A lead magnet, a freebie, an opt-in - whatever you want to call it, it's a strong tool to leverage when growing your email list. And growing your email list means growing your audience base and growing your audience base means increasing those qualified leads (if your lead magnet brings in your target audience) and more qualified leads mean more revenue.

In this episode I discuss:

• info you need before creating your lead magnet
• types of lead magnets
• creating and designing your lead magnet
• the layout of your lead magnet
• your thank you page
• your delivery email

This is a quick overview, so send me a note at [email protected] if you want me to go deeper on any or all of these parts of the process!

Oh and I promised I'd put the link to this episode in the show notes, so here you are:
How to Boost the Power of Your Headlines https://www.musclecreative.com/podcast-ep69 

Maybe you've started a podcast or video series...or perhaps you're in the planning stages.

Regardless of your topic, you're probably like - what the heck am I going to talk about every week (or whatever cadence you choose)?

Perhaps consider a format that allows you to welcome guests onto the show. That way, you won't have the pressure of carrying the entire show every week...and typically the guest will also help promote it. Two birds.

In this episode, I discuss 11 ways to seek out your ideal guests. After all, you want to be selective in who you invite to your show - they need to be a fit for your niche and your audience. 

Stream the episode and let me know which tactics you'll adopt to book your next guests!

This week, I thought we'd talk a little bit about creating headlines, subject lines, your call-to-action - you know, the stuff that gets your ideal audience to DO WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO.  Whether it's an opt-in page, sales page, social media post, email, blog post, etc... it's super important to have action-oriented headlines that actually work. 

Before you even start to create these glorious bits of copy, I go over the 3 things you have to have right.  If you don't have these things, you're SOL.  Once you have those things buttoned up, you can move into working on the calls-to-action for your buttons, headlines, subject lines, the whole shebang. 

Oh and here are the links to the other episodes I mention - I promised I'd add the links to the show notes, so here they are:

The 4 Critical Steps to Starting a Business (this talks about identifying your ICA - I've done an entire training on this with my Facebook group, need to do one for the podcast)
https://www.musclecreative.com/podcast-ep65

5 Qualities of Super Clickable Email Subject Lines
https://www.musclecreative.com/podcast-ep54 

In order to grow a sustainable business that won't have you pulling your hair out (at least maybe not every day), automating processes is critical. It saves you time, money, and your sanity. No matter if you're new to business, or an experienced entrepreneur or in your career, building systems that streamline what your business needs is key. 

Many people, whether employees or business owners, crave flexibility in their schedules and creating automation in your business or career can help make that happen. In fact, I know of multiple businesses that have turned to a four-day workweek, and automating aspects of their business made that schedule a reality. 

In this episode, I go over 7 specific areas of your business or role in your career where you can add automation.

It might surprise you to hear this but: you don't need a fancy website and logo to get your business going…nor to grow it substantially.

Honestly, creating your email list is one of the most important things to do early on. Grabbing an email service provider and then creating a landing page or two, one with info about your offer and another to gate your lead magnet to collect email addresses of those in your ideal, targetted community. (I'll be doing a separate podcast episode regarding the technical and content side of lead magnets)

I looked at over 60 email marketing platforms (even I was surprised at how many email marketing platforms are out there) and whittled that list down to six for you to consider. Links are below. 

 In this episode I go over some soft and hard skills that your ultimate choice should have, a checklist of what to consider when you're looking at email marketing platforms:

• ease of use
• customer service
• pricing structure
• segmentation
• automation
• data analytics (see more on this in episode 58, "The 3 Email Metrics that Matter"

Here are some email marketing platforms to consider: (I am not an affiliate)

• Mailchimp
• Flodesk
• ConvertKit
• ActiveCampaign
• SendGrid
• Kartra

For an all-in-one toolkit to starting your online business including:

• choosing a:
  • business formation
  • website platform 
  • email marketing platform
  • project management platform 
• setting up a business bank account
• managing a business alongside life

check out my digital course, "Online Business On-Ramp" here.

Have you ever felt like you were all over the place? Unproductive? Flitting from here to there? Like you're always saying yes when you wish, you could say no? Doing things that don't feel right or that aren't serving your priorities?

You probably don't have solid boundaries in place. 

Boundaries are all about your mental health. If your head's not in the game, if your mind and priorities aren't clear enough to enforce boundaries, you've lost before you've even begun. 

Like a lot of things in life, these will be challenged. And when they do, you'll need some solid footing to stand on to move forward. 

In this episode I'll discuss the six things to do when creating (successful) boundaries, whether it's for your personal or professional life…or both!

This week, I wanted to go over critical steps you need to take when starting your own business. So some of you may have already started your own business, and others might be thinking about it but haven't taken the plunge. 

You might want time flexibility while earning an income, you might you love your full time job, but want to have a business in addition to that that you want to build. 

And maybe you're curious as to what it would entail. Perhaps you've launched your own business, but need a nudge in the right direction. 

So I thought, let's do an episode about a few of the critical things, the critical steps that you should take when you're starting your own online business, such as:

• How to come up with a business idea
• Clarity on vision and why you want a business
• Validate your business idea - ensure it's sustainable and profitable!
• Identifying your ideal client/customer

Hope this episode is helpful! For more support check out my Online Business On-Ramp course here: https://www.musclecreative.com/course It's the direct, no frills system to managing the often missed yet critical logistics to launching your online business.

Where do I even start with our guest this week? For 13 years Matt Zaun worked in the political arena as a speech writer - helping politicians with debate prep, speech writing and overall messaging. For the past 5 years, Matt has taken critical pieces of that experience and applied them to helping small and medium business owners catapult their businesses to new heights. How? Matt is a Story Strategist that works with CEOs, executives and business leaders to use their story to inspire their audiences to action. Listen in on how these skills can fundamentally change your business…NOW.

The Start

• Background in politics
• Debate prep, political speech writing for over a decade

The Shift

• For the past 5 years, running his own business as a Story Strategist
• Took key learnings from the political messaging arena and is applying them to business

The Strategy

• Teaches these strategies to CEOs, executives, and sales professionals
• Critical components of constructing political messaging fundamentally changes small and medium-sized businesses for the better

The Action

• Building a story bank
• How to leverage an emotional POV (point-of-view) in business to connect with customers
• The art of connecting stories to emotion for exponential business growth
• Looking at personal stories vs. business stories
• The #1 thing Pixar is doing right
• Why company core values are a waste of time

The Mindset

• The importance of a solid, organized calendar - app suggestion CalenGoo
• Setting daily habits - app suggestion Way of Life
• Seeing the path to achieving goals as a map
• Goals and Vision
  • Building back up public speaking calendar - already booked until the end of the year
  • Launching more VIP packages to clients

The Wrap-Up

• If you could listen to one music artist for the rest of your life, who would it be? Bob Dylan
• Where can people find you online?
  • LinkedIn
  • Website

This week, let's talk about a biggie that plagues all businesses - how to tackle the most common online sales obstacles or objections. These are objections you might get from people when they're considering buying your product or service. 

When you learn the objections that people have when considering your offer beforehand, you an address it directly...before they even come up. This an be an organic conversation using copysation (listen to episode #53 - Connect with Copy: Grow Your Clientele), like I always say - use copy as a conversation. Some of the common ones you might hear are your product or service is too expensive, people aren't ready, they have to check with their spouse or partner, they think it might not work for them, or they can find the information for free. I go over the three most common:

• "I don't have the money." aka "It's too expensive."
• "I don't have the time." aka "I'm too busy."
• "I'm not ready." aka "It's not the right time."

Remember that your job is not to convince anyone to buy from you. Your job is to make sure they are heard, and that you are making it crystal clear that you understand where they're coming from, what they desire, and how what you have can get them that transformation - the benefits they will enjoy along with their results.

This week I talk about something in copywriting that trips a lot of people up.

THE SALES PAGE.

Your sales page can be the key piece of success in your sales funnel and customer journey if you take a critical (yet organic) view of it.

Your sales page should be clear on exactly:

• what you’re offering
• who it’s for
• why it’s important
• how it will help solve a problem or deliver a transformation 

Your copy should be organic to you and your brand. It should be conversational and include the reader. Use copysation, the writing style I teach that uses copy as conversation. It will flow better, come across more natural, and will immediately connect with your reader.

In this episode, I go through how to structure your sales page from top to bottom.

As an example, you can look at my Email Ally sales page. It's a great reference point as I go through each section. Click here to check out that page.