Expert Empire | Conversations with entrepreneurs, innovators and personal development experts with host Marshall Stevenson

Chatting with Dan Miller was a great experience for me. It's helped me get in touch with what's going on in my head and attempting to further clarify what Expert Empire is about. It still isn't completely clear, but it helped give myself permission to take some time to clearly define the show, my life and everything else I can influence.

Seven areas of life

Career

Financial

Physical

Spiritual

Family

Social

Personal development

Experts mentioned

Zig Ziglar

Michael Jordan

Malcolm Gladwell

Resources

48 Days free resource center

Pimsleur elite training system (Spanish)

Gary Fawcett is an urban beekeeper and host of Kiwi Mana – a podcast dedicated to beekeeping – and a whole set of online beekeeping supplies and stories.

Cesar Abeid recently launched PM for the Masses a podcast devoted to discussing Project Management.

Experts mentioned

David Allen

What can I say? I had no clue who Ed May was going in to our conversation other than knowing that we got connected on the 48 Days community when I was asking for experts to talk to. Well that meant I had to do some digging to ensure that it was a fun episode. What I didn't expect to find was that being a professional puppeteer, like Ed is, could be so fun. I honestly felt like a little kid on Christmas opening the best gift in the world.

Ed has been a puppeteer for many years and in fact has recently launched Runaway Puppet Theater – his own theatre company. We talk about the approach he's taking to grow his audience and reach within the education system. And as any puppeteer will tell you, most of the time you're on contract so you're constantly marketing your skills. That makes perfect sense then that I managed to find Ed's demo reel online. The 0:26 mark is a particularly favorite part of the reel.

Experts mentioned

Jim Henson

Fred Rogers

Ernie Coombs

Phillip Huber

Dustin Hartzler is actually an engineer, not just Your Website Engineer. He's a WordPress expert having grown his business using the platform over the last three and half years. He's recently launched a new website that introduces you to ways you can easily manage your website at ConquerYourWebsite.com where he gives three free training videos. You definitely will want to check it out.

Dustin goes in to ways that he's grown his podcast audience – now over 150 episodes – and some proven techniques you can use to grow your audience. And finally we also touch on the "price to the bottom" mentality that's been going on in web development for several years and how that's now starting to change.

Experts Mentioned

Cliff Ravenscraft

John Murphy is an international leadership and business coach working with high-level executives to grow their business. In today's conversation we get in to creating your ideal customer to really explode and grow your audience.

Who is your customer?

This is the single, biggest question to ask yourself and spend time defining to really get rock star results. Everything from creating a customer avatar, to defining your target market. It's all covered in today's Expert Empire conversation.

Experts Mentioned

Cliff Ravenscraft

Simon Sinek

Stephen Covey

Daniel J. Lewis is the guy behind noodle.mx – a podcast network dedicated to shows that make you think, laugh and succeed. In fact we had Erik J. Fisher of Beyond the To-Do List on Expert Empire and he's a member of the network. And before you ask, not all contributors need the middle initial "J" to be a part. Daniel talks about how the network was created in part as an accident, but how it has provided such great leverage to him and his network of shows to rapidly grow an audience.

So why not just start your own podcast network then? Well, he actually gets into reasons why you may not want to actually consider starting your own and more so why it may be beneficial to join one. His requirements are pretty strict with a bit of lenience on joining his network, but there are lots of others you could consider. It's really about ensuring it's a win-win-win arrangement for everyone involved.

In addition to producing top-rated podcasts, Daniel also does a lot of WordPress work. He's developed a premium plugin called Subscribe and Follow and regularly develops for the Genesis framework, so naturally we chat a little bit about WordPress too.

Experts mentioned

Erik J. Fisher

Matt Medeiros

Daniel Tosh

Jerry Seinfeld

Ray Ortega

Dave Jackson

Greg Hickman

Resources

Subscribe and Follow

Genesis framework

WordPress

Mike Brooks isn't necessarily someone you know. Then again, there are a lot of people you don't know. Mike is the president and founder of Nuclear Chowder Marketing – an internet marketing company for small business. I had the privilege of sitting down and chatting with Mike back when I was getting ready to launch Expert Empire. And wouldn't you know it, I took a lot of his advice and have been implementing it. Some of it consciously, and honestly some of it unconsciously.

I love how he really gets in to emptying your cup to truly grow. Of course, for those of you focused on more tactical actions to growing your audience, Mike (@michaelsbrooks) and I do get in to social media best practices and some must do's for SEO.

Experts Mentioned

Michael Hyatt

David J. Soler

John Dumas

Michael J. Fox

Have you ever looked at the Wizard of Oz through the eyes of a salesman? Steve Kloyda, The Prospecting Expert definitely has. In today's conversation with Steve he breaks down the five key actions and questions that are evident in the Wizard of Oz and how you can apply them to your business to grow it.

What's the main purpose?

Who is the right person?

How do you get found?

What's the solution?

What's the next step?

Of course, these are paraphrased from what Steve actually said and he translates them in to how they can be used for business. I hope that you can relate Dorothy and her adventure to growing your audience, reach and bottom line.

Experts mentioned

Chris Brogan

Seth Godin

Cliff Ravenscraft

Malcolm Gladwell

Resources

Purple Cow

Wizard of Oz

Outliers

Podcasting A to Z (use EXPERT to save $500)

If you've ever considered Instagram as a waste of time, you need to listen to the conversation I had with Sue B. Zimmerman. She is an Instagram expert and has used the photo service to grow her brick and mortar business exponentially – like over 40% growth!

Not only that, but she's even got a great training course available that she's re-working to give an exclusive deal to members of the Empire. I'll be sure to update you once it's available, so make sure you're getting our emails.

During our conversation Sue gives specific examples on how you can create an Instagram image in under one-minute. She also breaks down the process she used to grow her following on Instagram. I've toyed with Instagram for a few years but really haven't focused on using it as a platform to grow my audience. I'm beginning to think that I should possibly start looking at it a little closer.

If you're on Instagram, I'd love to see some of your photos. Post a link to your profile or your favorite photo in the comments below.

Experts mentioned

Brendon Burchard

Resources

Instagram

Instagram Boot Camp

Diptic

InstaCollage