Business Made Easy Podcast

Do you feel like running your small business zaps every last bit of energy out of you? Feeling like your stuck and don't know how to move forward? Today's guest is Linda Binns, author, speaker and Breakthrough Energy Expert who specialises in getting small business owners unstuck.

What is covered in this episode:

• The changes you will experience adapting from working for a corporation to being your own boss 
• How your energy affects all areas of your life 
• How you show up each day and the trickle down effect it can have on your team 
• Why what you think the problem is, often isn't the actual problem 
• Why you need to step back, reset and then work backwards to avoid overwhelm
• Spending time on things that won't reach your end goal 
• The importance of creating and celebrating small wins  
• Mastering the things you are good at to help reduce overwhelm 
• Making sure you are aligning your actions with your overall business and personal goals 
• The key to success is taking smalls steps and taking action regularly  
• The big impact just small changes to your thinking can make both professionally and personally 
• The danger in comparing yourself to others 
• How Facebook Ads is working with Linda right now in her business
   

Updating your Facebook page each day doesn't constitute a digital strategy for your small business.  Today we talk about what it is and how it can help to future-proof your business.

A Digital Strategy is one of the most important documents you can now have in your business. We are all familiar with the importance of having a clearly defined and documented Business Plan for our business, to set our vision and strategy.Very few businesses however understand the importance of a clearly defined & . documented Digital Strategy. In this episode I outline what a digital strategy is and how it is so much more than a scheduling posts to Facebook and Social Media.

• What is a digital strategy and why you need one
• Case studies of businesses that didn't have a digital strategy and the impact that had on their industry
• Why a digital strategy is not just your social media and marketing activity
• The different components of a front-end and back-end digital strategy
• The digital life cycle of consumers
• Identifying where your customers fit in the digital spectrum
• The importance of identifying the trends in your industry and how that can impact your product delivery
• Why you need to build your business on your own assets such as your website and not on rented land or third party assets that you can't control such as YouTube and Instagram
• Back-end digital issues you need to consider around protection and security

Ty Crandell is a widely recognised authority when it comes to business finance and getting it right from the outset. This week we discuss the importance of your credit rating when applying for business finance and Ty shares his proven tips and strategies for making sure you set things right from the get go.

Ty has been featured on Inc., Entrepreneur Forbes & FOX and is the author of two popular books - Perfect Credit and Business Credit Decoded. It’s a great episode for anybody wanting to structure their business finance correctly.

• How to get business credit when starting out
• The different types of business loan structures
• The problem with using your personal credit to build a business
• The global trends with niche lending programs offering alternates to the big banks
• Tips for approaching lenders to obtain finance and how to make the right impression
• How Artificial Intelligence is changing the way credit gets approved
• The three C's of business lending
• How risk affects the costs of credit-based finance
• Why you need to get money before you need it

On today's solo episode I want to encourage you to stop the overwhelm and put a pause button on your social media marketing.  Why?  There is a good chance you are leaving money on the table but not servicing your existing clientele to the fullest.   
 
Today we review exactly how to find and service your most profitable customers.  

What is covered in this episode: 

• Why you need to put the pause button on social media and acquiring new customers 
• How to use your existing customer database in finding untapped revenue
• Why it is cheaper to service your existing customers more than finding new clientele 
• How to identify your most profitable customers  
• Completing the ideal customer worksheet 
• The importance of having a customer list/database 
• Identify problems can you solve to incease your offerings to your most profitable customers 
• The easy way to increase revenue through upselling to your existing customers 
• 'Disneyifing' your customer service 
• The danger in over automating your business and dehumanising your customer service 
• The benefit of creating customer advocates for your business    

Today on the show I talk to online entrepreneur and mentor James Schramko about his new book Work Less, Make More.
 
James is based in Sydney Australia and has started, developed and sold multiple successful businesses. 

A passionate father, investor, surfer, husband, coach, mentor and lover of freedom, James excels in making the complex world of business simple so that your quality of life can improve. 

When James started online he was a General Manager working with Mercedes-Benz commanding a large team of employees in a multi-million dollar business by day and an online marketer by night. 

Since buying his first laptop in 2005 James has sold well over TEN million dollars online.  

What is covered in this episode: 

• How he meant from working for car dealership to surfing everyday 
• Why it is less risky to have multiple income streams 
• How the choices you make generally dictate your results  
• The black hole of personal effectiveness 
• Why working more isn’t the answer 
• The importance of tracking time and working out your effective hourly rate 
• The talent trap 
• Knowing that all tasks are not equal 
• The importance of having an offer that converts 
• Why the shiny latest software isn’t always the answer to business efficiency 
• Cashflow, tax and the profit formula 
• The benefits and growth of the recurring subscription model  
• Identify compromises in your business 
• Understanding the importance of owning the racecourse - that is the asset that you can control and use other platforms to bring people to your asset 
• The problems of building on someone else’s land

The first episode for 2018, Jason sets the seen for the year on the content and layout of material to help you grow your business and have your best year in business ever.

From interviews to one-on-one teachings. The Business Made Easy Podcast will be bring you all the tools and resources you need to master your Social Media, Your Customer Experiences and the Management of your business in 2018.

• Jason's approach to business planning in 2018
• How Jason changed the way he spends his New Year day
• Go back and listen to Episode 20 to hear about goal planning and strategy
• The 3 areas of content for The Business Made Easy community this year -
  • marketing;
  • customer experience
  • management
• What topics will be covered in these 3 areas over the year
• Sharing your goals with the Business Made Easy Podcast group in the private Facebook Community.

Today we discuss the importance of not only having a business plan but the process behind the plan.  

The actual process of sitting down and doing a business plan, to me is probably one of the most fundamental things that you should do in your business.

To make it easy for you to create your business plan make sure to download our Free Business Plan On a Page template and implementation guide as discussed in this episode.

What is covered in this episode:

• How a business plan can help create a more profitable business with less stress
• Why the strength of the business plan is in the actual process of putting it together rather than the end document
• How often you should do your planning and why regularly reviewing is so critical
• The Ten Steps to putting in place a dynamic actionable business plan that grows with you and moves with the dynamic business environment in which we now operate.

Links mentioned in the show:

Download our Free Business Plan On a Page template and implementation guide

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Today on the show I talk through the process I use to set business goals.  This year I am taking a different approach to planning by setting my goals over my Christmas Break, rather than in the New Year when back at work.

Click here to join the private Facebook Group and share how you are planning your business goals for next year.

What is covered in this episode:

• The first step is get yourself in the right environment when setting your goals
• What equipment to have on hand when doing your planning
• The benefits of mind mapping and how Jason uses Mindmeister for his planning
• Identifying the critical elements of your life that matter to you eg family, health, faith, travel, education
• The two step process for each critical element - what you are grateful for and what do you want to achieve in the following year.
• Why we don’t focus on what we haven’t achieved
• The questions to ask when creating SMART Goals - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely
• Identifying what you need to stop doing and what obstacles why be in the way of achieving your SMART goals
• Setting quarterly milestones to measure process
• Sharing your goals and milestone with a business coach, accountability partner or mastermind group
• Example of a Mindmeister Planning Template
• Sharing your goals with the Business Made Easy Podcast group in the private Facebook Community

Today on the show talk we are joined by Ian Paget, founder of Logo Geek, a UK based graphic designer located in Manchester, who specialises in logo and brand identity design. He works with inspiring entrepreneurs and businesses looking to take their brand identity to the next level.

• How he started a business from his passion for logo design and typology
• Starting a business from a 90 000 followers on Twitter
• How he used Buffer to grow his Twitter community by posting regular content twice a day
• How to use Twitter to find your target audience
• Why having a personal profile picture instead of a logo helps to boost your twitter engagement
• Choosing where your target audience hangs out on social media to focus your marketing efforts
• The value of hashtags on Twitter
• Time management tools for managing your social media
• The main purpose of your logo and the first impressions it can make
• The importance of a Brand Statement
• The dangers and costs to consider of a cheap or free logo when starting out
• Colour, typefaces and other design features to consider when designing your logo
• Why it doesn’t matter what you or your family think of your logo, it is important what your target audience thinks
• Why you need to ask specific questions when getting feedback about design
• Why quality matters in all your touch point
• How being a podcast guest is helping Ian and Logo Geek with their SEO and backlink strategy

Today on the show talk we are joined by Greg Merrilees, founder of Studio 1, a web and design agency specialising in custom-made websites.

• The business journey Greg went out from designing a T-Shirt to a fully fledged web and design agency
• How to reach out to online influencers
• The importance of offering value upfront
• How a podcast and some high-end coaching helped Greg to grow his business
• Why a written blog post is still an effective tool for Google
• The first thing a new business should do before looking at their branding
• The importance of an offer that converts
• The importance of a consistent brand across all your platforms
• The six stages of persuasion and how to apply that to your online presence
• Why your copy needs to be about your customer, not you
• The 5-second rule
• Design or Copy - which comes first?
• Why you shouldn’t put your best content on just social media
• How to get on getting social proof when starting out and the power of your story
• Why you should begin by starting a conversation with your customers when they are visiting your website
• Mapping our your sale process
• Why Greg recommends Shopify for e-commerce businesses and Wordpress for established service businesses
• The ownership issues with self-hosted website platforms such as Wix
• What to look for in a business coach