
04:44 Social media for business is fundamentally different from social media for personal entertainment, requiring a strategic approach to networking and content sharing.
11:42 One piece of content can be repurposed into multiple social media posts across different platforms, saving time and maximizing existing materials.
18:56 Choose social media platforms based on where your ideal clients actually spend their time, not just where everyone else is trending.
22:10 Engage with industry influencers by sharing their content, commenting thoughtfully, and building genuine connections without being overly aggressive.
27:50 Outsourcing content creation is possible, but personal engagement should remain a priority for authentic relationship building.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:37 — 32.6MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS
213: Focused Decisions, Learn As You Go, and Help Others with Angel Investor Jason Criddle
Jason Criddle is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and founder of the Smarter App Company. He previously served as CEO of Legacy Status Investments for two years and has built a career helping startups and entrepreneurs refine their business strategies. Jason is an author who self-published his own book and later started a publishing company that allows writers to retain their intellectual property. He has consulted for numerous sales and internet companies, gaining extensive experience in marketing and business development.
Jason Criddle from The Smartr App Company (you can contact him directly at info@thesmartrapp.com) says that you should learn as you go, make mistakes, and have failures -- pivot, fail, and snag. Everyone has ideas, but people only succeed through the failures from implementing their ideas.
Instead of being simply self-employed (and recreating the job you were trying to escape), be an entrepreneur. Make focused decisions to reach your goals, have a faith or belief in something, have perseverance, the drive to help others, and role models. Jason can also show you how to become a virtual CEO and get an app in the app store for just $100/month.
Quotes:
“If we're out there branding ourselves, I believe everybody has their own story. Everybody has their own brand. Everybody has their own customer base.” – Jason Criddle
“If someone wants to call themselves an entrepreneur today—if they aspire to earn an income from home—they must embrace failure. Success is built by learning and growing through those setbacks.” – Jason Criddle
“Money is not manifested through saying affirmations in the mirror. That's not the way it works.” – Jason Criddle
Takeaways:
04:14 Every person is their own industry, with a unique story and potential customer base.
16:14 Entrepreneurs must build personal value and credibility before expecting others to trust their business ideas.
22:42 Success comes from following through on projects and learning from failures, not just starting multiple ventures.
27:50 Seek advice from experienced professionals who have actual success, not just motivational speakers.
31:34 Making focused decisions towards a goal matters more than working endless hours or creating motivational content.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:17 — 33.2MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS
WordPress Themes Suck
They really suck and let me explain...
I strongly believe that you should use WordPress to run your websites because it's easy to setup, and you can add whatever you want onto it... add a quiz plugin, add an opt-in form plugin... you and your websites can stay on the cutting edge without coding, FTP, or geek stuff...
Plugins make your site "do those extra things"... and THEMES change how your WordPress sites look. Don't like that site design with the black background and 2 sidebars? Click a button and now you get a white background with 1 sidebar...
That's what great about WordPress themes... instantly change the look and feel... so what's my problem with it?
In my experience, 50% of the time, I buy a theme (usually 200 to 300 bucks) because of the demo they show me. It looks great -- I think to myself, I'll change this text, I'll remove this section, this is going to be the best looking site anyone's ever seen...
I buy the theme and set it up... and either I can't even get it to load up the "demo" or it turns out the demo involved some custom coding, custom CSS and custom graphics and there's no way I can match it...
Lance and I recently setup a theme and in order to get it to look as good as the demo, it took us about an hour on Skype (us, both computer geeks), and we had to install 6 additional plugins and set about 20 different settings JUST to get it to that demo mode... nevermind customizing the site...
When WordPress themes are concerned, I feel very "baited and switched" at times and I have to do a ton of customization just to make a landing page look decent...
Do you want to know what "just works" out of the box? Paper Template does.
With Paper Template, you can use any WordPress theme you want (even the default one) and then say... I want JUST this one page to be a landing page (sales letter, opt-in form, thank you download page, etc.) and please leave the rest of my site alone...
Or... set all your pages as Paper Template pages...
It's mobile responsive and is a plain white piece of paper OR you can click a button and give it a more modern look... those fancy fonts, bright colors and full-width web pages... it's all possible using the Paper Template plugin for your WordPress landing pages:
Download the "Paper Template" WordPress Landing Page Plugin
It's great if you want to skip the hassle and headache of "those" WordPress themes where the demo looks great but isn't customizable. Paper Template is the perfect solution for you if you want to create those "money pages" quickly within WordPress.
212: Cross-Channel Advertising: Combine Google Ads, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Remarketing with Rocco Baldassarre
Rocco Baldassare is an accomplished digital marketer and entrepreneur who founded Zebra Advertisement, an award-winning digital marketing agency. He has been featured in prominent publications like the Huffington Post, New York Times, and Search Engine Journal. Recognized as the first agency to have a case study featured by Facebook, Rocco has established himself as a leading expert in online advertising strategies.
Rocco Baldassare from Zebra Advertisement has had massive success by creating a landing page with key sellling points, advertising that landing page, remarketing on a different platform (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and guest blogging for third parties such as Entprepreneur Magazine, Search Engine Journal and LinkedIn. He provides account reviews and strategy calls if you're looking to get more from your paid social media traffic.
Quotes:
“Cross-channel advertising is the new frontier in digital marketing—an effective way to advertise online while staying within a limited budget. It doesn’t require a huge financial investment to make an impact.” – Rocco Baldassarre
“The complexity lies in determining what people need to see on your website—the types of ads they encounter, and the sequence in which they are presented during their first, second, and third interactions with your brand.” – Rocco Baldassarre
“If people haven’t bought yet, something is holding them back. We need to identify and resolve that obstacle by providing more information and addressing their concerns.” – Rocco Baldassarre
Takeaways:
02:56 Cross-channel advertising helps businesses appear everywhere, increasing brand recognition and purchase likelihood.
03:50 Customers typically need to see an ad 8-10 times before making a purchase decision.
12:17 Strategic ad placement and continuous optimization are crucial for successful online marketing.
14:01 Remarketing to engaged website visitors (those who stay 60+ seconds) can significantly improve conversion rates.
19:56 Small businesses can start cross-channel advertising with a limited budget and strategic planning.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:42 — 22.6MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS
Waiting Years And Years For “Them” To Add A Contact Form?
The good news is that 2016 (and 2017) is the best possible time to setup your web pages because it's easier than ever... and web pages have never looked better than ever!
You used to have to learn HTML, CSS, uploading FTP files, maybe even a little scripting and then you'd have to test things with Internet Explorer and Netscape browsers until you had it right...
Now, many things are point and click, such as with Paper Template.
(click to see a quick video demo)
- WordPress (click a button and you have a blog)
- Paper Template plugin (install and now you can create sales letters and landing pages within WordPress)
- add any other plugins you want to add a contact form, legal pages, pop-ups, caching, security, SEO...
So, it's a great way to get started fast and do all the things you want... BUT...
I honestly don't believe that the "hosted platforms" are really up to snuff. If you use some sort of hosted service that runs it all for you:
- you are now tied to their business (if their sites are down for 2 hours, your site is down for 2 hours)
- they don't do everything (maybe they're missing an autoresponder)
- you have to take a bunch of extra steps anyway to host your own .com domain and make it look like it runs on your own websites (sometimes you have to install your own WordPress blog, and their WordPress plugin on your site, just to run their service... weird)
- they might not do all the cool stuff that you want. For example, with WordPress you can just grab a quiz plugin if you want that. Grab a contact form plugin if you want that. On a hosted service, you have to wait for them to "get around to it"...
I honestly believe this is the best of both worlds... easy to setup, uses WordPress, create landing pages in addition to your blog or let it take over your site... and then add plugins or tweaks as you wish. The Paper Template WordPress plugin lets you have your cake and eat it too.
211: Conquer Stress, Make Milestones and Get Those Easy Wins with Kathy Gruver
Dr. Kathy Gruver is an international motivational health speaker and an award-winning author of five books, including "Conquer Your Stress". She hosts her own TV series and appears frequently on radio, TV, and online platforms. As a professional, she works full-time as a massage therapist and hypnotherapist. For stress relief and fun, she enjoys hip hop dancing and flying trapeze. Her professional website is The Alternative Medicine Cabinet, where she offers resources and courses about stress management.
Dr. Kathy Gruver from The Alternative Medicine Cabinet wants you to focus, be healthy, reduce stress, delegate, and make decisions early.
Quotes:
“Sometimes, if we engage all our senses and focus deeply on a task we don’t enjoy, it can become a much more fulfilling experience.” – Kathy Gruver
“When we disperse our energy too widely, we become less productive. In my experience, our personal health is often the first thing to suffer.” – Kathy Gruver
“More hurry, less speed. When I rush from one thing to another, that’s when mistakes happen and important details get overlooked.” – Kathy Gruver
Takeaways:
05:37 Break big tasks into small, manageable steps to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
10:08 Delegating tasks can help business owners focus on their core work and reduce stress.
13:35 Recognize that you don't have to do everything yourself; it's okay to ask for help.
16:06 Trust assistants with small tasks and gradually build confidence in their abilities.
18:51 Practice mindfulness and short meditation techniques to manage stress and improve cognitive function.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:05 — 22.0MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS
210: What Is Your What? Get It Done, Express, Immerse and Revinent Yourself with Steve Olsher
Steve Olsher is a multifaceted entrepreneur, author, speaker, and online marketing expert known as the world's foremost reinvention expert. He owns Liquor.com and has been active online since 1993, spanning industries like nightclubs, real estate, and digital marketing. Steve wrote the New York Times bestselling book "What is Your What?" and hosts the Reinvention Radio podcast. He helps individuals and corporations discover their core gifts, understand how to share those gifts, and identify the people they are most compelled to serve.
Steve Olsher, author of What Is Your WHAT?, wants you to impact the maximum number of lives possible by discovering, sharing, and monetizing your WHAT: the thing you were made to do. It's done in these three steps:
- clarity on your core gift (i.e. healing, entertaining, communicating)
- create a vehicle to share that gift
- people compelled to share
Get it done, surround yourself with the right people and immerse yourself in that world. Tune up your Attributes, Beliefs and Perspectives.
Quotes:
“Reinvention isn’t about changing who you are; it’s about shedding the shackles of personas, appearances, and external influences—freeing yourself from the whims and agendas of others to return to the essence of your true self.” – Steve Olsher
“There are only two ways you can use your time: you can spend it, or you can invest it.” – Steve Olsher
“Your gift is something that chooses you. It’s not something you can simply decide to have.” – Steve Olsher
Takeaways:
06:36 Reinvention is about stripping away external expectations to reveal your true self, not adding new layers.
11:39 Your core gift is unchanging and part of your DNA, while the vehicle and people you serve can shift over time.
14:45 Creating an Attributes, Beliefs, and Perspectives (ABP) statement can help you uncover hidden themes and potential career directions.
20:56 Transitioning careers requires patience, strategic planning, and gradually reducing expenses to support your new path.
22:37 Most people spend time instead of investing it, and finding extra hours can accelerate personal and professional growth.
Resources
- Reinvention Radio (Podcast)
- What is Your WHAT (Book)
- Steve Olsher (Official Site)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:41 — 26.3MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS
People Don’t Buy During The Holidays?
I don't lose any sleep over this, but I roll my eyes when someone says...
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:00 — 4.6MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS
- November and December are slower months!
- No one is online during holiday time...
- Don't even bother marketing or sending emails until January...
- Don't you want to take some time off?
And my answers are:
Of course I take time off -- that's what scheduled blog posts and scheduled autoresponder emails put in the queue in advance are all about (bonus if people can't really tell if they're live or pre-scheduled)...
Many people (not you personally, but others) are working too hard and not working smart enough. They could get a lot more done in less time AND possibly use these few days off to plan their next move or squeeze in an hour here and there...
What about eBay? Amazon? Retail stores? There are tons of people buying. And if you say that's apples and oranges because I run an online business... well... aren't there some people out there who are using this end of the year time to look into running their own online business?
Sure, grandma won't buy an e-book or course but grandma might give those grandkids gift cards or money that they'll use to build their business
This is the last chance for many business owners to lock-in their purchases (business write-offs) for tax time -- for example, I bought myself Google Glass (now discontinued) during the holidays one year...
And most importantly, what's the difference if you setup a web page in late December 2016 that gets sales in January 2017? February or March 2017? You have to set it up in the first place...
"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great." -- Zig Ziglar
What's the easy answer? You need to setup, at the very least, an opt-in page and a sales letter using Paper Template.
Of course take a bunch of time off to get that perspective, recharge your batteries and figure out your next move... but what counts is not so much thinking or planning, but ACTION...
Setting up a web page that sells something is the best ACTION you can take this holiday season, and using WordPress plus Paper Template is the best way to do it quickly while also having all the little features you need.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:00 — 4.6MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS
Why Are You Emailing Me On Christmas?
"Why are you emailing me on a weekend / holiday?"
That's the response I get every now and then and I hope that's a response you get in your business -- why is that I hope you get it?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:45 — 12.6MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS
Because if people are unsubscribing from your list, if you have (a small percentage) of refunds, if (a few) people have some nasty things to say about you and your values...
Then it means you've actually done some things in your business and you've built a big list of buyers...
Very few people treat their online business like the machine that it can be and should be and it's some wasted potential.
For example: what if you spent about 20 minutes and grabbed 12 interesting YouTube videos? Maybe yours or maybe you found them... either way... schedule one in your blog for the first Friday in January 2017, another for February 2017, etc.
Those are 12 touches you've just made with you and your subscribers...
And how about this: go into your email autoresponder (you do have one and you are building a list, right?) and schedule a message for that Saturday sending people to your blog post, and maybe even a quick Sunday one reminding them to check it out if they missed it.
If you have a product or membership site for sale, or heck, even a 2.99 Kindle book... I'm guessing that you haven't promoted it for a solid 5 days in a row lately!
Look at the second week in January. Think of four pretty good reasons or interesting things about your Kindle book. Schedule a quick email for Monday with a subject line and about 5 sentences saying... you probably have this problem... here's the solution and it's in my book...
Tuesday... you might have problem #2 and here's solution #2 and the details of that solution are also in my book... repeat for Wednesday and Thursday...
On Friday, don't worry about piling on even more information... just say... I've been giving you these solutions all week, it's shit or get off the pot time, here's my book.
That right there is a whole week you can take off your business in 2017 and no one will ever have to know. Come back and see how many sales you brought in...
Very few people take advantage of scheduled emails and they're available in every email autoresponder service. Schedule some emails to help fill out the calendar and keep "touching" those customers (but not in a weird way)...
You can get content cranked out easily (I have a system for writing blog posts called R.A.T.G.U.M. and one for email marketing called P.A.I.N.T.) if you follow some sort of a template or system... and then let the machine (that autoresponder sending emails on a schedule) do the rest...
And there's even better news: every autoresponder also has a "sent" folder... so... you can take the greatest hits of your email marketing and pile them into a follow-up sequence so that any new subscriber to your list gets your best stuff...
I happen to think that MY best stuff is contained inside this course:
Time Management on Crack
More than a few people have told me that this is the guide they re-visit every year when they want to refresh and renew the important marketing stuff. I hope that's not too braggy and I also want you to check it out as soon as you see this, even though it's hoilday time.
(The holidays are great time for me to go through a course, read some stuff, or watch some videos so that I get a little bit of a break from all the "usual" stuff.)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:45 — 12.6MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS
