No BS Mastery Podcast

How’s your messaging?

If you’re struggling with marketing your business and every time you sit down to write copy–any copy–feels like an epic slog because you don’t know what to say, you’ve got a messaging issue.

Everyone wants their marketing to connect with their audience, but if you’re unsure of what to say or not say, or you’re winging it every time, the problem isn’t your copy, it’s that you don’t know what your message is.

Distilling what you do into a consistent, clear, impactful message that is reflected in every piece of marketing you produce isn’t easy, but it will make your life–or the lives of anyone you hire for marketing help–easier once you figure it out.

To help us get there, I have the Communication Rebel herself, badass business owner Michelle Mazur.

Michelle works with brilliant business owners who are shaking things up, but having trouble talking about it. She combines the tools of successful social movements with the qualitative research skills she earned in her Communication Ph.D. to help them craft their powerful, captivating message.

She's the author of the 3 Word Rebellion and has been featured in Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Michelle knows that speaking about what you do in a clear and captivating way is the key to reaching the people you could help the most and making more money in your business.

We chat about the problem with bro marketing, lament about the prevalence of online courses from people who did something once and Michelle helps clarify the difference between messaging and copywriting.

Tune into this episode to hear:

Learn more about Michelle:

Learn more about Pia:

SEO can easily become a massive distraction for the small service lifestyle business owner.

Yes, it has value, but with changing algorithms and conflicting advice and best practices out there, figuring out when and how to spend your time and attention on SEO is confusing at best.

And what’s the one thing that really matters when a potential client lands on your website?

The same thing as when you meet them at a networking event. Trust.

The split second impression that clients have of you and whether or not they trust you and want to learn more, happens when they see your website.

Look at your website. Would you trust you?

Everyone has SOMETHING that they can put front and center to demonstrate that other people trust them, and therefore, that you the viewer should trust them too.

To help you figure out what those trust symbols are, I brought an old friend and colleague, badass marketer and business owner, Matthew Capala to the show.

Matthew Capala is keynote speaker, entrepreneur, the founder of Alphametic, an SEO marketing agency in Miami, and author of the new book The Psychology of a Website.

And he knows more about SEO than anyone I know.

Tune into this episode to hear:

How search algorithms are changing to monitor user behavior, not keywords and backlinks

Three key things your homepage needs to establish trust

How the user experience of your website affects your search ranking

Tips for using transactional keywords to drive quality search traffic

How to build a website with SEO in mind from the beginning

Learn more about Matthew:

About Matthew

Alphametic

Instagram: @searchdecoder

Twitter: @searchdecoder

FREE SEO Toolbox

The Psychology of a Website: Mastering Cognitive Biases, Conversion Triggers and Modern SEO to Achieve Massive Results, Matthew Capala

Learn more about Pia:

No BS Agency Owners Free Facebook Group

The Show Your Business Who's Boss Crash Course

Start reading the first chapter of my book

Piasilva.com

If effortless passive income were possible, you’d be on a beach somewhere with a margarita right now, or whatever your fantasy vacation looks like.

But passive income takes a lot of effort up front. You have to build an audience, the course, the funnels, the ads. And you have to keep selling the course once it’s out there.

Maybe you’re hitting your capacity for clients with the services you’re currently selling and you want to scale up. Maybe you want another revenue stream that’s less intensive than done-for-you services or one-on-one coaching. Creating an online course is a great solution.

But what if trading one time and energy-intensive service for the time and energy-intensive process of setting up and selling an automated online course doesn’t sound like a good trade?

On today’s episode I am excited to speak with badass business owner, and Founder of Scale Your Genius, Jane Sagalovich.

Jane is a business strategist and scaling mentor and she is on a mission to rid the world of crappy online courses–I think we can all second that! She has helped hundreds of experts create their high-quality online courses and programs with clarity, confidence, and ease.

She teaches a hybrid course model that allows service providers to leverage their time by combining the elements of a good self-paced course, a good group coaching program, and a one-on-one coaching experience to create an offer that gets clients great results, without needing to build the whole funnel system that is required to sell online courses.

Tune into this episode to hear:

Why building a hybrid online course can be easier and more profitable than a fully automated offering

Audience considerations when you’re going from done-for-you services to mostly-DIY online courses

Why you can’t recycle existing content unless it fits the client journey you’re building in the course

How to avoid info-dumping when you should be focusing on guiding

Learn more about Jane:

Scale Your Genius

Facebook: @ScaleYourGenius

Connect with Jane on LinkedIn

Learn more about Pia:

No BS Agency Owners Free Facebook Group

The Show Your Business Who's Boss Crash Course

Start reading the first chapter of my book

Piasilva.com

Do you know what you really want from your business? It’s not enough to say “I want more money,” or “I want to scale.” What is your life going to look like when you get there?

What role do you want to play? What do you want to do every day? CEOs can bottleneck a company faster than anyone else when they’re not actually doing the right job.

There’s no one right answer but there is an answer for you. Knowing what that is will help you make strategic decisions about how, when, why or even whether to scale up your business.

Strategic thinking and planning is something most small businesses don’t do enough of, but getting that clarity can set you up for success.  And really, you aren’t going to get where you want to go if you don’t know where you are going!

Dream big! Then make strategic decisions and actions to turn it into a concrete reality.

Like today’s guest, badass business owner Bruce Eckfeldt. Bruce has settled into a life and a business where he gets to play, and pick and choose projects of all different kinds, which is my total dream scenario.

After building, scaling and selling his own technology consulting firm in 2003, Bruce became a strategic coach and advisor to early-stage CEOs and their leadership teams. He hosts two podcasts, Scaling Up Services and Thinking Outside the Bud and writes weekly for Inc.com on leadership and strategic business growth.

I always get inspired talking with him so I’m excited to share his wisdom and decades of experience.

Tune into this episode to hear:

Why scale isn’t just about the number of people on your team and why a CEO needs to think like a coach

Why figuring out your role in your business drives strategy decisions

How to keep boredom out of the equation when focusing strategically for scale

How to level up your client base by leveraging your knowledge of your current clients’ needs

Learn more about Bruce:

Eckfeldt & Associates

Inc.com Column

Scaling Up Services Podcast

Thinking Outside the Bud Podcast

Instagram: @bruce_eckfeldt

Connect with Bruce on LinkedIn

Learn more about Pia:

No BS Agency Owners Free Facebook Group

The Show Your Business Who's Boss Crash Course

Start reading the first chapter of my book

Resources:

Dream Team Predictive Index Workshop

Pricing conveys value. If a potential client is wondering if they’re going to get bombarded with upgrade offers once they sign up, they won’t sign up. Being underpriced can and does hurt you.

When your price reflects the value of the service or package, your clients can trust that they’ll get what they’re paying for.

But how do you know when your price reflects your value?

On today’s episode I’m excited to have badass business owner and former business coach of mine, Iman Khan.

Iman and his wife Afrin own Red Elephant Inc, where they are on a mission to empower people to empower others to make real change in the world by finding their platform and voice.

I’ve known Iman and Afrin for nearly 10 years, from back when they still lived in New York and their events were one of the places I turned to most to find MY voice.

When they were building their business and honing their system, Iman and Afrin tweaked and tested and tweaked again until they found what works consistently, and that includes pricing.

And while their core system hasn’t changed, those adjustments, tweaks and pivots have been more key than ever for them in the last year as their business moved from live events to online with hundreds and hundreds of Zoom rooms.

They definitely succeeded, and today Iman is going to share some of the strategies they used to make online events engaging, entertaining and most importantly, impactful.

Tune into this episode to hear:

• How reviving and restructuring the delivery of older programs helped Red Elephant pivot quickly when the world shifted online

• How their network pushed their business to evolve from producing events to teaching entrepreneurs how to sell from the stage and run their own events

• How tweaking and testing led to a system that works, and why they don’t mess with it now that it does

• What makes in-person, multi-day events worth the investment of time, energy and the costs of hosting

Learn more about Iman:

Learn more about Pia:

Resources:

The Landmark Forum

How do you feel about your sales process? How do you want to feel about it? Could it even be something you enjoy?

So many people say they don’t want to be sales-y. They don’t want to be pushy. It doesn’t come naturally, etc. etc. But you do, in fact, need to be selling in order to have a sustainable business.

And you can do that in a way that feels good and authentic to you. No scripts. No manipulative tactics. No pretending to be someone you’re not.

How?

You have to change your mindset.

I still tell people I hate sales and that I don’t sell. The word “sales” is still associated with pushiness and desperation in my mind.

Obviously, I do sell, but it doesn’t feel that way because I completely changed how I view it. I’m never trying to convince someone to do something they don’t want to do. The only thing I want to find out is if I can genuinely help the person on the other end of the line.

It didn’t happen overnight, but making that shift made it so much easier to talk to potential clients.

On today’s episode we’re turning the topic of sales on its head with badass business owner, Jeff Bajorek.

Jeff is a sales trainer and consultant, the author of two books and the host of two podcasts. Jeff helps salespeople perform better by helping them rethink the way they sell. Jeff also offers weekly live training and more on his community site Rethink the Way You Sell.

Tune into this episode to hear:

Learn more about Jeff:

Learn more about Pia:

A lot of us are scared to share our best stuff because then we think people won’t hire us or pay us for it. But why would we want to hide our best stuff behind a paywall?

Yes, some of your audience will take your expertise and go the DIY route. But if you use your ideas to build your platform, know that some of the people watching will want more from you. And they’ll pay you for it.

That’s the top advice from today’s guest. I’m delighted to have the one and only Mike Michalowicz on the show. Mike is going to share some behind the scenes stories about his rise to fame as an author and entrepreneur, and some of the things that did and didn’t work along the way.

You probably know Mike as the author of six, soon to be seven, incredibly influential books for entrepreneurs including Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, Fix This Next, Clockwork, Surge, and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. His next book, Get Different, is out in September and available for preorder now.

But what you may not know is where he got all these crazy ideas. Before we wrote his first book, by his 35th birthday Mike founded and sold two multi-million dollar companies. Confident that he had the formula to success, he became a small business angel investor…and proceeded to lose his entire fortune.

That’s when he started all over again, driven to find better ways to grow healthy, strong companies. Since then Mike has devoted his life to the research and delivery of innovative, impactful entrepreneurial strategies to you.

Tune into this episode to hear:

Two audience segments who will buy your book, and why sharing ALL of your expertise matters to both of them

Mike’s licensing model of collaborating with experts to write books and create service offerings that allows everyone to do what they’re best at

A look inside publishing today, from self-publishing, whether you really need an agent, to success on the backlist and expanded editions of older books

Why marketing best practices quickly become invisible as they’re used more and more widely

Two pieces of tactical advice Mike gave Pia when she was about to release her book that she still swears by

Learn more about Mike:

MikeMichalowicz.com

Facebook

Instagram: @mikemichalowicz

Mike’s Free Resources!

Learn more about Pia:

No BS Agency Owners Free Facebook Group

The Show Your Business Who's Boss Crash Course

Start reading the first chapter of my book

Piasilva.com

Are you evolving in your business? With your industry?

Or are you fighting it, scared to take the steps you need to take to build the business you know you want?

Sometimes it’s learning new skills, sometimes it’s learning new softwares.

It can be especially challenging when you’ve been in business for a long time and you’re ready to just know how things work.

But really, that’s what business is — a constant evolution. And if you don’t get used to including the learning and evolving as part of the process, you may very well get stagnant and wonder why the business isn’t growing in the direction you want.

On today’s episode I’m excited to have badass business owner, and super badass woman that I have had the pleasure of working with over the last few years, Evelyn Powers.

Evelyn founded Design Powers 25 years ago, and her business has evolved from being a graphic design firm serving mid-sized companies and nonprofits with print work, to a web design firm for professional small businesses and entrepreneurs.

I’m excited to share her story of starting her business because she wanted to be home more for her two then-young children and how she’s evolved and grown over the years to keep up with the total transformation in the design industry from print to web.

Today, Design Powers is in the midst of a complete rebrand to niche further in on small business creatives, founders and experts who have “legit” businesses, but uncommon and unconventional offers, and seek authority through excellence and conviction.

We talk about the need to evolve, the challenges that come up, and how if you want success, getting comfortable with evolving and adapting is critical.

Tune into this episode to hear:

Learn more about Evelyn Powers:

Learn more about Pia:

Where are your blind spots?

Is there something you love doing anyway that could make you a few extra dollars with minimal setup or maintenance costs? Can you leverage your audience to support your passion project or side hustle?

I tend not to think things are worth my time if they aren’t going to produce significant revenue. That has served me well, of course, but it may also close me off to new ideas that are actually really good.

Today, I’m chatting with a badass business owner and entrepreneur whose approach is almost exactly the opposite of mine.

Justin Esgar has more ideas than he has time to implement them but he does it anyway, whether it’s parking a domain for later or putting T-shirt designs on Threadless and being delighted by every single $6 sale.

Justin originally built a successful IT consulting company over 10 years ago called Virtua Consulting Group, which he still runs and owns. But like so many entrepreneurs, Justin has IDEAS.

First, running a successful IT company wasn’t enough, so he started the ACES Conference to teach IT consultants how to build better businesses. Fun fact, I actually spoke about branding at the first ACES Conference in New Orleans!

But as you’ll hear it didn’t stop with the conference. Justin is always looking for new ideas, creating new streams of income, and enjoying himself in the process. I’m looking forward to catching up with him and seeing what irons he’s got in the fire right now.

Tune into this episode to hear:

Learn more about Justin Esgar:

Learn more about Pia:

Resources:

What have you overcomplicated in your business recently?

Are you trying to solve problems by adding more to your plate rather than taking something off?

It’s not just you. There’s a human tendency to add and look for more things to do whenever we have a problem that needs solving, when subtraction might be the best solution.

Add a culture where what we do is who we are, and overwork is treated as equivalent to good work, and it’s easy to see how that tendency gets amplified.

On today’s episode I’m excited to have badass business owner, Tara McMullin.

Tara McMullin is a coach, community builder, podcaster, producer, and writer. She’s the founder of What Works, a digital platform for small business owners who are building strong, resilient and sustainable companies.

AND she’s the co-founder of Yellow House Media, which you might recognize from the credits at the end of this show every week. That’s right, that’s how I know Tara, because her company is the reason I have a podcast every week.

She’s a brilliant thinker, writer, strategist, she has her own podcast, What Works, which has been downloaded over 2 million times, she’s an international speaker and she’s been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, Inc, and The Huffington Post.

I’m delighted to share this conversation with you where we go deep on topics around being overworked business owners, what it really takes to find that freedom and flexibility and how simplicity is usually the answer to business challenges.

Tune into this episode to hear:

Learn more about Tara McMullin:

Learn more about Pia:

Resources: