Digital Chatter

Digital Chatter Episode #007: Brian Lofrumento

Eric: Hello everyone and welcome to Digital Chatter. My name is Eric Sharpe and I'm here today with Brian Lofrumento. Brian, say hi.

Brian: Hi Eric. Glad to be here. Super excited to talk to your audience today.

Eric: Heck yeah, man. So Brian is actually has ended up being a great friend of mine. I have watched him grow over the last couple of years and vice versa, no doubt. And Brian is very similar to me. We are both young Internet entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs, doing lots and lots of incredible things on the Internet. And I brought Brian on today because he has a fairly unique experience and I wanted him to share it with you. So Brian what don't you tell everyone just a little bit about yourself.

Brian: Yeah I would love to. I mean so my entrepreneurial journey, depends how far back you want to go. I like to say that every single entrepreneur remembers their first ever dollar that they made. Eric, I'm sure that's true for you. And so I was 19 years old and I loved soccer. I still do to this day. I loved writing and I love the internet. So I figured why don't I write about soccer on the internet. I combined all three. So I started a soccer blog. It was called Premiership Talk and I was a freshman in college and I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't intend for it's be a business. But by junior year of college I had my first 1000 dollar day which felt really cool as a 21 year old back then I had a team of 20 writers all in England working for me. So it was a really upward trajectory from there and things really took off. Largely because when I was 16 years old I had this internship in high school that taught me about search engine optimization. So I used search engine optimization to grow this soccer sites over three and a half million readers from over 200 countries. So it became a worldwide phenomenon where people were tuning in.

Brian: And I was flying to England all the time. It's a really exciting journey. From there, I graduated college in 2011. Eighty thousand dollars in student loan debt. So everybody said to me what they tell every entrepreneur: don't be crazy, get a job. You need those benefits, you need to pay off those student loans. So I fell into that trap and I did exactly that and I took a job. I only lasted in corporate America for four months at my first job and 10 months at my second job before in 2012 I finally quit, started a search engine optimization agency. Grew it to six figures really quickly. That's about the time that I met you, my business partner and I went separate ways almost two years into our journey. So I really branched off and said "What the heck am I about?". And I did some soul searching I wanted to figure out who is Brian, what does he care about, what's his impact on the world's going to be. So since then I published Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur. Paperback book that has reached readers in almost every single state in the United States and all across the world. I've launched one of the top business podcasts in the world, and I've created online programs and courses that have been gone through that have been purchased by over 3000 students from around the world. That teaches them how to build their own successful businesses online. So that's my story in a nutshell.

Eric: That's awesome. Perfectly done, Brian. Obviously you've practiced and done this before. I think a lot of people see you as a unique person and they think you know wow. He started off in college and he did this thing and he realized it wasn't for him. Coorporate America wasn't for for you.

Digital Chatter Episode #006: Susan Weeks

Eric: Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of digital chatter. My name is Eric Sharpe and today our wonderful guest is Ms. Susan Weeks. Susan, say hi.

Susan: Hello everybody, nice to speak to you all!

Eric: So Susan is an entrepreneur and she is a podcaster, in fact a professional podcaster. She has been running her business for over five years and helping people develop their podcast. And we're going to learn a little bit about Susan today and how she got into all of this. But Susan I want you to tell everyone how you got started.

Susan: OK. Yes. Well how I got started is doing something totally different from the podcasts that you said which I am now. So I actually started as a mainframe computer programmer back in the late 80s. At a large car factory in the north of England. And who'd thought that the skills that I learned there which had nothing to do with podcasting but were everything to do with systems and organization and working out the best ways for people to do things. So those skills don't leave you. And as I progressed through the professional I.T. career progression and also moved companies and finished up running and founding a training organization as well, on well the last place I worked at. And again that's all to do with helping people and teaching people and helping them be the best that they can be. So I feel that I'm very fortunate in that the skills I developed through my professional career I've managed to then build on and transfer over to the Internet world and laterly into podcasting. So that's kind of in a nutshell where, where I come from. So it's always interesting I think as to how things change we didn't expect and to be doing what you, what you finish up doing.

Eric: Sure, sure. And you know maybe maybe walk me back you know 10 plus years ago. You know I know your story a little bit more but walk us back and you know tell us what happened. You know you had some dramatic changes in your life that changed things.

Susan: Yes, somewhat. So and going back to the early 2000s. So by this time I'd worked my way through and from, from my original job at a car factory and for a long time I felt as if I was a square hanging around so basically. I didn't always feel as though as I fit. The work was fantastically interesting, really really was. But a new startup came into the city where I was working and they were looking for people like me and my friends and colleagues who had those professional skills and specific skills in sort of the mainframe technologies time and they were basically the headhunt because they'd set up an outsourcing organization where people like myself my colleagues who were in the north of England and we didn't want to go down to the main financial centre in London and particularly we were quite happy with where we were. So a lot of the big- there were actually, the company was working for two or three with the large American investment banks so Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan Chase were two of the main clients.

Susan: So they wanted access to this pool of people so that's how this company was setup and myself, some other colleagues, and ultimately quite a lot of people were all headhunted and attracted to this new company. And yeah it was it was it was great. There was a lot of opportunity there for interesting work. It came to the point however that we ran out of people to you know to headhunt. So we had to start training people with similar technical experience into the specific technologies that we needed. So there was Stettinius training from Cheneau and had a really, I had a really nice job I had so much freedom I could- and I always said,

Digital Chatter Episode #005: Camron Bodily

Eric: Hello everyone and welcome to Digital Chatter. My name is Eric Sharpe and today I'm here with Camron Bodily. Camron say hi to everyone.

Camron: Hey everyone. My name is Camron from The Bodily Works. Good to be here.

Eric: Well, I'm glad to have you on Camron. Especially because you and I are actually very similar people, and we'll get into that here. So Camron is a tech entrepreneur. In fact he is working from his home office today. And Camron is a father, and a proud father, that he was just holding his baby while we were preparing for all of this. Camron you have been in the tech industry for many years and you help individuals in their home offices. You also work in brick and mortar businesses. I want you to tell everyone a little bit about what you do and how you got started.

Camron: That's a great question. I will try to keep that short and sweet. So I actually have a pretty diverse background. Where I actually started was, I started getting into sales. And the whole reason I actually got into sales originally was I have what's called Asperger's. That's that just means it's kind of like Autism and ADHD, and a lot of people can't tell that, but I get distracted very easily and I multitask out the yingyang. And so to try to overcome that, medication use made things a lot worse for me. And so I forced myself into outside my comfort zone into sales, and a lot of the sales I did is because I was so good with technology, computers, and so forth that I focused on selling those types of products. Whether software as a solution, managed tech support, all these different companies.

Camron: I eventually migrated to a role where I was a sales engineer, which meant that I was responsible for making sure that the sales and the techs communicated together. The sales didn't always know what the techs needed to sell or could sell or fix. And then the techs didn't know exactly what the sales guys had sold. And so there was a very very clash there from communication that would lead to very upsets clients. Eventually I just got to the point where it's like why am I not doing this myself because I was losing commissions because techs weren't repairing things properly too because either they didn't have the proper training, they were just basically standard. The company that I was working for that time had the mentality that every 15 year old knows how to run a computer and yes they do to a point.

Eric: Yeah exactly right, to a point.

Camron: But it just wasn't proper. It wasn't from my service level standard. And so I quickly migrated into white label services which meant that companies like Best Buy or Geek Squad, Samsung, IBM, HP, Dell, all of those companies started calling me and saying hey we had a client in this area that either we have broken stuff or we have a shortage. We don't have the ability to take care of it. Can you go out there and take care of it. And so we throw on their shirts representing them and say... Hi my name's Cameron I'm with whatever and took care of it. The problem with that is we established no name for ourselves.

Eric: It's a great job and when you wear shirts for other people you know you're building their business.

Camron: Yeah exactly. In that part of that is still our business and that's where we're known for doing good work and helping other people. We know that like our clients know if they contract us we're not going to step on their toes or their contracts. We're going to make them look good. And that provides stability for our techs for when we're short and don't have our direct clients to work with. So that's kind of our model right now is where we will handle everything from the ground up. So we go into a store, we just finished PetCo,

Digital Chatter Episode #004: Gregg Burkhalter

Eric: Hello and welcome everyone to Digital Chatter. Today, my guest is Gregg Burkhalter who is a recognized authority on LinkedIn and personal branding. So Gregg say hi to everyone.

Gregg: Hello everybody!

Eric: So Gregg has trained countless professionals across the United States. And Gregg actually I've almost just barely caught one of your live courses but essentially you help people brand themselves in market themselves using LinkedIn and really you're known as the LinkedIn Guy. So you know tell everyone a little bit more about how you became this LinkedIn Guy.

Gregg: Well the one thing I can tell you is I can't take credit for it. It was nothing out planned, it happened. But the one thing I might take small credit for is I recognized something was happening and I went with it. For about three decades I worked in music and broadcasting. Great life, on the radio, hanging out with celebrities. It was music, is what I loved. And about five years ago I lost my job in that particular industry. And I had to make a decision do I stay in an industry where it's very hard to sell physical product like CDs or do I transition. Well I took the bold move of transitioning. That's scary when you don't really know how that process works. Friend of mine felt sorry for me he said Gregg come to my house and we'll do some strategizing.

Gregg: There's two things you need, Gregg: you need a business card that looks like you have a job. It's called a networking card and you need to be on LinkedIn. So I got the networking card printed up. I went to the first business I saw which looked sort of friendly. Walk inside and said I'm looking for a job and I have a networking card. By the way, what is networking. I'd never networked before. I'm not on social media at this time. This is a totally new concept to me. Two hours later I'm still talking to those people and they hire me. So I gave away one networking card and I got a job in marketing.

Gregg: I came back and told my friend I had a job. He was excited but he said one more thing. You still have to be on LinkedIn. Come to my house again. I'll help you set up your account. So about three and a half years ago I set up my very first LinkedIn account. I walked out of his kitchen and I was like everyone else on LinkedIn. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. Well the one thing I did was I came up with a strategy. Right or wrong, I had a strategy and my strategy was, can I build relationships online like I do in person. So I started trying. Six months into my LinkedIn years, I have no idea if making any leeway or not. But I walk into a small networking group of about 10 people. They are talking LinkedIn and I get excited. It's my opportunity to learn. I sit in the corner and I listen. Within 30 seconds I realized I knew more than anybody in that room.

Gregg: I logged it away and kept doing what I was doing. One year into LinkedIn I opened my email and there's an email from a local Chamber of Commerce saying Gregg we're starting a brand new Education Academy. Would you be our very first speaker and do a LinkedIn workshop. I wrote back and said I'm not a member of the Chamber. You have the wrong Gregg. They wrote me back and said we know who you are. You're the person we want. That was January of 2015 - I said, am I becoming an authority? That was the first time I recognized something was happening. And that's when I said, could I have become a LinkedIn Guy if I tried? January 2015 I began that process. June of 2015 I got to the point where I either became the LinkedIn Guy or risk losing my brand to someone else.

Gregg: So in 2015 I started my own company as the LinkedIn Guy. It has been amazing the first year I believe I spoke over 50 times to groups,

Digital  Chatter Episode #003: Alan Smithson

Eric: Hello and welcome everyone to the Digital Chatter Series. Today my guest is Alan Smithson. Go ahead and say hi.

Alan: Hey what's going on everybody.

Eric: So Alan, if you couldn't tell already, he's a futurist, he's an entrepreneur and he's a proud father. Alan is a DJ and an inventor. And we're going to hear a little bit about what he has accomplished today and what he is going to be doing this year. So Alan tell everyone a little bit about yourself.

Alan: Certainly! So thank you very much, first of all, for having me on. I'm going to take this off for now for the show. This is a really cool stage prop - it is functional and I'll explain it later. But thank you so much for having me. A little bit about myself - I've been an entrepreneur since I was 18. I won't say how old I am but it's been a while.

Alan: I started off making mix tapes in my basement when I was a kid recording the radio and making mix tapes for my friends at school and I would spend hours making these mix tapes and then I'd replicate them and I'd sell them for ten bucks at school. And so I never even thought of that as a business it was just something that you know I did and then I ended up in University working for a guy.

Alan: I was a bouncer and the night club and it was really cool because the DJ didn't show up one night and he said does anybody know how to use that stuff, and I was like yes yes! And I ended up doing a really good job and you know I went from being a bouncer to the DJ which is, trust me, a much much better job. And from there I had my own DJ business. And that kind of took off and I did that. I graduated university back a while ago. And I graduated with a degree in molecular biology which my mom wanted me to go to med school and it really wasn't for me but I ended up becoming a pharmaceutical rep which is really cool and you know I would recommend that job to anybody because it's really pretty bad ass job. You get to drive around and they give you a car and a computer and a credit card and say, go!

Alan: So I did that job for a few years and I was really good at it. And then I realized that there has to be more to this. You know there has to be more. I just wasn't fulfilled. I hit my targets by June in my third year. My targets for the year and they wouldn't reset them and I was like OK what's the point. You know what's the point of doing this. And so I started my first real company and that was the Canadian prepaid medical plan. And from there I learned about business about automating things and stuff like that and that business wasn't the most successful business. I didn't really know what it was doing and while it made money it was making me miserable so I ended up going, I realized one day - I was in a doctor's office and I was pitching these guys and it was like the third time I'd been there and I got a phone call while they were kind of deliberating and I took a phone call and it was a woman she wanted me to DJ her daughter's wedding or something and I was like OK I know it's going to be $3000 dollars.

Alan: They booked me on the spot. And I thought oh my God I'm only going to make probably less than three thousand dollars these two doctors, I've been here three times, they're hemming and hawing about everything, and I just made a three thousand dollar sale in five minutes on the phone. What am I doing? And I'm going to have fun

Eric: You had that aha moment.

Alan: Yeah it was just like why am I doing this. So I literally you know wrapped that company up and I went full time with my DJ business and that DJ business took off. You know obviously I was passionate about it. I joined all the different associations and all that stuff and blew that up. And in 2010 I started a number of different businesses in between there I owned a hostel at Blue Mountain, a ski resort.

Digital Chatter Episode #002: Aaron Gravett

Eric: Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Eric Sharp and this is Digital Chatter. And today I have as my guest Aaron Gravett. Aaron, say hi to everyone.

Aaron: Hello everyone.

Eric: So Aaron is the former Director of Global Sales and Marketing for IHG and he is currently a consultant out in the field working in the hospitality industry. And has quite the career doing business strategy and marketing. Aaron, tell everyone a little bit more about yourself and how you got to where you are today.

Aaron: Thank you, Eric. Love to and thank you everyone for joining and hopefully learn something new about me as well as hopefully I can add some value to your business. So I have a background in real estate as well as finance by education in finance. But my passion really is creating business models and how companies can help and deliver to customer segments value proposition. So the past two years at IHG, I've been working on confidential projects, NexGen Technology Solutions products as well as services to deliver to 5,000 hotels four different regions and how do you package that and deliver that to hotels in a cost effective and value-add manner. So background is a little bit scattered but really all tied together through looking at business models and value propositions for customer segments.

Eric: It's great you bring up value proposition in the marketing field the same field that I'm in, I mean that's huge. I mean having this value proposition. How important is it to differentiate yourself in the market?

Aaron: Differentiation means a lot of different things to companies. So a global company tries to differentiate by offering a plethora of services, products and services, within a portfolio. Smaller companies try to differentiate themselves by offering niche services. So it really depends on what the target audience is, what the customer segment is. Obviously you can go through a mass marketing and mass effort or even go through the niche. So for me it's really trying to figure out where the company - what products and services they currently have and how they're going to leverage those core capabilities and deliver that next gen product and service to their core customer segments.

Eric: OK, tell me what were some of the more effective methods while you were working with IHG that you can confidentially discuss with us? What were some of the positives that you found from that?

Aaron: The positive is that the IHG business model is the franchise model so that the company itself doesn't own a lot of hotels. Therefore we are servicing hotels and from an operational perspective we have owners that we engage with. So over the 5,000 hotels we have many different ownership groups from the luxury property all the way down to the mid-scale versions of our properties such as Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express. So we found success by working directly with the owners on targeting specific problems and pain points, if you will, not trying to boil the ocean but trying to really isolate what can we solve the next few years and what are the major issues and headaches that we can tap on and take off the list quite easily for the owners where it's going to be a win win for both the customer and the hotel user. And then also the owner. So we actually serve two masters, if you will - two customer segments. One is the owner and then the second is the actual hotel guest.

Eric: Yeah that that's true. Anytime in business it has to be a win win. The owner of the hotel needs to be generating income which makes the hotel continue forward, and it's all for the guests.

This is the first interview of Digital Chatter with Andy Cabistan, an entrepreneur and business go-getter.

Eric: Hello and welcome everyone to the Digital Chatter Series. Today I have a good friend of mine, Andy Cabistan with me. Everyone say hello to Andy.

Andy: Hello hello!

Eric: All right, so, Andy you are an entrepreneur. You are literally in the thick of everything right now. You have a small business with big hopes and dreams and it's all based around communication and helping businesses communicate better internally which will externally benefit them so any tell me a little bit about your background and how you got started with this.

Andy: Right. So first of all for having me Eric. I have always been passionate about helping people communicate effectively. Communication, storytelling, teamwork, leadership all those things combined I think you can make magic with that. It started through different experiences as it started with me growing up in Costa Rica understanding how different cultures communicate. In Costa Rica we have a lot of people from all around the world that come and visit. It's the biggest most friendly environment and understanding the the styles, the different cultures will bring to a country and then you will learn from them and then later on moving to America, experiencing and seeing how people communicate in a different culture, in the American culture. And then in college being involved with many, many organizations like The Student Government, like Human Rights Organizations, and seeing how everybody will work together as a team towards the same missions to accomplish something, right. And that flow of getting something accomplished, a goal, a mission, there has to be a perfect flow of communication.

Andy: So later on I became an entrepreneur. I started another company, Culture Me, that you may remember and that was a little mobile app for delivery services but that product didn't really work out. But during that time I met two awesome guys who are the founders of a branding company called Focus Lab and they do design they do branding for big companies and they had this tool that they were using for their team and their clients called DiSC and this is a behavioral tool that shows people how they communicate and behave with others in a way that makes sense to them. So they saw so much value using this that they realize, "hey we would love to figure out a way to create more materials and more tools to help people in different companies in different environments work better together, communicate better together."

Andy: So they brought me aboard. They said, "hey Andy, we are looking for somebody else. We're looking for a third partner and we want to make this happen."

Andy: So I came on-board and pretty much we joined the same feel over hey we want to help people communicate effectively we want to see teams collaborating effectively. And then we started our company and the name of our company is Watson Works.

Andy: So that's pretty much all of my story. It has honestly been in my heart for many years. But thankfully a year ago we started doing something to actually solve this problem of people just just can't communicate sometimes.

Eric: Sure, you know, in fact that's actually the number one thing when a CEO is asked you know what do you think your business needs to do better. The number one thing is communication. I mean time and time again. Over 90 percent of CEOs will say that's the number one thing. So I mean you're literally taking on a a huge issue that exists across the board. I mean this is small, medium, large enterprise companies deal with this communication issue and just give me an example of some of the issues that some of your clients experience.

Andy: Yes so something that happens that it happens very often is that we all have different w...