Categories
Show

MBA1088 Must Read: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Wondering how to get more customers? How to appeal to the people to whom you’re trying to sell?

Start by learning how their brains work.

Daniel Kahneman is a psychologist who’s studied the science of human decision-making for decades. His book Thinking, Fast and Slow is a practical investigation of the brain’s thought process, specifically how it arrives at decisions like making a purchase. Today, we discuss how you can put this knowledge to work for your business.

By understanding the buyer’s mind, you can become a better seller. You can give yourself an edge that no amount of marketing or advertising can produce. On this episode of the podcast, we offer a variety of actual techniques you can use, tactics that work when persuading consumers.

Learn how to lead the consumer to the sale. Learn how to help your audience make the decision that benefits them (and you). Click Play!

SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS

Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed How To Subscribe

Give us a Rating & Review

Today’s Sponsors

WGU

WGU is on online university that’s changing lives by changing higher education. Their innovative competency-based learning model is tailor-made for busy adults with their own schedules. Learn at your pace, so you can graduate faster based on your own progress. For more details and to get your application fee waived, head to wgu.edu/100mba

Betterment

Outsmart average. Betterment is online financial advisement for those who refuse to settle. With cutting-edge tech, Betterment builds a personalized portfolio and offers unbiased advice to get the most out of your investments. Visit betterment.com/mba for up to one year of free financial management. Visibetterment.com/mba now!

Show Links

Warren Buffett Letters to Shareholders

Categories
Show

MBA1087 How to Make the Most of a Slow Month in Sales + Free Ride Friday!

Every business has its slow season. But just because you’re not swamped with sales, it doesn’t mean you can’t sustain your revenue and continue to grow your business!

It’s possible to maintain both your revenue and your momentum through the slow periods, with a little bit of strategy. Even with fewer customers on a month-to-month basis, you can still meet quarterly and annual goals. Even better, you can use the downtime to make smart investments in your business that will pay off when sales pick up again.

Today, we discuss how to use your time wisely when sales are below average. We discuss several ways you can rev up your professional and business development when other areas of the business are slow. We show you how to come out of a weak sales period rejuvenated, better prepared, and ready to make the busy season busier than ever.

Hear how it’s done. Click Play!

SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS

Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed How To Subscribe

Give us a Rating & Review

Today’s Sponsors

Microsoft Surface Go

Get the job done, no matter where you are. The Surface Go is the smallest Surface ever, weighing just over a pound with a 10’ touchscreen. The compact, powerful Go has laptop performance with tablet portability starting at just $399. What are you waiting for? It’s time to Go!

CodeCademy

Codecademy is easiest way to learn how to code. They’ve helped over 45 million people level up their careers with interactive coding tutorials so far. Now, Codecademy Pro is making it easier than ever with a simple mobile app, custom learning paths, and quizzes to check progress. Get 50% off at codecademy.com/mba with promo code MBA!

Show Links

WebinarNinja

EasyCourse

WebinarNinja Affiliate Program

Lynda.com

MBA437: Should You Offer an Affiliate Program?

Categories
Show

MBA1086 The Best Investments You Can Make in Your Business

You’re making sales. You’ve got solid revenue. Now, it’s time to reinvest in your business. But what’s the best way to do so? Where can you spend your money so that it will have the greatest impact?

Today, we discuss the best ways to invest in your company’s growth. We share the 3 best uses of your reinvestment budget, however big or small. These 3 investments have tangible, undeniable benefits, the kind that contribute the most to your overall success. They’ll make your business stronger, more agile, and better prepared to face new challenges.

No matter the size of your revenue stream, a portion of it should always be reinvested in the future of your business. By spending your revenue wisely, you can multiply your company’s growth beyond the effects of simple profit.

Find out how to do it right — Click Play!

SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS

Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed How To Subscribe

Give us a Rating & Review

Today’s Sponsors

Relentless MV

Do you want to learn how to go from good to great to UNSTOPPABLE? Relentless MV is an event being held in Martha’s Vineyard, Sep 28-30th featuring elite performers who will share tips, tricks and experiences to help you become UNSTOPPABLE.

Visit Relentless MV for more information. Listeners get a special deal- use promo code MBA to receive $500 off!

Mattress Firm

Ready to improve your sleep? The experts at Mattress Firm are here, ready to help you build your bed from headboard to mattress to adjustable base, right down to the sheets and bedroom decor! Save 10% with coupon code PODCAST10 at mattressfirm.com/podcast

Categories
Show

MBA1085 Q&A Wednesday: Should I invest in a $10,000 business coaching program?

With so many professional development opportunities available to entrepreneurs, it can be tempting to overspend on courses and coaching programs. So how do you know what’s worth your time and money? Especially when the price tag is big (like, four figures big), how can you be sure it won’t mean money down the drain?

It’s Q&A Wednesday, and one listener is considering dropping 10 hard-earned G’s on a coaching program. Naturally, it’s a nerve-wracking decision.

Today, we discuss what to look for — and what questions to ask — when deciding on an expensive coaching program. By inquiring about certain key aspects of the program, you can make sure that the ROI is what it should be. By evaluating both the program itself and the coach, you can accurately assess the end result — and weigh that result against the cost.

Learn how to protect your revenue from scammy programs. Navigate high-pressure sales pitches and do the research necessary to spend your money wisely. Some of these expensive programs are well worth the money. We’ll show you how to decide which. Click Play!

SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS

Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed How To Subscribe

Give us a Rating & Review

Today’s Sponsors

Sideline

Add a second number to your smartphone with the Sideline app. Handle work and personal life separately on the same device! Sideline comes with calling, text, pics and more. It’s like having a second phone for a fraction of the price. For a free 7 day trial, head to sideline.com/trial

Microsoft Surface Go

Get the job done, no matter where you are. The Surface Go is the smallest Surface ever, weighing just over a pound with a 10’ touchscreen. The compact, powerful Go has laptop performance with tablet portability starting at just $399. What are you waiting for? It’s time to Go!

Categories
Show

MBA1084 Why You Need to Become a Better Teacher

In modern business, teaching is everything.

Marketing, sales, and team management are all about your ability to educate both consumers and employees. Savvy digital-era customers don’t want a sales pitch, they want to be empowered. They want to know how and why products work, not just that they work. They don’t want to be told; they want to be shown.

By infusing your business leadership with education, you can go beyond simple advertising and offer value beyond standard marketing. As a longtime educator, our host Omar knows the impact of an educational approach. Today, he discusses how to become the best teacher you can be — and therefore, the best business person.

Take Omar’s tips from the classroom to the marketplace. You’ll be glad you did. Click Play!

SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS

Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed How To Subscribe

Give us a Rating & Review

Today’s Sponsors

Kronos

No one compliments you when their paycheck is correct. But make a mistake, and things can get ugly. To keep payroll and HR on point, try Kronos. Kronos is workforce innovation that works, making sure payroll is right from punch-in to paycheck.  Learn more at kronos.com/payroll

WGU

WGU is on online university that’s changing lives by changing higher education. Their innovative competency-based learning model is tailor-made for busy adults with their own schedules. Learn at your pace, so you can graduate faster based on your own progress. For more details and to get your application fee waived, head to wgu.edu/100mba

Show Links

WebinarNinja

Categories
Show

MBA1083 Guest Teacher: Jakob Heuser- Learning & Development on a Shoestring Budget

Your business is only as good as your team. So how can you keep your team at the top of their game?

Jakob Heuser is an engineer and instructor who’s built successful teams at companies like LinkedIn and Pinterest. HIs human-centered approach to professional development starts with the learner and makes instruction more relevant and efficient. Today, he’s here to share 3 strategies any business owner can use to educate their employees — for very little cost.

Like your business, if your team members aren’t growing, they’re stagnating. A commitment to consistently reaching new plateaus is crucial to maintaining a dynamic, agile team capable of evolving with the company.

Find out how to keep your employees at maximum skill level on a minimal budget. Learn how to find the time and resources necessary to invest in your people, and watch the results help sustain your business. Click Play!

Head to leadsv.com/mba for a list of professional development topics, plan templates, and more.

SUBSCRIBE ON APPLE PODCASTS

Stitcher | SoundCloud | Podcast Feed How To Subscribe

Give us a Rating & Review

Today’s Sponsors

Mattress Firm

Ready to improve your sleep? The experts at Mattress Firm are here, ready to help you build your bed from headboard to mattress to adjustable base, right down to the sheets and bedroom decor! Save 10% with coupon code PODCAST10 at mattressfirm.com/podcast

Microsoft Surface Go

Get the job done, no matter where you are. The Surface Go is the smallest Surface ever, weighing just over a pound with a 10’ touchscreen. The compact, powerful Go has laptop performance with tablet portability starting at just $399. What are you waiting for? It’s time to Go!

Show Links

Lead SV

Categories
Entrepreneurship Marketing Uncategorized

4 Traffic Strategies You (Probably) Haven’t Tried

Traffic: we all want it. We all need it. Traffic creates leads, and leads create sales. But what creates traffic?

Getting people to your website is one of the biggest challenges new entrepreneurs face. In fact, it might be the number one stumbling block that holds people back from pursuing their own business.

You can create the greatest content in the world, but how in the heck can you get people to see it?

In an online marketplace so crowded with content, it can seem almost impossible to stand out and be heard. That’s why you have to get creative. You have to pull moves that other people won’t. You have to veer off the beaten path and come from a new angle. You have to give yourself the advantage of competing against fewer people doing the same thing you are.

The following four strategies are different. They take a little time and work to implement, but it’s well worth it. Because most people don’t even attempt these tricks, the results can be way, way better than run-of-the-mill SEO strategies.

So get clever, get creative, and give these untapped techniques a try!

“Affiliate” Programs

When most people think of affiliate programs, they think of an arrangement in which people sell their product in exchange for a cut of the sale. That’s all well and good, and can be a great business booster. But what about the marketing end?

What if you adopted the affiliate strategy for traffic rather than sales? Get your current audience, however big or small, to find your new audience!

It’s simple. You offer incentives (other than cash) to your current audience in exchange for introducing new visitors to your content. Contacts of yours who refer other people to your website get a free month of services, or free shipping, or an upgrade, or whatever you deem a fair price for being your evangelist.

You’ll measure your affiliate’s performance in subscriptions. For every referral that becomes a new blog or newsletter subscriber, your affiliate gets credit towards the incentive. There are some tools online just for this kind of program; e-commerce stores can use Gather for a simple, stripped-down tool. For a more complex (but more powerful) affiliate marketing tool, check out IDevAffiliate.

Write a Book

Before you scroll past this, think about it for a second.

Everyone’s writing blogs, as they should be. But not everyone’s reading blogs — and not everyone who’s writing blogs is necessarily gaining the level of credibility it takes to drive traffic. For all the SEO power a great blog has, there is an alternative that’s slightly more involved, but potentially waaaaay more powerful: writing a book.

And if you can write a blog, you can write a book.

It’s easier than ever to self-publish, especially through Amazon. It doesn’t have to be a War & Peace; a 100-page e-book can be enough to have the desired effect. It can even be an amalgam of the blogs you’ve already written, reworked and repackaged into a bigger narrative or instructional form.

It also doesn’t have to be a New York Times best-seller. It just has to reach the segment of the market you want on your website. Charge a dollar, or two, or zero! The goal isn’t revenue, it’s traffic to your site. Include calls to action or incentives that link to your website, and watch the contacts roll in.

A solid, helpful, valuable book sticks with readers in ways a blog never can. It engages the reader over a longer period and creates a deeper relationship. That relationship doesn’t just drive traffic, it lays the groundwork for sales. Book-driven contacts aren’t casual contacts — they’re essentially pre-qualified leads.

It’s a no-brainer.

Guest Edit

We’ll get to guest posting below, but this brilliant strategy is just too good, and too creative, for me to wait any longer. It works like this:

Step 1: Google the most relevant search terms related to your niche.

To use an example, let’s say you’re a travel blogger who specializes in European travel. You Google various terms like “Europe travel visa” and “Europe rail pass,” etc. You get the idea. Find the most popular blogs and articles related to those terms.

Step 2: Identify older posts that still get heavy traffic.

You’ll find that posts from years ago still rank high in the search results, despite potentially being outdated or full of less relevant information — which is exactly what you’re looking for.

Step 3: Identify which of these older posts are in need of updating.

To use the European travel example, there are tons of high-ranking posts about the European visa system from 2016, 2012, and even further back.

Since they were written, different nations have changed their rules and policies regarding visas, new nations have agreed to enter certain visa agreements with others, political realities like immigration and Brexit have changed the game, etc. There’s more to know since these posts were written, but they’re still being read, every day.

The same holds true for just about every niche. Fitness, food, ferret grooming, whatever. Times change, and that’s good news for you.

Step 4: Offer to update the outdated posts in exchange for backlinks.

Simply decide how best to make the outdated posts relevant and correct for today, then contact the author. Propose that in exchange for reworking your post, you get to include a link to your own website.

It’s a win-win. The original poster’s SEO (to say nothing of their reputation) gets a boost from being updated, you get new traffic, and readers get better information. What’s not to love?

Not everyone will say yes. But spend a day or two per month doing this, and the results can be incredible.

Traffic-Similar Cross-Niche Guest Posting

Yes, guess posting on another website is always a good move. But finding the right site to post on can be tricky, and getting them to let you put your content in front of their audience can take some convincing.

That’s why you have to think just slightly outside the box.

Instead of offering a guest post on a site that’s directly in your niche, find a website that’s niche-adjacent. If you’re a fitness coach, try to post nutritional tips on a food blog. If you’re an interior designer, try to post staging tips on a real-estate site. I once guest posted on a photography website through a guest posting service, discussing the business end for professional photographers.

A different but relevant perspective from someone outside the usual circles can be incredibly valuable. Website owners are always looking for more content, but unique content is worth its weight in gold.

The trick is to find niche-adjacent websites with similar traffic to your own. This way, they’re more likely to accept your proposal. It’s an opportunity for them to reach people they may never reach normally, just as it is for you. Go to SimilarWeb to figure out what websites in your chosen niche have roughly the same traffic as yours, and go from there.

As in every aspect of business, you have to find your own path.

To make it in an overcrowded marketplace, new entrepreneurs have to find angles that other people miss. Try these 4 strategies, and you may find that the best things come out of left field. Don’t be afraid to be an outlier — most successful entrepreneurs are.