Brian J. Pombo Live

Just how valuable are books to your business education anyway?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwqOKzt7lxw

Transcription

Books necessary for business growth.

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

I talk a lot about books that I like, ones that I've run into through the years ones that I've reread over again. And I do that a lot on this channel.

But it's done with a rather assumptive attitude as if you already know why books are a good thing to have when it comes to business success.

Are they necessary?

Absolutely not.

I mean, there are a lot of people that have been successful in business through the years that have not, and have not been the voracious readers and have flaunted the fact that they don't read much when it comes to books or success books or what have you.

That's all fine and good.

What I found though, across the board, is that if a person is is not achieving the successes that they're looking for or would like to go to another level. Books help to take you to that next step, because it just helps you to change your mindset to be able to do what you got to do.

Sometimes you just got to hear someone who's already been through it, you know, or hear of people that have already been through it.

So whether you're reading a biography or an autobiography, those are two of the most, the best places to go to, to find people that you relate with.

To see what they did to get from point A to point B. These are all very useful.

Now, most of the people I talk to, on this podcast on these videos and audios is are people who are already successful to some extent or another.

I want to talk to you also here and not just make this just for people who are searching for business success, but people who have already achieved some success.

That there's two things I recommend doing.

Number one, even if you are not, if you have never been a reader and have achieved success, I'm going to recommend that you also spend some time to look for material that's helpful, not just to you, but to other people.

You see, no matter what you've probably have employees, or you have people that you work with, you may have vendors, partners, or may have partners in the future.

You're gonna find people that don't naturally think the way you think now that could be the way you were raised, or the way you were raised, you know, you may have been isolated to a lot of the stinking thinking that a whole lot of us grow up with.

If that case, you have to realize that most people just don't think the way you do naturally. And that's okay.

It doesn't mean that it's impossible for them to think any better, it is possible for them to think better, it is possible for them to drop a whole lot of the mythology that most of us walk around with in our heads, that just isn't true.

That holds us back in life.

I'm not just talking success but successes, it's a great example of where you can see this happening of how people shoot themselves in the foot over and over again, with just stupid ideas that they grew up with in their heads.

That's a great importance of books I'm holding here, this is the I've shown this to you before this is the unedited 1937 text of Think & Grow Rich, you can get these out there now. I think I got this off Amazon or something and they've got...

Ahh, people and opinions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IcR2lVPoww

Transcription

Whoopi, Joe and celebrity.

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

I'm going to take two characters out of today's headlines. Those you watching in modern day you won't be tough to know what's going on with Whoopi Goldberg and Joe Rogan.

If you're watching or listening to this anytime later, though, you may have to be reminded that what's going on right now is Whoopi Goldberg is on The View on TV.

She set a line about Holocaust say that it wasn't a racist situation.

And like went back and forth on it and embarrassed herself.

Then Joe Rogan has had many people on his show questioning the mainstream viewpoint being promoted out there regarding COVID-19.

Because of that, he's gotten a lot of flack from numerous people like all that all the famous people that are out there, saying they want him off of the streaming services.

So what's the same, what's the same between these two people?

Well they've both been doing something that that they either are or not embarrassed about. But here's the thing about being a celebrity.

This is how it ties back into your business, or whoever's handling your content marketing specifically. Because with content marketing, you have to realize if you're putting enough information out there, you're going to say something that's embarrassing, you're going to say something that is going to upset somebody.

I mean, I just guarantee I don't care how careful you are whatsoever, you will do something that will upset somebody, it's just a guarantee, there's no way around it.

There's no way to be so politically correct, that you are not going to upset somebody. And when that happens, people will call for you being taken off, or taken out of whatever scenario you're in.

Maybe taking off as a sponsor, if you're if you're sponsoring anything, these things are going to happen and you have to realize it's that it's going to happen.

It doesn't matter whether you're Whoopi Goldberg or whether you're Joe Rogan, does matter how famous you are. It's not just because they're famous, that they're getting flack.

You will always get flack, you will always say something stupid, or something you really believe in but but that not everybody else does. These things are going to happen as long as you're out there being yourself or you're putting out content on a regular basis that somebody is out being themselves.

So I talk about this all in my book, in chapter four, on being somebody, this concept of using limited celebrity, to be able to promote business is a really major deal.

It doesn't mean you are a celebrity to start with.

It means that through the power of content marketing, you become a celebrity to at least a small group of people. So go check that out.

Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

You can get a free copy, if you just want to download one, AmazonProofBook.com.

And that's all I got for tonight.

Be careful. Don't get offended by by anybody. It just pulls you down but see the activity that's going on out there in the headlines and realize it's completely predictable.

It's nothing to get freaked out over. So hang in there. We'll see you tomorrow.

Thoughts on events and content marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDXXiv-HaRE

Transcription

Why Groundhog Day matters.

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

This was an interesting year for Groundhog Day, I apologize for my scratchy throat still just on the tail end of overcoming something in the air.

Groundhog Days interesting.

And it's one of those things that kind of comes and goes, and you don't pay too much attention to it, everyone's reminded of the movie, and how wonderful that movie is.

It is an awesome movie, it's one of those that you can rewatch over and over again, and always get something different out of it as many layers, which at the time it was just another Goofy, Goofy Movie.

But it really does have a lot to it there and very interesting movie very good comparison to real life.

But I don't want to dwell too, too deep on that right now let's talk about Groundhog Day as an institution, which is it's an interesting thing because it came from way back in the past all of them if you look at the origins of Groundhog Day, you're talking about pre-most, modern-day religion.

Really these very crazy, very odd traditions from back in, you know, proto European times, and it and that's where it comes from. It doesn't have this huge, you know, the tradition here in America except for in very specific parts.

It's from this past time period that said that it was actually in Europe, it was I believe it was a hedgehog that they used as opposed to a groundhog.

Groundhogs are more of the, you know, North American version.

You've got this time in which an animal is supposedly telling you what the weather is going to be like, right? I mean, that's, that's the gist of it.

And here's another funny thing.

I don't think I really noticed until this year, there isn't an official Groundhogs Day. That's why yesterday a whole bunch of people were wishing each other happy Groundhogs Day.

If you type it into Google Groundhog's Day is on Saturday. And it depends on the home where you're at, you know, there's different towns have their own groundhog.

So there's not just one groundhog that Punxsutawney Phil is kind of famous for being the groundhog and was the one they used in Groundhog Day the movie but it's not the only groundhog that in just recently there was news this year that one of the other groundhogs died.

They're not having Groundhog's Day in this one town that they normally have it in another crazy thing.

But I'll tell you what's interesting about Groundhog's Day, it really points and what it has to do with you and your business and really comes back to content marketing.

It shows you how silly holidays are.

I mean, there's just seriously most holidays.

Most holidays are the silliest goofiest thing ever and we name a holiday after basically anyone who's famous whatsoever. We have a holiday dedicated at least one holiday, in some cases, people died in a horrible sit scenario.

We celebrate their birthday and their death day. You know, they're just these crazy things. We just keep piling more holidays, you know, no one ever gets rid of holidays.

If you notice that, no one ever comes out and says yeah, we don't need this holiday anymore. Every once in a while you get some controversy about a holiday like Christopher Columbus...

Some tips on do's and don'ts when putting together your business profiles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJylrhqfetc

Transcription

Social media profile tip for business owners.

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

I'm a Business investor. And one of the things that I work a lot with is business owners and executives to help them basically get out there in the best way possible, and be able to make their businesses kind of run on their own.

If at all possible, really creating a passive income is what a lot of business owners are after.

It's difficult to do without taking yourself very seriously.

So one of the things that I see over and over and over again, with well established businesses is if you have a principal, if you've got a lead person in charge, whether they be the CEO, the business owner, or what have you, whoever you are, the problem is, is they take their business extremely seriously, but they don't take their own personal brand, seriously at all.

But it matters, it reflects back on the business.

When people are looking up details about your business, especially if you do any type of business to business work.

Or if you're ever looking to bring on investors, one of the most important things is making sure that your social media presence is very clear cut and straightforward and doesn't give off the wrong impression. Or give off zero impression is the worst thing because that's an impression unto itself.

If people are looking you up, and they're not able to find you, or they're able to find profiles without a profile picture, or inconsistent profile pictures or one that's you know, 30 years old, or what have you, that gives off the wrong impression.

That wrong impression isn't just about you, that wrong impression reflects badly on your business also. So how do we how do we solve this, this is real simple concept.

But if you can first take it seriously that you and anyone on your leadership team is going to have a social media presence, you got to determine where that's going to be.

You have to realize that when you get out there, that's going to show up in Google and and other search engines when people just do nothing more than search for your name, and maybe the name of your business.

So you want to make sure that that is present in your profile. If you're talking to a Facebook profile or a LinkedIn profile, you want to make sure that that is there that your name is spelled correctly.

That you have at I have to say that because I've seen it done badly.

You have to have the name of your company and your position at your company so that people know who you are, if you can have a link going back, even if you don't have a personal website, a link going back to your website. Your company website would be extremely helpful to now a lot of people will do some fancy pose or whatever.

You don't need to do that the best way to do it is just a real straightforward head and shoulder shot of you know, special pose no hand in your you know, holding your face or making a funny face or a fake candid shot or anything like that you don't need that.

It would be good to have a professional head and shoulder shot, if you don't have that have someone that's a good photographer, take it with a nice neutral background behind you.

Just put you out there in a very consistent manner, it's good to have one photo that you use across the boar...

Thoughts on how to best handle confrontations with others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlsQXyiQycU

Transcription

Systemising your confrontations.

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

Today I want to talk about the concept of confrontation because it just kind of goes with being a business owner being an executive, being one of the people in charge, you know, you're going to have to have confrontations with people that you like, with people you don't like.

There's some of us that actually enjoy confrontations with people we don't like. But with people you do like, you don't want to have to get into awkward territory.

You don't want to have to let people go when it's necessary. You don't want to have to do all that stuff. Get in between a fight that two other people are having. It's not fun.

But there's a way to go about doing it. The way I found that works is by Systemising.

I'll tell you more about that in a second.

First, I want to remind you, I've got a book out, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

It's not as much about interpersonal relationships like we're talking about today, but more about your full on strategy for long term growth.

How are you going to differentiate yourself completely from your competition?

It's a quick read, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

Go buy yourself a copy or get a free one at AmazonProofBook.com.

So how do I go about systemising confrontation?

What was an accident, and it's just one of these things, it's like so many things, like I found it accidentally, is that you need to have areas set aside for consultation.

So sometimes, maybe regular one on one meetings with people, regular one on one chats with people. Having that time when you could be face to face with people you maybe aren't normally face to face with. That's a big deal too.

Because some conversations, they become more intense because it's over video chat, you know, and you don't want it to be real. And I found that people don't really sense your full intent if they can't, for one thing, see your entire body.

I don't know why that is but there's also something in the room when you're in the room with somebody. There's an exchange that can't be put into words in terms of specifics.

It's not a specific thing but there's something in the air, that people can sense that you're wanting to take things, one direction or another, and that you're wanting to come off well.

Sometimes that just doesn't work on on video chat, especially if it's somebody that you have a difficult time communicating with, anyways, personality wise or anything else.

So it's best I've found to have time set aside to where you can be in a room together, and maybe allow it to happen naturally.

But you systemize that by having those events already in place, you got to put those events in place for the people that you're going to be caught in consultation with.

So hoping that makes sense.

We can go into more detail on a later time but I've wanted to get that idea out there because it's one of those things that kind of happened across and I was amazed at how well some very sticky situations worked, because we had time set aside to just hang out. And the subject just came up.

We were able to just handle it like adults,

Putting a wrap on Brian's trip to Sam's Town in Las Vegas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHDhieRJm14

Transcription

Scheduling in chaotic times.

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

I want to talk a little bit about the scheduling process and how scheduling does not need to take place 24/7. But for certain items, when things are the most chaotic, that's when you need the scheduling the most.

It doesn't mean you need to organize everything and keep everything under control, it just means certain things need to keep going or have their space to them. I'll give you a great example.

I apologize, first off for my voice, had a long weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada. And it was very dry, a little bit more dry than I'm used to for this time of year.

Just between staying up late and talking with all my friends, business associates, it was really a lot of fun had a great time, there was more activity in terms of actual work to get done there than I expected.

Normally, I always have a period before bed that I'm able to kind of sneak off and do a video for you, well, we were able to get power one.

But the rest of the time, I wasn't able to do any, because I was either so exhausted, I mean to the point where I could not keep my eyes open, or so certainly wouldn't be able to provide any value for you.

Or there just wasn't enough time, there were some nights where I wasn't sleeping hardly at all. So it was just one of those things that's to be expected.

As things grow with any type of business, you have to expect a little bit of chaos. And so for next time, I will definitely pre-schedule when I'm going to do these and make sure I have enough energy to be able to reach you on the regularity that you're used to.

So and that's for all of you that are watching this relatively recent, this was recorded in late January 2021, excuse me 2022.

If you're watching this anytime, way off in the future, just ignore that part. But understand the principle.

The principle is, if you've got a scenario, where there are certain things that you don't want to miss, have it scheduled, and have not just a reminder necessarily on your phone, if you're anything like me, those are really easy to ignore, because you end up getting really good at putting reminders on then you have too many reminders, and then you just start ignoring them.

But if you can make it to where you have people that remind you actual people that you know, an assistant, anybody at all that you can help keep your schedule in order. Or at least remind you when those important things are do to get done. And make sure they get done.

That's really important.

Especially if you're dealing in a territory that is new for you if you're in a new area. If you're working with new people, it's really easy to lose track and lose the good habits that you built up. Hopefully, that's helpful to you.

Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. You can get a free digital copy at AmazonProofBook.com. AmazonProofBook.com.

It's all I got for tonight. You have a good one. Get out there and let the magic happen.

Day one of Brian's business trip out in Las Vegas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu3HQyxYM-U

Transcription

Sam's Town Hotel and Casino Las Vegas.

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

This is an unusual type of episode you can hear in the background if you're not watching. There's a huge waterfall over here, we'll go take a look at that in a moment.

If you're wanting to see this and all you can do is hear it, be sure and go to BrianJPombo.com, and you can watch the video that goes along with this.

Now, I'm going to flip this around. Like I said, this is going to be an unusual video.

Now flip this around to show you what I see.

The current software I'm using doesn't allow me to flip it while I'm in the middle. And I'm not gonna sit and edit all this around. So I'm gonna flip, I'm going to physically flip my phone around to show you this is giant for one thing that you'll see.

I'm not sure how well you can see there's a lot of greenery in here, fake and otherwise, but look at this giant waterfall structure, giant rock thing going, Oh, I don't know, probably four storeys high.

You look a little higher, you can see the entire entire hotel goes all the way around. And it's a giant atrium. Pretty cool. Lots of fun.

This is a neat, neat feature. I haven't seen this before. And trying to figure out how to get my mask off of my headphones here.

This is I know this is thrilling to watch, I want to tell you a little bit about something I experienced here, which was rather different.

They've got these animatronic animals that are making sounds that you constantly so if you hear an owl, or a if you hear an owl or a bear, or a lion, mountain lion, start making noise at us.

That's what you're hearing is animatronic animals, and they've got, you know, fake insects through the speakers and everything else.

It's kind of reminiscent if you've ever been if you've ever been into a sorry for the horrible camera.

Like if you've ever been into a Bass Pro Shop, it's kind of like that.

And so it's it's really a neat place to go to I'm here for a conference for a convention, and having a lot of fun.

Just so far not nothing official has started. And I've gotten to see a lot of people that I know, that are having a really good time. But here's the experience that I came across the side, Sam's Town seems like a really cool place, it's very clean.

If you're looking for a place to visit when you're in Las Vegas, this is off of the strip. So it's interesting.

But the thing about this place is when we got here, there was only one person working the front desk.

This is of course an issue of the horrible situation we're going through now in early 2022, to where we have a real lack of workers, people willing to work, or people willing to pay enough to get workers.

You have the people that are working have during the toughest time, the lady that I got to meet who's working her name's Cindy, she is very good with dealing with a very stressful situation.

Because we had a long line had to wait in line a long time just to get checked into our rooms. And it's just not fair.

I don't know whose fault it is but it's a serious situation that you've got to deal with. And you have to be ready for it.

Brian gets set for a business trip out to Las Vegas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_WvPY0Ov8

Transcription

Get out in the air and on the road.

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

Today's a quick one.

I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm going to be out and about the next video or podcast, we're going to be coming to you from probably either Salt Lake City, where I'm going to I'm going for a layover, but distant final destinations in Las Vegas.

So I'll talk to you from one of those two places tomorrow night.

But the big thing, the big news right now is that things are finally opening up and it looks like it's going to be for a relatively decent period of time.

The general consensus is that things are moving forward and getting back to active and in-person and so forth. So I'm going to a business conference. I just encourage you to do the same thing.

Get out there. Get out on the road.

I know it's winter right time and right now, if you're in the northern hemisphere, it's winter.

So it might be a little bit tougher depending on where you're at but the best thing is to get out there get moving, get the blood rushing, it won't be long before winters in the rearview mirror behind us and we can move on. So keep going.

Things are looking good.

I know in my life, there are a million things that are happening right now that are really exciting. I hope it's happening for you too. But you sometimes you got to go out there and get it. That's all I got for tonight. Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. Get your own free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

We'll see you tomorrow night. Get out there and let the magic happen.

Direct mail breakdown on a piece of mail Brian recently received.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JBTiuzb9l8

Transcription

Wedding invitation and direct mail.

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

I'm going to show you something real quick, but I want to warn you, okay?

I'm not showing it to you because I want you to go off and do this exact thing.

If you're in business, if you're involved in marketing, it's going to be tempting just to rip this off. Now you can, there's a way to go about doing it but I want you to get the idea of the concept behind it, which is really cool.

The concept is taking something that would not normally be in a particular area and bringing it there and I'll show you what I mean in a second.

This is a piece of mail a friend showed me I'm hiding their name but I want to show you the envelope first. This showed up in their mail, it has what appears to be handwriting.

Now, in closer inspection, you can tell this was done with a printer, but it was done very well.

It's very legible but at the same time, it appears to be handwriting dumb with a blue pen. You've got the address up above without a name. It's just sweet 200.

It can be anything.

It's Kirkland, Washington, it could be anything. It's got live stamps, makes it very much looks like and feels like a wedding invitation or a card or invitation of some sort, nothing on the back.

Very unassuming, you have to open this.

It's got your name.

It's spelled correctly and everything you have to open this and the toughest thing about direct mail as with it.

You could take the same thing and flip it and say this, the toughest thing about email, the toughest thing about just about any form of direct marketing is getting them to actually open it, getting them to open the email, open the direct mail.

So this is a good job of getting past that first step.

Being that the idea that you actually made it to the right place. He opened it up there is a card. Good stock.

Looks like a wedding invitation has a picture of a couple on the front.

Who is this?

I don't know who this is.

It says a special VIP invitation.

Oh my gosh, who is this?

Scott and Amy Yancey.

Then the only thing that throws off this is if you actually recognize the names. Supposedly these folks are well known. And then there's a QR code on the front.

Why, I'm not sure I didn't go to it.

But you open it up and of course, it shows off that it's an ad.

The first thing it shows you'll receive $250 Starbucks redemption when you arrive, okay, you must really like or go to Starbucks on a regular basis for this to draw your attention.

But if you do, that's a hot thing to offer.

I mean, that's all 250 bucks.

We're excited to extend this very special VIP invitation to you and your guest. That's interesting.

Then we continue on with kind of the, the fake writing.

It's personalized, it said, Dear blank, I'm the one that you know, redacted that, congratulations, you've been pre qualified as a via as a VIP guest please accept this private invitation to the make money and preserv...

Continuing on in a series of recent podcasts about the value of lead generation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLuo_54pFjM

Transcription

Why lead generation?

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

Lead Generation is an interesting topic.

We've been talking about this for a handful of videos. Now, I don't want to gloss over the idea that lead generation is important.

Especially because it occurs to me, almost every company I end up working with has some serious reservations about doing any form of lead generation whatsoever.

If they if they are doing it, there's people in the company who think they shouldn't be.

If they are not doing it, tt's because they don't understand why.

And so I just wanted to hit on this topic real quick for you.

I have not found in most cases there. If a company is not doing lead generation and the only time I'd ever tell them not to do any form of lead generation whatsoever, is if there are other issues with the company that need to be fixed first.

That's the only thing, it's not because I think that company shouldn't have it.

I honestly think all companies should have some form of lead generation in place.

What is lead generation?

First off, lead generation is the idea of collecting at least limited information of a person that is a prospective customer or client, patient, what have you, whatever you're doing, you should have that list of prospective people that might be willing to be a customer.

That might be a good fit for being a customer client, or what have you. That's a lead a lead is just somebody that's close to being there.

I mean, this doesn't even count having killed holding on to lists of people that were previous customers, this doesn't have to do with people, even having a list of people who are current customers or recent customers.

I'm just talking people that might someday be interested because and it could be a number of reasons.

But in most cases, if you can find people who have shown interest in a topic or idea, or they have some type of demographic that makes them basically the type of person that you're looking for.

So if you're selling dog food, and you know this person has a dog or more, they're probably a prospect for you.

That's a little slice of demographics that you'd be able to get, it's a list that you can get from somewhere else, you wouldn't even have to ask them directly, necessarily, you can you can garner one of those lists from elsewhere, but just developing a list of people who might possibly be interested.

Here's why you want to do that.

Here's why it matters.

It's because no matter what, if you go and talk to everyone who could possibly be a prospective customer, you're always going to have people walk away who aren't ready to purchase yet.

They're not ready to become a customer yet and what do you do with those, and it's usually it's usually a majority, it's usually a large majority.

If you could talk to everybody, all at once around the world that could ever possibly be a prospective customer of yours. Everyone that's currently alive.

Everyone that speaks your language, if you could talk to all of them all at once, what percentage of them would actually become customers?