Edward Kay works with associations who are frustrated by the inability to get digital and web technology working for them. Clients come to him who are struggling with terrible website-to-membership-database integration, lack of member self-service and important data isolated in unconnected systems. Edward is passionate about making tech deliver for membership organisations and associations.

On this week’s episode, I sit down with Edward Kay, a membership technology specialist and the founder of Tall Projects, which provides digital services for membership organizations and associations. I brought Edward on the call to talk about his journey into freelancing; specifically how he keeps his operation lean, how he moved away from trading time for money to a recurring revenue subscription model, and why it’s so important to niche down and then maybe niche down some more.

My big takeaway from this episode is that the crux of success is discipline work. And that it’s completely possible to land great clients and organize your business and lifestyle so that it serves you and not the other way around.

• What is Edward’s business journey

• www.tallprojects.co.uk

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Podcast and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.

Samir Patel is the founder and managing partner of Trophy Point Investment Group. He bought his first hotel when he was a junior in college. Samir has successfully served as an officer in the US Army serving as the chief operations officer of a 1,000 person organization. He has engaged in real estate transactions/investments, acquisition of businesses and creating businesses for 10 years.

In today’s episode, Samir and I discuss how to mitigate downside risk by spotting financial liabilities and closing them up and more broadly, handling the chaos. 

• How does Samir turn companies around

• Email - [email protected]

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Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.

 Podcast and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.

Gaetano Caruana is the founder of EarlyParrot, which is a referral marketing software that has helped hundreds of businesses generate high-quality leads through referrals. EarlyParrot was built out of a need and soon evolved into a flexible platform that can be plugged into any sales firm.

Today, I sit down with Gaetano Caruana to discuss how to grow your email list and scale your revenue with an automated referral marketing system. I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s truly not that complex. We’ll also dive into how easy it is, how profitable it can be, how a referral program can increase your brand awareness and customer loyalty, why referrals are typically higher quality leads and why that matters to you and your business. Gaetano will also share how referral programs lower the cost of acquisition and so much more.

My big takeaway for this episode is for you to listen to the part where we talk about exclusivity. Now, I’m just going to leave it at that. You’ll have to listen to the rest of the episode to know what I’m talking about!

• What led Gaetano to founding EarlyParrot

• earlyparrot.com

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 Podcast and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.

Jennifer Lehner is a Digital Marketing Strategist and Adjunct Professor of Digital Marketing at Cleveland State University. She shows entrepreneurs how to build an audience and monetize their expertise online using social media and digital tools. She creates online courses and trainings, while also speaking at businesses and universities about the fast-changing world of digital media and how important it is to know exactly how to use these new tools to differentiate yourself, to tell your story and take control of your future.

On this week’s episode, I’m sitting down with Jennifer Lerner to discuss how to start and grow a profitable recurring revenue membership site. But that’s not all we discuss! We also dive deep into membership sites, including why membership sites are all about the experience, how to grow a membership site that requires minimal content creation, what content to restrict and what to share, how to use events to reward existing members while generating new paid membership signups and so much more.

Typically I would highlight one of my biggest takeaways for the episode, but it’s kind of hard to do today because the whole episode is very solid! So if you want to launch, grow or run a recurring revenue membership site, then I think all the different components of what you’ll hear today will be worthwhile to you.

• What led Jen to creating her first membership site

• jenlehner.com

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Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.

 Podcast and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.

Jonathan Keyser is the founder and CEO of Keyser. By using his own selfless service model, Jonathan was able to turn Keyser into the largest tenant rep commercial real estate firm in Arizona in just six years. 

The rapid growth and continued success of Keyser inspired Jonathan to share, teach and train the next generation of selfless leaders using his model, hence the Keyser Institute was born. To top it all off, Jonathan is also a Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Author of You Don’t Have to Be Ruthless to Win, a book that chronicles Jonathan’s journey from self-described ruthlessness to selfless service, including why and how he did it and how you can do the same.

In today’s conversation, we talk about why you don’t have to be ruthless to win a business, or life, and that there’s another way to do things. We also talk about why you must align your business model with your values and how to inculcate this in your team.

• How did Jonathan’s journey begin 

• ruthlessbook.com

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Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.

Podcast and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker, and author of Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, Duct Tape Selling, The Commitment Engine, and SEO for Growth. His newest work, The Self-reliant Entrepreneur 366 Daily Meditations to Feed Your Soul and Grow Your Business, taps into the wisdom of 19th-century transcendentalist literature and the author’s own 30 year entrepreneurial journey to challenge today’s entrepreneurs to remain fiercely self-reliant while chasing their own version of success.

My big takeaway from today’s conversation is that there are two major challenges that every entrepreneur will run into - two major roadblocks. The first challenge is distraction, losing time, not making useful gains because you’re getting sidetracked. It’s the result of a lack of focus, but ultimately, distraction is really crippling because there’s only so many days in a row that you can not make progress before you have to throw in the towel for anything you’re doing. So remember, that distraction will keep you from making those daily gains. The second thing that John shares is one of the biggest challenges or failure points for entrepreneurs and creatives is comparison, and that’s getting caught up in what other people are doing. So the reason comparison is so deadly is because at best, it’s a distraction.

• How did John enter the marketing space

• Check out John’s book at selfreliantentrepreneur.com

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Jonathan Stark is a former software developer who is on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing. He is the author of Hourly Billing is Nuts, the host of Ditching Hourly and writes a daily newsletter on pricing for independent professionals.

During today’s conversation, Jonathan breaks down the idea of ditching hourly rates and why you should think about shifting more towards the less limiting avenue of value pricing. My big takeaway from today’s conversation was that if you are selling services professionally, hourly billing is probably not the way to go. It limits your upside profit potential and it can also harm relationships with longer term clients.

• How did Jonathan venture into this space

• valuepricingbootcamp.com

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Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" and "Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life." He has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. His writing on technology, psychology, and business, appears in the Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, TechCrunch, and Psychology Today.

During this conversation, we talk about Nir’s most recent book Indistractable. We also focus on a few of the major areas of the book, like internal and external triggers that cause distractions. My big takeaway from this conversation is that there will always be distractions. The only thing we can do is be aware of our distractions because they will happen. They will occur. You can never rid yourself entirely of distractions, but there are ways that you can organize your environment so that you can be more effective in life.

• Why did Nir write Indistractable

• nirandfar.com

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Jake Jorgovan is the founder of Lead Cookie, Outbound Creative, and Content Allies. Prior to starting Outbound Creative, Jake ran business development for a video production agency and won the business of multiple Fortune 500 clients and A-List touring artists. Since leaving that agency, he has been working with other companies to help them win their dream clients. Jake doesn’t have an office and he doesn’t meet his clients in person. Instead, he works remotely and travels all over the world.

Today I sit down with Jake to talk about his 4-hour workweek. We took this angle because of how interesting it is to be able to organize your business and your work into your life in only four hours. My big takeaway from this chat is that no matter where you’re at, no matter how tough it's been, no matter how many hits you've taken, no matter if you're in the trenches and you're still slogging it out, or if you're trying to hustle through it - whatever your goal is, you can definitely achieve it.

• What is Lead Cookie, how does it work and what is it’s genesis

• jake-jorgovan.com

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Rick Cesari has been a pioneer in the Direct Response advertising industry since the early 90s, and his Brand Response strategies have helped build many iconic brands that you have probably heard of (like Sonicare, The George Foreman Grill, and OxiClean). He is the author of "Buy Now, Creative Marketing that gets Customers to Respond to You”, “Video Persuasion”. 

Rick continues to be on the cutting edge of new Brand Response advertising campaigns, creating and implementing innovative cross-platform strategies with digital and mobile ventures for his clients and is currently focusing on video marketing as a leading media direct response platform for increasing product sales.

During today’s episode Rick and I talk about video marketing infomercials and video persuasion. More specifically, we dive into how you can use video persuasion among your social media channels in order to boost your marketing. 

My big takeaway from this episode is that you need to start getting more video testimonials from your customers and clients.

• How did Rick get into the career that he’s doing today

• rickcesari.com

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