It's Time to Sell Podcast: Strategies for 21st Century Selling

Today my special guest is Philip Singleton, CEO of Kansas City Web Design & SEO. Philip works in the web development space where he helps companies convert their static websites into lead-generating marketing platforms.

He has since written several award-winning and best-selling books on lead generation, search engine optimization and web design. His book, SEO for Growth, was named be Forbes as the #1 SEO book to read for entrepreneurs. It has been endorsed by over 50 of the world's top marketing experts, and listed as a top marketing book by Inc., Mashable, Oracle and The Huffington Post.

In this episode, we talk about his entrepreneurial journey towards becoming THE SEO expert, launch tactics he used on his best-selling book, working on your online reputation, the power of reviews, and a lot more.

If you're an entrepreneur, or if you want to make a mark online, click on that play button below to listen to the rest of the episode.

One of the things that Philip did during the launch of SEO for Growth was to work as many influencers as he could in the book, so that they will have a reason to link bank to it, talk about it and maybe even help him promote the book.

"It got 50 endorsements. We purposely sided over 200 different digital marketers in the book and footnoted them and we also named 16 experts, so there was a specific expert with at least a one-page write-up at the end of every chapter.

They basically became part of this book project, and in fact, the 16 authors that we had, we actually sent them their bios and then in every case, they actually edited it and gave us some feedback and kind of tweaked their chapter.

So they became part of the project and invested in it, because we were saying, "In terms of this chapter we're writing about, you should follow this expert because they're at the top of their game in this chapter that we're covering."

What we did when the book launch came out is we notified every single person in the book that had some kind of part. They became willing to help us in a lot of cases – not all of them, but a good percentage of them actually helped us market the book.

Just a tweet from somebody like Larry Kim – Hubspot helped us market to some degree to their group because we had Brian Halligan who's a co-founder of Hubspot – that was one of the things we worked in was to keep an SEO mindset and try to keep your web presence more of the book and drop more Easter eggs in there, so that you can get more benefit."

Most people think of endorsements as just "book bling" or to give it credibility, but it's actually a way for you to propel the sales. We actually sold a lot of books and got best-seller status on Amazon for longer than I've ever had any book on it, because other people endorsed it and also helped us market it."

"I think the biggest mistake to me is that people still look at their website as a digital brochure. The reality is, these days, we are all internet companies because there's no way to avoid some type of a followup search online.

Unless you've got a website that you treat as a marketing platform that's a referral source for the stuff that you're doing, where you're documenting your work and your testimonials and whatever types of things you have about you that get people to know, like and trust you and build that credibility, it has to be documented there so people can look at it.

We have people call us up all the time, they don't understand why when they invested in print, or TV or radio in the past, they got a predictable amount of sales, and they say, "We don't think it's working anymore".

It's probably working really well, but the thing is that they're going back to the internet to follow up on it and you're losing to people that are working on their SEO and their online reputation and their social media presence.

This happens all the time; we get people who invest in TV here locally and when you go look them up online, they have two one-star reviews. You just lost 90% of your TV demand that you created because the guy that's above you that has 20 five-star reviews just got your TV advertising money."

We've become a review-based economy. Everybody almost looks up everything and everybody's looking for social proof. If you don't make trying to collect some client reviews and document that and republish on your website, making sure that it's on the key places that you need it to be like Google, then you're losing a huge opportunity because more and more people are looking for that evidence online to choose you.

In fact, they're not looking for a solution to a problem; they're looking for THE solution to a problem.

If your website kicks butt and if you have more reviews than anybody else, all of a sudden you've warmed up and now that sale becomes really easy because they come to you so warm that they're almost hot.

Mentions

Connect with Philip on LinkedIn

Buy SEOforGrowth Book on Amazon

www.KCSEOPro.com

www.KCWebDesigner.com

www.SEOforGrowth.com

Today my special guest is Moran Pober. Moran is an Israeli businessman and investor. He is the Founder of ABD Assets, a leading international investment group. He has also carried out extensive consulting assignments with many companies, and he's now on the hunt for acquisitions of companies he can help turnaround, merge or help grow towards exit/IPO.

Moran brings a whole new element of business to the show. He is all about leveraging your time, getting out there and investing in other businesses.

In this episode, we talk about his journey from a day-to-day business manager to investor, his approach to sales, vision for the future and a lot more.

Click on that play button below to listen to the rest of the episode.

"I remember running my own business day-to-day and thinking, "I don't want to do this." I made a lot of money but I realized I don't care how much money I'm making from my business – I just don't enjoy my day-to-day.

I remember looking at a TV show like Shark Tank and just thinking, "Hey, that's exactly what I want to do. I want to be the main shareholder, I want to share my advice and knowledge, but I don't want to deal with the day-to-day tasks. I want to call the big shots, the over all strategy of the business."

Most people just focus on one business – it has become their whole life. But the truth is, you'll never know when your business is going to go up or down. If you're in the business for 10, 20 years, something is bound to happen that will be out of your control.

So Moran's advice is instead of investing the money you've made back into your business, go invest it somewhere else. As one of his mentors always said, "You only build wealth by having equity in multiple transactions."

"Something that I've learned over the years is that the best way to get a deal going or to close a sale is just by figuring out the other side, making sure you understand what their needs are, what their problems are, and finding a way to give them good answers to those problems and challenges.

The only way to get a deal going is to have a win-win scenario."

Mentions

Connect with Moran on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter

www.abdassets.com

Many people think that branding is all about the logo. Although the logo is a central component of your brand, it is not the only thing that makes a brand.

Today on the podcast I chat with Marianne Hartley, Creative Director and Founder at Hartley & Soul Ltd, a branding design company. They create irresistable brands that reveal the life force of your business.

With over 20 years experience in corporate branding and design, Marianne has worked for The Queens Diamond Jubilee Pageant, Intercontinental Hotels, Bacardi, Toyota, Luxury brands, start-ups and visionary entrepreneurs.

In this episode, we talk about healing design, the elements that make up a brand, tips how to find your brand and the shift in her mindset when it comes to sales.

If you're an entrepreneur who wants to learn more about branding, I welcome you to click on that play button to tune in.

Marianne set up Hartley & Soul five years ago now to bring two of her passions together – healing and design.

"I've had a passion for design for over 20 years and I've been working in branding for that amount of time. At the same time, I've had a raw interest and passion for the mind, body, spirit aspect and how what we surround ourselves with impacts how we feel and also how we are and how well we work in our business.

When we are looking at something beautiful, whether it's art in nature, or our favorite painting, or the smile of a baby, we feel really instantly much more at ease and reconnected to ourselves.

This is such a powerful and beautiful energy that exist in the brands that I design, at the core of their beings. When their customers and employees connect with their brand, they have this instant connection with their values, what they stand for, and why they do what they do in their business."

Marianne shares that a brand is made up of many elements. Your logo is very much at the heart of your brand, but the colors that you use, the fonts, the images, the words that you use, are all part of your brand.

When all these elements work together in a congruent way, you get across a very powerful message that your audience can connect with and either associate with or not.

It's actually when your brand is used in a consistent way that you attract the right people to you. You attract the right people to work with and the right people that want to be a part of your tribe.

For a long time, sales was something that I didn't want to be associated with. I love working with people, but I don't want to sell.

One lady helped me completely change and transform my mindset around selling. Her whole approach is that selling is simply offering solutions to a problem, and you never try to push or force anything on to anybody else, which is what I felt in the past. I didn't want to impose anything; I just didn't like being sold to, so I didn't want to sell.

But now, I see it now as a much more positive thing.

Mentions

Connect with Marianne on LinkedIn and Facebook

http://www.hartleyandsoul.com/

Spiritual Marketing by Joe Vitale

Managing appointments can be very stressful. As a business owner, you would rather spend most of your time working on your business, instead of going back and forth between clients, trying to figure out schedules and time zones.

Enter Acuity Scheduling.

Acuity Scheduling is an online tool that helps small businesses offer and manage appointments online. If you haven't heard of it yet, I invite you to check it out.

Today on the podcast I chat with Gavin Zuchlinski, Founder of Acuity Scheduling. He shares with us the inspiration and intention behind the product, how he developed and improved it, his insights on sales and working with a virtual team, and a lot more.

It's a short and fun episode, so click on that play button now to tune in.

Gavin's mom was a massage therapist, and he noticed how she kept on going back and forth with clients, struggling to listen to all their crazy excuses as to why they had to cancel their appointments. He felt like there had to be a better way to simplify that, and that's how Acuity was born.

"When you're working on something part-time, by necessity, you have to be very lean, you have to listen to your customers and be very efficient in what you work on and not go off on giant projects with wild guesses because you'll be dead by the time you actually get around to that."

According to Gavin, "there was a real disconnect between the quality of the product itself and the absolutely amateurish and ugly, marketing side of the site."

So when he decided to take it full time, the biggest thing he did was amp up marketing and sales.

He believes that Acuity is the best thing available out there, so he wanted more people to realize that and not get turned away just because the marketing side of the site wasn't that great.

When they first started out, they pretty much grew organically through referrals. But by 2013, they really focused on improving the storefront side, which is basically just design changes and tightening up the copy.

Now they're trying to increase traffic to their website and just get the word out about their product. In the last year, he's been doing interviews so people understand Acuity more, as well as the personality behind it. They're also doing more online marketing like Facebook ads, but still trying to keep it as self-serviced as possible and let the product just speak for itself.

Mentions

Connect with Gavin on LinkedIn

Acuity Scheduling

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Sales and dating have a lot in common.

You're not on the wrong page – this is the It's Time to Sell podcast – but today we are going to touch on those topics with our special guest, Jenn Burton.

Jenn is a dating coach and host of the Single, Smart Female Podcast. She teaches women how to be authentic when dating, and how to attract stable, fun, witty and loving men.

In this episode, not only does she give practical tips on dating and romance, but she also shares how she used podcasting as an effective marketing platform, how she arrived at her current business model, and a lot more (seriously, there's a lot more).

So click on that play button now to tune in to the rest of the episode. Happy listening!

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"I have great morning rituals that I engage in. I love to meditate; I love eating clean food. I used to hate cooking, but I cook now because I want my kiddo to have the best of clean, quality foods and good, substantial building blocks.

Then I go to my office every day and I consult with clients. I do something a little different than a typical therapist would.

I teach women how to be authentic in dating and not to change who they are as women, but to learn how to tweak their inner actions that sets up for a better love experience."

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If you need help in sales, ask for it.

At a certain level Jenn struggled with sales, but she embraced it at the same time. She found early on that some of the biggest rewards in life come from facing the things that scare you the most – and sales was definitely one of those things for her.

She knew she needed help, so she hired a sales coach right away. She learned to do sales in a way that felt good instead of slimy. She also learned to gauge how to not sell based on the things that really aggravated her.

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Attracting the right clients through podcasting

Her successful podcast – Single, Smart Female – started as one of her major marketing arms. Sales-wise, she doesn't like to do social media, because she didn't feel effective helping women on any social media platform as it takes too much time.

She can't answer women's love life questions in a simple comment or a post because it just doesn't work that way. She decided to not worry about social media anymore because she doesn't even recommend it that much for dating because of all the conflicts it can cause.

The podcast gave her a bigger platform, and it allowed her to concentrate all her marketing efforts in a place where she thought women could really hear her.

Through her podcast, she reached more of her target clients, which were highly educated women who had the attention span to listen (versus those who needed visual stimulation all the time).

So she focused all her energy into that and if women wanted more from her, they could either purchase one of her self-study programs, work with her privately, or enroll in her group program.

Mentions

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Grab your free gift from Jenn here!

https://jennburton.com/

Single, Smart Female Podcast

The Courage Kit

When was the last time you failed? What do you remember doing afterwards? Did you look for a solution from someone else, or did you turn your gaze inward?

Isaac Tolpin did the latter. In today's episode he shares how he went from living the dream, to having no source of income, buried in debt, with a wife and children at home.

He also shares about perseverance, the importance of humility, and most especially, knowing your identity.

Click the play button below to tune in to the rest of the episode. Enjoy, be inspired, and don't forget to subscribe!

"If you can actually think of something, create it, and then someone buys it from you, and you watch how their joy takes off because of the product – that's an incredible feeling."

Isaac shares that it's necessary to go through some pain before you find the path of bliss. Your superpowers are going to be revealed not necessarily naturally, but through a painful process of overcoming objections, doing things that you might fail at, and getting into experiences that are uncomfortable.

Because we're all wired differently, we have to get our identity nailed down.

If you're less relational, you might sell more through listening and explaining facts at the right time. If you're more relational, it might be the same thing – you have to practice more listening because you're probably talking too much.

Two years ago, Isaac had a company fail. Prior to that, he was doing very well financially and was living the dream life. He poured his money into a startup company and then it took more of his money.

He ended up having no source of income, and a lot of debt.

If you see yourself as successful and young and haven't experienced a big failure, his warning to you is, in some ways, there's nothing worse than that scenario.

When he was experiencing a lot of success, he got a little bit arrogant and prideful. And when something didn't work out, it made him do a heart check.

"Who am I? Where did I go wrong? How do I improve?"

Mentions

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https://conveyour.com/

Do you want MORE customers, profit, loyalty and productivity for your business? If that's a YES, then you're in for a treat.

Our guest today is business and leadership coach, Charlene Norman. She has 30 years of experience in operational and finance executive leadership, and has developed a Bullet Proof System that helps frustrated entrepreneurs make MORE than they ever dreamed possible. [BIO]

Today on the podcast she shares how she started over in a new city, her "crazy" advice for entrepreneurs, how to setup business events, and a lot more.

Click the play button below to tune in to the rest of the episode. Don't forget to subscribe!

How to build your business when you have no contacts

When Charlene moved to a new city, the first thing she decided to do was meet people and understand the new community she was living in. She moved from a town of almost a million people to a town of slightly 100,000 – a big change in population.

The first thing she did was set up a meetup, looking for serious entrepreneurs. Her background is all business, so if she can meet all the serious entrepreneurs in the city, she will get to know people and exchange some ideas.

When you go to these meetups, you have to come with an open mind, a clean slate, like you don't know anything. As long as you're in a new city, never say "I used to do it this way." Ask the attendees open-ended questions, and you will have them thinking you're the best thing since sliced bread.

Give everything away for free

Charlene is a big proponent of relationships first and getting to know people. Yes, you have to be social, make sure to let people know who you are, your family, your relationships, but you also have to give away everything in your head for free.

Once you get over the age of 50, a lot of people think they're God and that everybody has to pay for whatever's between their ears at the drop of a hat.

But we live in an information age, and everything is available for free on the internet. What we charge for is the value that we bring, and the value that we bring is that we save time, we provide a service, and that service is based on the money we bring to the person's bottom line, the peace and quiet we bring to their lives or the time we save for them.

The education we give them, they can find it on the internet if they take time. The skills that we can give them, they can do it themselves. It will take them years and years to learn what we can do for them in five minutes. Truthfully, we can give all this stuff we have away for free. 97% of folks aren't going to do it themselves, and the 3% that are going to do it, they're not going to do it the proper way anyway so we've got nothing to lose.

I hammer this away to so many people and they look at me like I'm crazy.

Go outside, and talk to three people.

If you don't like going to events, Charlene proposes an alternative:

"Tell three people every single day what you do. Get out from behind your computer, go take your dry cleaning in, go take your groceries, go get a coffee, go do something. Go outside, and talk to somebody and just say, "Hey, what do you do?"

Listen to them. And then say, "You know what? This is what I do. Can I help you?"

You don't have to be grandiose about it, just have a casual conversation. You don't have to go and start your own group, just talk to three people."

Mentions

Connect with Charlene on LinkedIn and Twitter

https://www.bulletproofconsulting.ca/

Having conducted more than 250 high-level interviews with industry experts and influencers, plus having grown her own brand & business by getting featured on other people's podcasts, web shows, and virtual summits, Nicole Holland became known as the go-to-gal when it comes to making a big splash fast!

Nicole specializes in helping successful CEOs and small business owners grow their impact, influence, and income quickly and powerfully through "New Media Marketing".

Today on the podcast she shares some advice about podcast guesting, how to find the right podcasts for you, things you should have ready before hopping on as a guest, and a lot more. If you want to use podcast guesting as a serious marketing strategy, you should listen to this episode.

Click the play button below to tune in to the rest of the episode. Don't forget to subscribe!

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How podcasts helped Nicole establish her personal brand

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For Nicole, it started out as a "marketing arm". She didn't really understand podcasts and didn't know what to expect; she just knew that it was a way for her to get her name out there as well as build relationships with people.

It was a way for her to interview people, which she really enjoyed doing, especially when it was people she respected and admired.

But what she started finding was that people were resonating with HER. She found that people tune in to podcasts for the host – not the guest – and that's how you build a very loyal following.

Her audience was not listening because she had John Lee Dumas or Bob Burg on the show – it was because of her. Once she realized that, she was able to come out a little bit more, do more solo stuff as well as sponsored episodes.

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Pivot whenever you feel like it.

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She used to think it looked bad. She used to think that because she changed so much, that it's something that people would look down or judge her on. She sees that a lot of the clients and students she worked with had that same thought process.

First of all, it doesn't matter. That's taken her a while to really embrace. Actually, she enjoys it more now, because if somebody thinks that her pivoting is not good, then they don't get to work with her.

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Strategic podcast guestings drive results

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You have to know your own value; you have to know what you want to get out of podcast guesting.

A lot of people would tell her, "I want to be on 100 shows." When asked why, they would say, "because I have a book to launch" or "I want everybody to know my name", but it doesn't work like that.

Know your value, know what the end goal is, know what you're selling. If you know that you have this mission and value, you can do podcast guesting. But if you're going to take it on as a serious marketing strategy and you're going to invest the time and resources into doing it, then you have to do it right.

You have to have something to sell on the backend, and you have to have your sales process in order. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time and energy.

Mentions

Connect with Nicole on Facebook and LinkedIn

https://interviewsthatconvert.com/

The Perfect Close by James Muir

For the last thirty years, Ron Carucci has spent his life in the passionate pursuit of helping organizations and their leaders strengthen their path to the aspirations they desire. He has worked all over the world in more than 30 countries, with heads of state, heads of corporations, and heads of small churches and community organizations.

Ron is a seasoned consultant who works with CEOs and senior executives of organizations ranging from Fortune 50s to start-ups in pursuit of transformational change.

He specializes in the areas of strategy formulation, global organization design and enterprise governance, organizational change, executive leadership development and enterprise talent strategy.

Today on the podcast he shares with us his journey as an entrepreneur, how strategy also applies to small businesses, common mistakes entrepreneurs make (like confusing growth with scale), and a lot more.

Click the play button below to listen to the rest of the episode. Don't forget to subscribe!

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The passionate pursuit of helping organizations and their leaders

Ron has been fascinated by how human endeavor is organized since he was a kid. If there was a stickball game to be organized, if there was a fundraiser to be organized, if there was some event that had to be brought together, that's where he thrived.

Humans coming together to do something they couldn't do alone has always been a natural fascination for him.

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Video helps maintain the human element in digital marketing

The minute your digital footprint dehumanizes the work, then you're just blending into the screen. You've got to find a way to keep your presence and personality at the forefront to draw the right clients/customers to you.

If it's not the uniqueness of you or the unique passion for who it is you're aiming at that leads that messaging and that experience, then it doesn't matter.

Video can help with that.

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Know who you are

The biggest detriment to that Ron sees small businesses go through is that they don't even know who they are. When these businesses are asked why a customer would choose them over their competition, they respond with the business plan, or the mission statement, or the values - all these counterfeits that feel so good to create, or put up on a wall or a mug or screensaver...

...but he doesn't get their identity.

If you're a small business, think about the fundamental capabilities that differentiate you from your competitors, the things that would cause the people you want to serve to choose you over somebody else in your line of work.

Mentions

Connect with Ron on LinkedIn

http://www.navalent.com/

Start with Why - Simon Sinek

What do you do when the business you thought was the amalgamation of everything you loved, ends up drowning you in 700k worth of debt?

For Jena Rodriguez, the decision to quit didn't come easy. Jena started out from corporate America, ventured into fashion design and makeup artistry, then jumped into entrepreneurship in 2006. She took the leap of faith and bought a woman's boutique and cosmetic franchise, which brought all of her interests together.

She thought it was the best thing ever, until she found herself sitting in front of a bankruptcy attorney one year later. Even though she made multiple 6-figures, it wasn't enough to keep her business afloat. She had to pull the plug.

Today on the podcast she shares with us her entrepreneurial journey - from filing for bankruptcy, to working with her husband, to firing her husband, and eventually becoming the CEO of Brave Masters, Inc.

Click the play button below to listen to the rest of the episode. Don't forget to subscribe!

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"I was $700,000 in debt"

----- She had to pull the trigger and call it quits, so she filed for bankruptcy on her first business.

The next day, she had to choose: whether to quit and go back to the J-O-B and the comfort zone, or get back up and choose a new direction. She didn't know what she was going to do, but what was clear was she didn't want to work for someone else.

Her husband at the time was a musician and ran a web and graphic design company. She became his partner and grew that business over the years, until she reached that point in 2012 when that no longer served her.

She ended up firing her husband and rebranded the business as Brand with Jena.

----- "Entrepreneurship is not the easy way - it's the brave way."

----- Being brave is absolutely part of who she is and has been a staple in everything she did since she was a child. She really started to recognize that conversation a couple of years ago when she was asking "What does it take to become an entrepreneur?"

It was on another podcast that she said, "Entrepreneurship is not the easy way - it's the brave way."

That statement took a life of its own, and she realized that that was her underlying message, passion and purpose, which is to help people really realize their unrealized potential.

Bravemasters is about being true and authentic to the brand that you are.

----- The Marketing Mix

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There are multiple ways to market, and she calls it "The Marketing Mix" - having the offline and the online going on simultaneously. We're in such an amazing world where we can be online and reach all kinds of people that we wouldn't have had access to before, and at the same time people want the human connection.

In her business, not only does she speak in person but she also speaks via video like Facebook Live. She says that video really is the next best thing to getting people to connect with who you are as a live person versus just something written.

Mentions

Connect with Jena on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn http://bravemasters.com/