https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnSSC7pdnWI&feature=youtu.be

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Successful business, but competition slowing you down?

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

This is not a story I haven't heard before. This is one that I hear all about all the time.

And I'll tell it to you and you tell me if it's close to where you're coming from. You've had a successful business, you've had an adventure story, that if you can draw it out, you probably make a good movie, right?

You started out from nothing.

You worked your way up, everyone told you it wouldn't work. Nobody helped you, or very few people helped you, those few that helped you are the heroes of your story, your guides that have brought you to the place that you're at, and you've been successful, you've been able to make something out of nothing.

And you've made a lot of good friends along the way, you've left behind some people through the process. But throughout all of that, you survived, you survived and thrived. And you've done well. Here's the point which are out right now.

You are a successful business person, you have a successful business. But you can't figure out how to break out and go beyond that. How to go literally to the next level. Right? That's where you're at. That's your position you're in. here's, here's the only way I know out of it.

The only way I've ever seen a person build themselves out of it, is you have to bring someone else on your team, you have to bring somebody that has perspective enough. Because this perspective isn't isn't magical. The perspective actually isn't some great wisdom that you're missing.

You've got everything you need you got from where you were, to where you're at right now, based purely on your guts and your ability to grind it out and make it happen. What you're missing right now is the ability to get back into here into your own head and find what the next step is and it's mainly, most of the time, it's an issue of too much going on.

You're responsible for too many things, there are too many moving parts. And your focus is being taken in the wrong direction. You need help in being able to determine what the proper direction is for you.

What pieces you need to delegate, offset and organize. That's that's the real issue that you're having. most business owners when they get into this spot, this is where they're facing.

You need to find somebody that can help you with that. If you don't know if you know somebody or you think you know, someone that might know someone, go and grab that person as quickly as possible, make 2021 if you're watching this this year, make 2021 year year make it happen for you.

Don't let all the outside forces and everything that's going on the politics that COVID-19 and everything else that's happening. Don't let that get in your way. The outside forces didn't stop you from getting this far.

Don't let them stop you from going further. Get it done. Find somebody that can help you. Now why am I talking about this because I happen to be one of those people that can help in these specific situations.

This is my specialty. What I do is I've got a thing called the Worthington Method.

We can take you through that process.

And the Worthington Method isn't a step by step in terms of you do this and then you do this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9444rmtfmI&feature=youtu.be

Some thoughts on Customer Lifetime Value

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

How to keep customers forever.

Hi, I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I'm not saying you need to train him like a little trained monkey. But customers are something that you do want him to be around for as long as possible, right?

There customers, clients, followers, parishioners, whatever. You want them to be around forever, if you can. So how do you go about doing that?

The main way to go about doing that is creating a connection. Crane as much of a one on one connection as is possible, creating some type of belonging situation. Now, this is a concept that I talked about in one of my chapters and, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, you get a free copy over at AmazonProofBook.com.

And I go into more into depth on how that works. But it's all about the process of belonging. And belonging is about connection. It's about communication, it's more of an emotional thing. It's not the type of thing that most people even recognize in themselves that they have. But it's there, it's there. And the the thing that is the reason why the people that do it the best, the people that really know what they're doing, and and that have that strong connection.

That's why they always find a way to reward and recognize their customers, just for showing up just for existing, you know, and so they'll have, they'll have a Vince, you don't see as much of that, during this filming.

This is 2021 now and we're at the very beginning, we're still coming off of this at while, we're still going through a lot of the whole COVID situation. So not a whole lot of physical events going on. But those physical events are so important to some of these industries.

Network Marketing is one that they don't they have recognition for achievement, but they also the ones that are smart and have recognition just for the people that show up or show up consistently enough, or purchase enough stuff, that that there's value in that. And that recognition creates a nice feeling for the person. And that nice feeling brings them coming back over and over and over again.

But the physical connection, the psychic connection that you have with people, even if it's just over, over an online chat over a zoom call, what have you. That connection is what people come back for. Yeah, they like the product. Yeah, they like the service. Yeah, yeah. But what's more important is the belonging.

That belonging connection is what matters most like I say, you find out more about it in AmazonProofBook.com. Just download a free copy, or go buy a copy wherever books are sold. It's called, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

I'll be back tomorrow night we'll be talking more about this stuff, maybe go a little bit more in depth than that may be taken in a completely other direction. But it's all it all ties together. In the end. It's all about how to take your business to the next level. So we back tomorrow. In the meantime, you get out there and let the magic happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiSVmKifFV8&feature=youtu.be

Brian reviews new Disney Plus, Pixar movie called Soul.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Business movie soul from 2020.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live. I just got to see Disney's Disney Pixar's new movie, which they released directly to Disney plus probably some other places, I'm not sure if you can get them all for free. But it comes along with a Disney plus subscription. And that's the movie Soul. really worth seeing.

First off, if you have any experience with watching Pixar films, and you enjoy them, then it'll be right up your alley. It's a it's a solid Pixar movie for sure. The topics that are handled are surprisingly adult, but my kids watch them, I've got kids, let's say my oldest is six, my youngest is one.

And it kept their attention pretty well too, even though most of the stuff was way over their heads. There's enough slapstick humor and everything in it, they kept going.

So I'm not going to ruin anything, there's not gonna be any spoilers or anything. But I'm going to tell you, it has a lot to do with the mentality. That I mean, as humans, we all have, to some extent, but specifically to entrepreneurs, even though it doesn't, there's no one that's directly talking about business, although there are a few conversations having to do with that.

And a lot of the conversations that have to do with being an employee v being versus an entrepreneur, or going to college versus doing it on your own, a lot of those things get battered around in this movie. And so that a lot of cool ideas there and a lot of different ways of looking at it.

One of the things that they spend a lot of time on is a person's passion in life, the specific focus of the passion of your passion of the thing that gets you going, the thing you're most interested in the thing that you talk about the most and think about the most, the thing that you almost feel like you were born to do, and whether that's really the real thing that you're meant to do.

Or whether that's a placeholder or a description of what you're about, or whether it really is something deeper than that, that you're after. Is there something deeper in your life than merely your business than merely where you're going what your goals are. Are you nothing more than your dreams?

Or is there something deeper Is there a deeper meaning behind what you're doing in life, and it's a great movie to be able to watch during New Years during this time of reflection.

Because I'm recording this story New Years of this new year days, specifically of 2021. And it's a good one to go and watch. It's very rare. For one thing, just artistically fabulous. I mean just amazing what they were able to do with the artwork in this movie, if you know anything about animation and computer animation, they've come so far leaps and bounds in what they're able to do. And while at the same time Pixar is good at really making sure they keep it a cartoon, they keep it that cartoon stretch and feel to it.

That makes it superior in some ways to a live action movie, you could tell the same story in a live action movie, but there's just a value that comes along with telling it via computer animation that makes such a big difference. So worth seeing. I wish I could be more specific at this time. But I'm not going to be because there's a lot of people who haven't seen it. I don't want to spoil it for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRa18btwCDY&feature=youtu.be

Happy 2021 everybody.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Happy New Year, for what it's worth.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo. Live.

This will be a quick one, I just want to wish you a Happy New Year. simple idea. It really is, if you think about it from the big perspective, it doesn't really mean anything.

We're switching a number around that has no real significance within the galaxy itself within the solar system within the the the earth and the United States, it doesn't really mean anything.

All it means is we've designated a time of one cycle around the sun, we've designated a date that we all can celebrate that we've gone around the sun once more.

That's it, it's just a marking time, it's nothing more, nothing less. So don't get, don't get depressed, don't get angry, don't think everything's going to change overnight, it changes when you're ready to make a change.

So if you're ready to make a change, now, if you're ready to take things in a positive direction, do it, just go for it. But if you don't, don't worry about it, do it when you're ready.

You know, things are the things going good. We go through this whole process of holidays, I've got all the lights and everything else up. I'll be taking them down tomorrow in tradition. But none of it really means anything. In the end. What matters is what you do on a daily basis. It's where your minds at, it's where you're going within life. And whether you're taking advantage of being alive, and really taking full advantage all the way.

So that's a nice, it's a nice time for reflection if you have time to do that. Otherwise, reflect on and in a couple days, reflect on next week. It's okay, you've got hopefully you have time. We all have a little bit of time here. So take what you can enjoy yourself. don't enjoy yourself too much. Try make a difference. And that's it. That's my wishes for you.

For this next coming up year. 2020 was pretty crazy. I actually, regardless of all the craziness all around us, my life, had some of its greatest blessings during this year, lost a lot of great people in my life, but gained a lot of friends that I didn't have or regained friends that I had long ago and reconnected with. So things are good, things continue to be good.

There's also horrible things happening in the world. And that's okay. Just hang in there.

We'll be back tomorrow. You have a great night. We'll see in 2021. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqpImfREXJk&feature=youtu.be

Brian's thoughts looking back on what he'd change when choosing a title for a book.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

How not to come up with a book title.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I wrote a book, you know, which I talk about every episode, because it's really the latest promotion that I've been doing this year, which is, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business book I came out with subtitle, how to stand out in your industry and make every competitor irrelevant.

Now, I'm going to make a damning confession, I think you would call it. And that is that I don't think it's that great a book title. And I've only had the book out since August, I've gotten it, it definitely starts conversation, it definitely gets things going.

But one thing I've found about book titles, just since putting this one out. And probably a little bit before I even put it out is that the more simple you can make it the more undeniable what is is about, the more likely you're going to have less confusion.

The one thing about this title, it causes confusion with people, because they don't really know what I mean by Amazon Proof?

Now, in this is, in most cases, the best thing is that allows me to be able to start a conversation. So it's a great conversation starter. Because they're like, Okay, so what exactly is that?

You know, are you are you telling people how to have an Amazon based business?

Because that's a common confusion is they think that it's all about ecommerce. And it's not necessarily just about ecommerce. They think that what are you trying to say that they're there, they're going to be able to find Amazon or they compete against Amazon, it always causes a little bit of slight confusion.

The the subtitle actually says more about it than anything is how to stand out in your industry and make every competitor rebel irrelevant. standout, is capitalized. And it's, it's made clear that that is really what this book is about, is about standing out.

And the end result is that your Amazon Proof is that you're making your competition irrelevant, even if that competition is Amazon.com. Now that takes a little bit, it takes a little a couple extra sentences to explain it. Some of the best books out there, though, are ones that get straight to the point that play to a very specific audience. And they either are interested in getting the book or not interested.

But it says it straightforward, and straight out there. And sometimes, as authors, and if you're writing a book, you'll, you could probably attest to this, we try to get a little bit too clever, we try to get a little bit too clever with everything that we do. And I've had to keep continually break myself back down to being more and more simple, more and more clear cut with the things that I put out there.

And one of them is something as simple as a book title. So that's a real simple idea. of if you'd like a copy of the book, it's a thin book, these are not, this is not a huge tome, go and check out AmazonProofBook.com you get your own free copy, you just download a free copy.

If you want a physical copy, there's also a way you can get an inexpensive one there or you can go straight on to Amazon.com and get a copy of the book.

If you don't like the book at all, and you paid for it. Write to me, go to BrianJPombo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRahsfJ4PKM&feature=youtu.be

Some thoughts on Bob Gurr, his impact on Disneyland and the power of Celebrity.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Celebrity can come from anywhere.

I am Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Now, what am I holding up here?

I'm going to tell you about that in just a moment. But first, we're going to talk about a little thing called celebrity, and how anybody can have it. It can be developed from anywhere. And I talk about all of that in my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, you can go get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

Number four, the fourth way, it's all about being somebody and you go check that out.

Now, what does being somebody mean?

I'm going to give you an example.

Now, I've been following this gentleman for many years, I among other things that I have a fascination with one of the things is, is all things that are directly related to Walt Disney, which I've brought up before, not the company, but the man himself. And one of the things that was very specific to Walt Disney was a place called Disneyland, first one in Anaheim, California.

And all the people that helped put that together because they, it wasn't one guy that put it together. It wasn't just Walt Disney that put it together.

It was a whole string of geniuses, that all got picked out and put in this place, many of them doing the things that they were doing there for the first time ever, okay, for some reason, Walt had a way of being able to pick people out of where they thought they were supposed to be, and putting them in something completely different.

So there was one gentleman in a very young age, his name was Bob Gurr. And he was put in charge of developing Abraham Lincoln, the robot that was there. A whole bunch of the early audio animatronics like for the Tiki Room, and all these other things.

If you haven't got to see these things before you got to make a trip to Disneyland once they reopen, filming this in 2020. And we're still dealing with the COVID crisis. So a lot of these things are closed down, Anaheim, disneyland is closed down. But one of the things I've done is I've followed him, but he's one of those last surviving people that helped create what Disneyland is today. And he's the same age that my my grandfather was who died earlier this year. They were both born in 31. So currently is 89.

And it's one of these things where you It's funny how you could see people of similar age, and how they went off and did different things with their life. My grandfather went join the family, ranching and farming business ended up splitting off and doing his own having his own Ranch, cattle ranch.

Over the years, Bob Gurr went and went through all these different odd jobs and ended up working for Walt Disney and doing a whole bunch of crazy wild things in Disneyland. One of the things he ended up putting together was something called the peoplemover doesn't even exist in Disneyland anymore. There's a new iteration, new word iteration over in Walt Disney World in in Orlando, Florida.

This is a signed copy of one of the posters. Now this isn't original posters, a reprint poster of the people mover that they used to have at Disneyland, which was a ride I got to I got to go on as a kid and it was just very straightforward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61z97qvVTeg&feature=youtu.be

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

How to grow your business during the holidays.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live and we are back at the headquarters for BrianJPombo.com.

And I love traveling, so we got to travel if you haven't been paying attention, we've been traveling down south to visit family during the holidays, and it's one of the things I love traveling, I really like to get out of the house, I love to get out of town.

But I also love coming back home, it was definitely one of those situations where we were very happy to be home. And it's great being here. It's great seeing loved ones during the holidays, but it's also great being home.

And it reminded me getting back into business mode…you can see a little bit of a glare here. Some crazy things sometimes happen when I when I don't clean the lens properly, hopefully you could deal with the ball, just see if we can do that just clean the lens there. That helps No, of course not. Of course, it doesn't help why these things happen. Whenever I'm out of my element and things don't work out quite right, I'm going to try something else, we're going to try to rub that lens with something else to help clear it up.

There we go, that helps out a little bit, little less glare going on there, you can see a little bit of reflection from the light back there. But that's I think that's more natural.

Now, this actually goes into the topic because it's really tough going in and out of the holiday season, especially if you are one of the people that are going in and out of it. If you've got a big family, if you've got a bunch of activities that happen COVID or no COVID that occurred during the season, then you're likely to get things you're likely to get, you know, just big obstacles placed in your way, when you're building your business.

It's just a natural phenomenon.

If you if it's not happening to you, it's happening to the people you're trying to get ahold of and the people you're trying to connect with. So here's what I always recommend to people when you're trying if your job is to build connections, if you building businesses, building connections, whether new partners, new vendors, new, whatever.

What new customers, if you're looking to get out there and need to meet more people and connect with the people you already know, then the best thing you could do during the holidays is just take a deep breath and realize that everybody tends to be in a little bit of a limbo situation until after the new years, until a good week or so after the New Year's or quite oftentimes.

So what I use it for I use this time a year for is just a chance to touch base with people. Now if you have something that you celebrate you wish people happy Merry Christmas or whatever. If you if you want to be more agnostic or PC about it, you could say Happy Holidays, I still think that that's smiled upon by a lot of people and you're not going to offend anybody saying Happy Holidays, I don't think so.

Put it out there, just wish people Merry Christmas wish people happy holidays, wish people happy Hanukkah and all the rest. Just put it out there.

And just send them a message, leave them a text, leave them a Facebook message, live them or whatever, just put it out there touch base with people and remind them that you exist. And let them know, hey, we got to talk, I'm going to give you a call sometime after the New ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo0vIWKxHRQ&feature=youtu.be

Is the customer ALWAYS right?

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Where do you stand on customer relations?

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I've got a lot of clients and I've also had throughout the years, customers here and there have specific items. But I work with clients who work with customers and the relationship that I have with clients, oftentimes, is very similar to the relationship they're having with their customers. And it's something to really keep an eye on.

Here's the thing I always go back to, there's a time and place for everything. And while I certainly don't subscribe to the customers always being right and that you need to bend over backwards at every single chance, especially when they're when they're pushing things that they should be, there's a time and place for everything.

And so you got to be willing to step back and take a look at a situation. So I'll give you an example. I've had customers that even after or excuse me, clients, for me, it's working a lot with clients. And I've had clients that have had, that have pushed their way through the lines that I've drawn.

You always have to design lines in a relationship, what's to be expected and what's not to be expected. I've drawn the lines, expecting them to be crossed on occasion, and they almost always are. And then I remind them about the lines that are drawn.

So for example, the times of the day, the times of the week that I'm that I allow for communication, I draw those lines, and I stick to them.

Now, every once in a while there's an emergency, there's something that the client gets worked up over, they, they step over the line, and that's okay. If you get too strict about these things, then you're not keeping real clear headed, what you got to do is take everything as it comes and handle it where it happens.

Because sometimes the emergency is real, and you got to pay attention to it. Most of the time, it isn't. And I have to remind clients, okay, there's a reason why I'm available during these times are not available during these times.

But I'll work on something on Christmas Day, if necessary. If it means moving forward, even though I don't allow that for me and my clients. But if it's necessary, it's necessary you do what you got to do. And so there's a time and place for everything.

You've got to draw those lines with your customers. what's available, what isn't available, your customer service, your customer relations, how is that going to work?

How's it going to work in the long run?

What can they expect from you and your team, you got to draw these things out, stick to them as best as possible. But allow for flexibility, especially if you've got a team of people that are working on customer relations, allow for the flexibility for them to judge a time and a moment. as to when they need to.

They need to fudge the lines a little bit here and there. It makes a big difference. It gets appreciated on the other side. I can't say it gets appreciated every time. But it will be appreciated by the right people at the right time. Hopefully that's helpful.

I'm not sure it's a it's a very common thing that I come into. I come into contact with it all the time. And the people that I know that have the best relationship with their customers are ones that have a strict policy,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quSZIN7zJKI&feature=youtu.be

Some thoughts on hard work vs working smart.

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Don't step over gold for pennies.

Hi, I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I'm coming to you again from my car, because it's late later tonight in this is the I'm recording this the day after Christmas 2020. And because of that, we have a house full of sleeping people.

I wanted to be able to come at you with the volume, I want to come at you. And so we're here in the car.

I wanted to talk about I was reminded of a situation we were talking about a relative that used to do a lot of…a lot of hustling, a lot of selling, buying and selling items.

And we were talking about him. In fact, I remember his wife, saying that he was he was quite a hustler. And it was an interesting thing, because somebody said that he you know it, he did a whole lot of work, and would end up making you know, 50 bucks after putting out you know, 5000 bucks worth of time, money and effort into something and feel like he was a champion.

That's all fine and good and there's nothing wrong with that. But it reminds me of a lot of business owners, we get ourselves into a situation to where as Gary Halbert put it, you step over, he said something to the extent of stepping over pennies to I mean, stepping over gold, to get the pennies, you know, you're bending down and picking up pennies, but you're stepping over gold coins and bars, and you're stepping over all the silver at the same time.

And you've got to realize that there's there's value in effort, there's value in time, there's value in thought, there's value in it. And that's beyond just the physical value, the money that you put out. And you have to look at whether it's really all worth it or not.

In talking to my wife about the situation and talking about some of some clients that I've had in the past and other people, a lot of people fall in love with the idea of putting out effort and thinking that there is value in merely working hard.

Not that I don't think there you shouldn't work hard, or have a strong worth that work ethic. But that doesn't mean that you should be getting an ego high off of it. And I think way too many of us as business owners get just feel really amazing about really sweating blood and working really hard, where we don't get a huge effect off of it. And that's the difference between working smart and working hard. Yes, you should work hard.

But you shouldn't work hard at the loss of working smart, you ought to pay attention to where your efforts going. And whether it's actually producing anything.

Just because you work hard, doesn't mean you're creating enough value for the marketplace.

It doesn't mean that people truly appreciate what you're bringing, and therefore is going to reward you in the long run and reward you consistently which is hopefully what you're going after when it comes to owning a business.

Hopefully you're looking at making everything to the extent of having to be somewhat systematic after a while to where you don't have to continue putting in as much work to where people are paying for something consistently, because you're producing consistent value. I don't know. Hopefully that makes sense to you.

Hey, if you haven't checked out my book yet go get a copy. It's called, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvR5B4UN-aY&feature=youtu.be

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Amazon-Proof Your Business https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Simple Merry Christmas.

Hi I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I just want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas.

It is nearly midnight here Christmas Eve, in Tracy, California, and I am I've got 18% left on my phone, which is where I record all of these for you. And recording this and it'll probably go out tomorrow or the day after.

And I can tell you right now, I will not be recording anything tomorrow, just with a wife and three kids in and multiple places to go. Quite possibly I will not find the bandwidth to be able to bring you a special message tomorrow.

But we do these on a nightly basis otherwise, so if you give me Christmas, I'll be here with you the rest of the time. And if not, you can catch up on some older episodes, if you really need to really appreciate all the time you spent with me this year.

This is you know one of those times for reflection.

I know not everybody has the freedom, flexibility, a relationship with family and so forth that a lot of would allow them to just pick up, leave town, meet up with who they wanted to and do all the things that I'm able to do and I'm not trying to rub that in anyone's face. But I'm very happy for the situation I've been given I hope that you have enough of a great situation in your life that you could be thankful for where you're at regardless of all the chaos that may have happened this year in the in the years previous in recent previous past.

So have a good one, have a Merry Christmas, take some time out for yourself. Take some time out to hang out with family if you if you have any or friends that are nearby. And just have some nice time off and we'll see.

We'll see you in a couple days. You have a great night.