Market Like A Nerd

I've experienced a lot from running two successful Virtual Assistant and Social Media Marketing companies, and today I'm bringing you the rights & wrongs of hiring and delegation. Growing any business relies on adding members to your team, whether that means hiring actual employees or outsourcing/delegating particular tasks.

The 5 Steps To Smarter Hiring Decisions:

1. Know What To Outsource Based On Your Stage Of Business – you don't need to outsource everything right from the get-go. As your business grows, your hiring needs will change.
   1. New Business Owners – main hiring needs include technical assistants, who have a particular skillset that you don't have yourself. Examples: web development, graphic design, audio/video work.
   2. Growth Phase – begin outsourcing tasks that you have been doing, and no longer have the time to keep up with. Examples: accounting & copywriting.
   3. Scaling Phase – bring on new teams who can handle work underneath of you as your client base grows. Examples: fulfillment & sales.
2. Hire For Talent, Not For Price – "you get what you pay for" only goes so far. Ignore the price tag, and look for evidence of a particular contractor's skillset. Check out their portfolio, their past work, and their past clients and judge their quality of work for yourself.
   1. Portfolio – the very first step in considering a contractor is to look at their portfolio of prior work.
   2. Application – put your contractor through an actual application process and observe how they handle it.
   3. Test Drive – hire them for one job as a test, and see how the process goes, and how well you work together.
3. Hire Slow & Fire Fast – be proactive about the needs of your business and look ahead at the particular areas that you'll need to hire for. Hiring last-minute on impulse is never a good idea. Once your team is growing, be aware of warning signs that a particular worker or contractor is not working out, and get them out of your business right away! Next two those two main steps is to trust your gut, and adjust the rules as necessary.
4. Know Where To Find Great People – ignore freelancing places such as Fiverr or Odesk, because the culture there is too focused on cheap work as opposed to quality
   1. Craigslist – create a "looking for" post on Craigslist, laying out particular instructions on how to apply for a position. A detailed application process will naturally filter out anyone not competent enough to adhere to your systems.
   2. Facebook – join Facebook groups in a particular niche, filled with high-level players in their space. You'll begin to see the members in a group who know what they're talking about.
   3. Referrals – never discount the power of referrals. When you trust someone to make recommendations for you, you know that they're only going to choose qualified and competent candidates for you.
5. Invest In Your Brand Authority – never skimp on establishing yourself as an authority in your space. Hire team members who will develop your brand above & beyond what you could do on your own. Find professionals to hire for your brand including graphic design, P.R., and administrative assistants.

Time Stamped Show Notes

• 0:52 – Introduction
• 3:03 – What should you outsource during your different stages of business?
• 7:00 – Why you should judge contractors by talent, not by price
• 11:20 – Hiring slow, firing fast, and trusting your gut.
• 14:12 – 3 places to go for hiring
• 18:25 – Developing your brand authority
• 20:26 – Recap

Today's Action Step · Go forth & delegate! Resources Mentioned

• My Facebook community The Balanced Entrepreneur
• My Facebook fan page

Has your experience with outsourcing been a nightmare? The important thing to remember when it comes to finding good team members for delegation starts with you. If you've had "bad luck" with outsources in the past, chances are that you've missed a crucial step in the training of your team members. To help ease this frustration, I've laid out 3 key things to remember when hiring.

3 Key Steps For Outsourcing:

1. Invest Your Time Now To Achieve Success Later – when you feel like you don't have enough time for particular tasks, a lot of entrepreneurs will either A) Never take the time to hire out for the job, or B) Hire too quickly, not giving your team proper time or training for the job. Make sure to take enough time early on, so that you can save your time and effort later on with a strong team.
2. Create A Rinse & Repeat System For Everything – entrepreneurs have trouble relinquishing control over certain parts of their business, which can lead to issues when delegating tasks. To quell that feeling, create an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), template, and a video walkthrough for every task in your business, that way your team members can't possibly make a mistake.
3. Qualify Your Team Members As Well As You Qualify A Sale – when it comes to hiring team members, it's just as important to vet them as you would a client. To make sure your outsourcers are a good fit for your business, the only option is to qualify them before you hire them.

Time Stamped Show Notes

• 0:52 – Introduction
• 2:17 – Taking the time early on for long-term success
• 3:14 – Create a rinse & repeat system for your team members
• 4:53 – Qualify your team members as if they're your clients
• 5:56 – Recap

Today's Action Step · Implement these 3 steps the next time you're looking to add a member to your team! Resources Mentioned

• My PDF of all my recommended outsourcers

I'm stoked to have Russ Perry on the podcast today. He's the founder of the #1 unlimited graphic design company in the world, Design Pickle. He built a great business in a short amount of time. We'll talk with Russ today and learn how authenticity can scale any business. Design Pickle was launched in 2015, but spent the prior 10 years helping brands and entrepreneurs be more creative.

Time Stamped Show Notes

• 0:00 – Introduction
• 5:00 – "Find your pickle." What this really means is operating from an authentic place for who you are. You're clear with what you want and you put yourself first. It's realizing what's right for you and pursuing it while you ditch what's not working for you.
• 8:00 – Solving your own problems. Design Pickle was born from a solution that Russ had created for his own needs. He figured out a way to brand it, market it and grow it into what it is now. Russ gives three tips for replicating his successful strategies:
• 9:20 – Tip 1: Provide a valuable service or product. If it works for you and solves your own problem, you know others will find value in it as well.
• 10:10 – Tip 2: Niche down for success. Once you have an authentic approach, find a narrow market to target. Doing everything for everyone makes it very difficult to find and pinpoint any problems that occur when helping your clients. When you're fearful about niching, just know that the market is there. Niching allows you to get really good at a set amount of things that you want to pursue.
• 13:40 – Scaling your business is easier when you're niched. If you're doing everything under the sun, it's very difficult to manage and delegate your employees or the services you use. Know what your strategy is. When it comes to scaling and growing your business, being niched down and having a clear path make it more likely you'll find success.
• 15:10 – Tip 3: Operate with Mission, Vision, & Values. This might sound hacky, but it's truly game changing when you do this. These are a non-objective advisor that you can run decisions through to ensure everything keeps in alignment. Following these allow for a great company culture.
• 16:55 – Values: Friendly, smart working, resourceful and service. Mission: To be the most helpful graphic design company in the world. Vision: To change lives through creativity (both for clients and employees within the company).
• 18:40 – Create a great place to work. This is accomplished through creating a positive workplace and having a career path for your employees to progress to.
• 20:00 – Tip 4: Create a system for repetitive tasks. Have a written process in place that you or your delegates can easily follow. This creates consistency in what you do, and allows for quicker scaling of your business.
• 24:35 – Work from your values. These play into your interpersonal relationships with employees, vendors and even clients.

Resources Mentioned:

• Design Pickle: Website
• 25% off for 2 months service: use the code "nerd16" at com
• Learn more about Russ: Instagram | Twitter | [email protected]

How do you work smarter and not harder? How do you maximize your profits and minimize your efforts? I have 5 tips to help you do just that.

5 Steps to Work Smarter, Not Harder:

1. Install Leverage – create leveraged offers which allow you to increase your clientele without adding more time to fulfillment. Focus on group offers which can be created once and scaled to multiple customers.
2. Install Automation – ditch manual, repetitive tasks that are dependent on you to work. Instead, focus on setting up an automated system once, that will continue to work for you while you're sleeping, sick, on vacation, etc.
3. Delegate – take any part of your workload that you don't "geek out about" and delegate it to someone who does!
4. Use Your Content As Traffic – make sure your content drives traffic into an automated funnel. Content isn't just content, it can and should be used in tandem with your automation.
5. Plan Ahead – create a 90-day marketing plan to help reduce burnout and overwhelm. Set an income goal for 90 days, calculate the amount of clients needed, and create definitive action steps for the next 90 days.

Time Stamped Show Notes

• 0:52 – Introduction
• 2:09 – Creating leveraged offers in your business
• 5:55 – Importance of automation in your business
• 7:26 – Delegating the tasks within your business that you don't love
• 8:54 – Make your content drive traffic for you
• 12:14 – Get O.C.D. and generate a plan
• 15:30 – Recap

Today's Action Step · Join my Facebook community! Resources Mentioned

• My Facebook community The Balanced Entrepreneur
• My Facebook fan page

When you're in the process growing your business, it can be tough to decide what your next step should be. With all the information out on the web these days, the stream of gurus, and the onslaught of webinars, every entrepreneur is getting mixed signals on how to move forward. What you need to do first is evaluate which stage of business you're in.

Four Stages of Business:

1. Broke – you're deep in personal or business debt, afraid of investing more cash that you may or may not have. Your focus if you're in this stage is to get out of debt. Create a debt payoff plan and take action.
2. Brand New – you're out of debt, but your business is still new and you may not have a stable cash flow yet. Your focus here should be to sell higher-ticket items and bring in steady revenue.
3. Burnt Out – your business is finally generating revenue, but you're burnt out trying to keep up with the demands. Your focus here should be to maximize your profits while minimizing your efforts (sound familiar?). Use automation to make this happen.
4. Balanced – your business is making money while you sleep. The only thing left to do at this stage is LOVE what you've created

Time Stamped Show Notes

• 0:52 – Introduction
• 2:00 – When you're new in business but broke
• 2:54 – When you have a brand new business but with unstable cash flow
• 4:00 – If you're burnt out from the progress of your business
• 4:53 – Achieving balance and making money while you sleep
• 5:19 – Recap

Today's Action Step · Figure out what stage of business you're in, and implement the "focus" to push ahead to the next step! Resources Mentioned

• My debt payoff plan from the Money Nerds program
• My Selling Like A Nerd program

Today's podcast interview is with premier online funnel marketing genius, Scott Oldford. Just 3 years ago, Scott owed $726,000 due to a failed business venture. But since then he turned his life around, got out of debt and has made multiple millions of dollars in revenues. Scott garnered my attention when I tried to join his Facebook Group and he actually required me to fill out an application!

Time Stamped Show Notes

• 0:00 – Introduction
• 5:00 – The Sidewalk, the Slow Lane and the Fast Lane Method. This method is what online entrepreneurs will be following in 2016 and beyond. Fair warning, though, that this process is double the work for 10x the results. Most current strategies revolve around some type of paid for ad leading to a landing page, next taking them to a webinar and finally trying to sell the customer at the end. The conversion rates for this type of marketing are dropping off as time goes on.
• 7:10 – Current marketing is geared towards Fast Lane leads: most marketing is geared towards people who are ready to buy But that's not how people work now. They need time and the opportunity to learn about what they need.
• 8:25 - The Sidewalk. People in this group generally don't know you or what you're about. You're job as an entrepreneur is to show them something that wasn't relevant before they met you. Give them some sort of transformation or a mindset shift that will allow them to see that they're missing out on something. We don't push them ever, we pull them. This is a more adaptive approach to marketing and it takes no longer than 5 minutes.
• 11:50 – Sidewalk Lead Magnet Example: A guide or a quiz or a short video explaining what you're about.
• 12:00 – The Slow Lane. They know you now, and you're teaching them important things, imparting your knowledge and processes to them. They aren't ready to buy just yet, but you've become their authority in the marketplace. People are assessing four things when in your slow lane:

1. Your capability to actually help them.
2. Your intent – are you just trying to make money off of them or actually trying to help?
3. The results you've achieved and what you've helped others achieve.
4. The level of your integrity.

• 14:35 – Slow Lane Lead Magnet Examples: a video series, a long-form guide or an ebook.
• 15:00 – Moving them through the lanes. Give them strategic entry points throughout the process. Once they enter a new group your job is to give them the information that will push them along to the next level. "It's about being relevant to the right person at the right time with the right mindset."
• 16:45 – The Fast Lane. These people are ready and willing to buy. More than anything else this is about objection handling and making sure they know you can provide them the outcome they're looking for. They've been through all the steps, and they should absolutely know, like and trust you at this point.
• 20:10 – Fast Lane Lead Magnet Example: this is where webinars finally come into play. The webinar fires up these warmed up leads and this will really generate sales.
• 20:20 – Differing online traffic sources. The source of the online traffic you receive should dictate which lane they're initially in. The colder the source, the slower the lane.
• 22:00 – Start generating leads NOW. Begin as soon as possible with whatever copy you have and just start generating leads now. As you gain experience with it, you can begin layering the marketing and improving it, but start now.
• 26:20 – Patience and Iteration. These are the two virtues that every successful marketer has to have. 80% of everything you create you'll have to throw away, and if you have to rush at anything, rush at being patient.

Resources Mentioned:

• Learn more about Scott: Website | Facebook | Twitter
• Limitless Business: Website
• The Sidewalk 7-day Marketing Funnel for free from Scott: com/scott

My Case Study

When my first group coaching program called 'BAM Academy' was launched (now called 'Selling Like a Nerd'), I was able to get over 55 paying members for a 6-figure launch. I want to share with you the top places where those 55 members came from because I believe in not reinventing the wheel. If something's working you just keep doing it.

My buyers typically come from the same places, and the same is true for you. It's supremely important for you to identify where your buyers come from, so you can rinse and repeat for continued results.

Numbers breakdown of the 'BAM Academy' Launch:

• Invested $14,000 in the launch
• 90 days between conception and completion of the launch
• 55 paying members
• $120,000 in revenue

Where did these 55 paying members come from? I'm a work smarter, not harder marketing coach, I believe very strongly in focusing intently on highest potential buyers during your launch. Of course I wanted to connect with any potential buyer until I got a decision, but there were three main groups of people where my buyers came from. So with how busy I am, these are the places I needed to put my focus.

3 Main Sources of Buyers:

1st Place: Previous Buyers

Before launch, I already had people who purchased from me before whether it was coaching services, the $47 upsell in my tele-summit or services from my VA company. This gave me a list of hundreds of people who I knew I could tap into. And this is key because if people buy from you once, they're more likely to buy from you again. I invested a lot of time and energy with these prospects during my launch.

Results here were 15 repeat buyers who purchased again during the launch.

Lesson Learned: When you're doing a launch, activate those potential buyers with entry level offers first. Create and sell a low cost offer first that will sell well, so you can generate a list of buyers who will invest in higher priced offers.

2nd Place: New Client Referrals

I went into this launch without any affiliates, which would push me to take massive action on my own. My expectations were exceeded when 10 of my buyers came from client referrals.

When someone joined the program, I asked them if they wanted to be an affiliate. I gave everyone who said "yes" swipe copy and graphics to use. These affiliates really delivered because they were inspired to bring in others. I used contests where the next person who made a sale would win a prize. But this wasn't even necessary as they were giving me their support mainly because they believed in me.

Lesson Learned: Create a superb experience with your tribe from day 1. The moment someone comes into your network treat them like gold.

3rd Place: My Own Facebook Group

It's great to create a tight tribe with your Facebook group, but another benefit is that 90% of my buyers across all my campaigns come from my Facebook group. This is because people can engage with you and get to know the real you there. Of the 55 people who joined my program, 47 of them had engaged with me in the Facebook group beforehand.

Lesson Learned: When you can create the "know, like and trust factor," selling can become so seamless that you don't even have to get on the phone. Don't just build a list, create a community instead.

Imagine if you were able to tap into these three places, and if you tapped into the highest potential buyers, how would that change your business? How much more seamless would it feel to make money because you know exactly where to go to find prospects? How much more of an impact would that make if you were able to tap into those places and get significantly more clients?

TODAY'S ACTION STEP:

• Identify the top three places your buyers are currently coming from. And please share it with us.

I'd love to see what's working for you, and I can't wait to see where this takes you.

3 Step Client Life-cycle System

This system allowed me to book over 6-figures in 90 days by inspiring over 50 women to join my group coaching program.

This system was designed to move a cold prospect who has no idea who you are, into a paying client who raves about you to their friends. Other systems out there are too complicated, so this rinse-and-repeat system is just 3 simple steps. Once implemented, it's an easy way to bring in money.

Step 1 – Attract

You need to attract new leads into your business, specifically by getting them on your mailing list. This way you have easy access to them to move them through the rest of the client life-cycle.

Example – The best way to do this is by sending traffic (discussed in episode 3) to a free offer, and in exchange for the free offer they give you their email address.

Step 2 – Nurture

Somebody new to you might not be ready just yet with an offer. You want to nurture that relationship, establish yourself as an authority and as a real human that they can know, like and trust.

Example – A Facebook Group is like another email list that is much more engaged. FB groups are two-way conversations where you can nurture the hell out of your prospects there.

Step 3 – Convert

Once they're ready and you have a relationship with them, now you can and should make an offer. The only way to make sales is to make an offer.

Example – I like doing this with phone calls or with webinars. An automated webinar actually nails all three of these steps for you.

TODAY'S ACTION STEP:

• Identify which step your business is missing or which one you could strengthen. If there's more than one, just pick one and implement it. First things first, and take it one step at a time.

The Client Case Study

Amy was able to generate $10,000 and make a profit back before her VIP day even happened.

This case study will show you how you can turn investments (not expenses) in promoting and marketing your offers into quick profits.

Amy runs a company called Live Brazen and she purchased an over-the-phone strategy session with me. In that call we discussed her business and her long and short term goals. She was ready for automation, and I wanted to help her fund that by helping her setup a VIP Day.

Hiring me for the VIP Day cost her $5,000 (the price at the time). She had one 30-minute call with me, then we had five back and forth emails to discuss strategy. It was really fast as I just shared with her the email templates I created and the list of tasks she had to complete.

She took action and quickly made two sales at $5,000 each, for total revenue of $10,000. Minus the $5,000 cost means Amy made $5,000 before the VIP Day even happened.

The entire process was quick and simple, and involved 3 simple cash injection secrets.

3 Simple Cash Injection Secrets:

Secret Step #1: Inventory Your Income Opportunities

There are opportunities for you to make money right now, you probably just don't realize it.

The 3 common money making opportunities:

1. Mailing List – your mailing list is a gold mine, even if it's really small, and can be utilized right now.
2. Social Media Following – these people are interested in you, and you can tap into this interest.
3. Existing Network – friends, industry buddies, masterminds and contacts; tap into these relationships.

Example: For Amy, her opportunity was her mailing list. The email templates I gave her were perfect for monetizing her mailing list now.

Secret Step #2: Inventory Your Offers

Once you know where your income opportunities are, now you've got to figure out what to offer them.

Steps to figure out what to offer:

1. List Your Existing Offers – anything that you've created and have the ability to fulfill for someone. Just list them all out.
2. Identify Congruency – which of the listed offers will be most congruent with what these people want? Which offer will solve their problems?
3. Look at the offers for the price point – at a lower price point you'll need to make more sales to meet your targets. A higher price point means fewer sales are needed.
   • Example: Amy paid $5,000 for the VIP Day coaching, so she priced her offer at $5,000, and at this price she would just need to sell one to make her money back.

Secret Step #3: Present that offer to qualified leads

There are only two steps to presenting your offer:

1. Identify who is qualified – Amy utilized the email templates I gave her to identify who was qualified, which saved her time by avoiding talking to people who aren't. These emails acted as applications to her VIP Day offering.
2. Put the offer in front of them – based on the applications, we identified who was qualified, got them on the phone then presented the offer to them.

This entire process limited the amount of time Amy spent, and made her a quick $5,000 before her own VIP Day even occurred.

Imagine signing up for a program and immediately being able to make your money back. Imagine how much more confident that would make you feel in investing in your business.

TODAY'S ACTION STEP:

• Identify your short-term cash injection opportunities, and get out there and tap into it.

I can't wait to hear how successful you are once you implement these steps.

The 3 Automated Systems

No matter the stage of business you're in (flat broke, making $5K per month or already beyond 7-figures) you need these 3 systems in place. If you're new in business, you'll be implementing these manually, and if more established you'll want to invest to automate these systems.

People often overcomplicate marketing, but these three systems are designed to simplify things for you. Using these is exactly how I simplified my own marketing efforts to grow and scale my business.

System 1 – Traffic System

This is how you send qualified leads to a particular offer, like a free downloadable pdf with a landing page. If no one goes to the page, no one will opt-in. It's not enough to just have an offer, you have to send traffic to it.

There are three types of traffic:

1. Free Traffic – things like Facebook Group postings or networking meetings
   • Upside: FREE!
   • Downside: very slow and hard to track
2. Paid Traffic – Facebook advertising, Adwords, LinkedIn advertising, sponsoring podcasts or email lists
   • Upside: easiest to track, very fast and scalable
   • Downside: have to pay for it
3. Affiliate Traffic – collaborating with others to send traffic to your offer
   • Upside: customers who visit are warmed up by the affiliate sending them to you; increases your visibility in other people's markets; adds authority by aligning with somebody else
   • Downside: depending on others to send traffic to your offer

Paid traffic is my favorite for the speed and ability to scale, followed by affiliate then free traffic.

Example: In my business I use all three forms.

• Free: my Facebook groups, other people's Facebook groups, my podcast, my web TV show and my mailing list
• Paid: Facebook advertising
• Affiliate: guest blogging, interviews, speaking on other people's stages and hosting events like tele-summits

System 2 – Conversion System

You need to have a system that converts the traffic discussed above into paying clients, otherwise that traffic is worthless. There are three main ways to convert:

1. Direct Selling – when you put an offer in front of someone without the use of a funnel. This is often an email or a Facebook post and it takes them directly to the landing page.
   • You need to nurture ahead of time and set the price point so that it's a no-brainer.
   • Example: my first launch, 'Bam Academy' was priced at $2,500 and I spent 90 days nurturing my list with great value before I put the offer in front of them. By the time I made the offer, I just sent emails and posted on Facebook and this led to a 6-figure launch.
2. Phone Sales – getting people on the phone and offering them something.
   • It's a bit more work, time intensive and stressful, but allows you to sell at any price point. If you do this, you should price your item at $2,000 or more.
3. Funnel Sales – when you automate the sales through landing pages or emails.
   • Examples: people sign-up for a webinar and at the end you pitch them on something; someone opts in to a challenge and at the end you offer them something; if someone opts in for a lead magnet and on the thank you page you offer them something.

Example: I use all three, but I focus on automated sales funnels.

• Direct: to my list and Facebook group through flash and holiday sales
• Phone: my sales team sells on the phone for me for higher level offers
• Funnel: automated webinars

System 3 – Delivery System

Once you get that paying client, you need to have a way to deliver on your promises. There are three main ways to deliver:

1. Manually – you are the one actually doing everything: posting, phone calls, emails. This is how we all start but it's not very scalable.
2. Automated – when a purchase is made, a system takes over and gives them what they purchased.
3. Combination Manual and Automatic – this is what I really recommend. When someone makes a purchase, they'll have contact with you through emails or Facebook, but content delivery is automatic.

Example: All of my content is automated using Access Ally, but I offer access to myself via Facebook groups, Q&A's and phone calls.

Imagine the feeling of having an automated way to generate traffic, then having an automated way of turning that traffic into paying clients, than having an automated way to deliver those goods and services. How much more of your time would be freed up? How much more seamless would your success feel?

The more of these three systems you can automate, the more scalable your business will be.

TODAY'S ACTION STEP:

• Identify the system that's missing in your business and begin implementing it. And if you're missing more than one, take it one step at a time and choose just one to begin with.

I can't wait to hear how this works for you. Now get to work and report back to me when you're done implementing.