Onward Nation

Paola Girotti is the founder and owner of Sugarmoon, a sugaring business with three salons, take-home sugaring and organic body care product lines, and the Sugarmoon training academy. She spent 10 years growing her successful brand — and then four years fighting — and winning — a trademark battle dispute that almost robbed her of the Sugarmoon name. I am so excited for this conversation, Onward Nation because Paola is going to share some of the lessons learned from the experience and her big plans for the future.

• The importance of protecting your brand name and slogans
• The benefits of being an early-riser
• Why you need to be flexible and adaptable to change
• Why it's vital to have a plan for growth in place
• Why it's important to align yourself with people who have gone through what you're going through
• Why you need to recognize what you need from a financial perspective
• Why you need to put together a strong leadership team, sooner rather than later
• The importance of having the right people in place on your team
• The value of having a good strategic plan when starting your business

• Email: [email protected]

Jeff Rohrs serves as chief marketing officer for Yext, the leading Digital Knowledge Management platform that gives companies control over their customer-critical facts across the digital universe. His first book, "Audience: Marketing in the Age of Subscribers, Fans and Followers", has been lauded by marketers and executives as a must-read. Prior to joining Yext, Jeff served as Vice President of Marketing Insights for Salesforce and ExactTarget.

• How Jeffrey's vision for digital research coincided with—and was enhanced by—Morgan Stewart, founder and CEO of Trendline Interactive
• Why audiences can be built as a proprietary marketing asset, as well as the responsibilities of growing them from such a foundation
• How today's social media channels, like Instagram, are constantly shifting
• How to target your most loyal advocates and amplifiers as these shifts happen, assuring you're never too far from your most valuable customers
• Why audience management, now, is a core marketing responsibility, as well as the impact of public relations in our socially connected digital landscape
• Why email is the "secret sauce" of any digital marketing campaign, and why Jeffrey uses it as a home base to re-acquire consumers lost in the ever-shifting digital world
• Jeffrey's "helpfulness" mindset when creating a content marketing strategy
• How voice search has changed the marketing world, and how Jeffrey's approach to voice search is critically important to organizations
• How to build an enterprise straight from the talent pipeline, as well as how to scale globally without losing previous talent
• The importance of developing mentor relationships within your network, as well as the importance of staying flexible as your business evolves

• Website: www.yext.com
• Website: www.geomarketing.com
• Conference: www.onward18.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jkrohrs
• Twitter: @jkrohrs

My special, encore guest today is Misty Lown. Misty is the founder, president and energized force behind More Than Just Great Dancing. Her accomplishments in giving back to the community are on a scale seldom seen by small businesses owners. Her studio, Misty's Dance Unlimited, founded in 1998 and named a "Top 50 Studios in the Nation" by Dance Spirit Magazine, has provided over $200,000 in combined cash and studio scholarships for young women and she is the founder of the "A Chance to Dance Foundation." Misty is also the author of the bestselling book, "One Small Yes: Small Decisions that Lead to Big Results." You may remember Misty and the wisdom she shared during Episodes 80 and 544. If you haven't listened to, studied, and applied all Misty shared during our first interview...I highly encourage you to add Episodes 80 and 544 to your list of vital priorities.

• How Misty's brand new international performing arts center came to be
• How finding a mentor who aligned with her values has helped Misty to grow
• The value of moving your energy away from day-to-day operations into more of a strategic role
• How Misty discovered that she was the biggest constraint to the growth of her business
• The importance of building up your team to take on more responsibility
• How Misty defines success and how that's changed over the last 20 years
• Why you need to be fully present wherever you are
• The value of building something that you can live with
• Why you need to define how fast and how hard you want to go to get to the next level

• Website: mistylown.com
• Twitter: @MistyLown

Glenn Elliott is the founder of Reward Gateway, a world leader in integrated employee engagement technology with more than 1,800 clients worldwide. His new book, "Build it: The Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement," which he co-authored with Debra Corey, highlights practical improvements that organizations can make to build a highly engaged company culture.

• How good founders know instinctively what the market needs to be successful
• Why you always need to keep your team under constant review
• How you shouldn't hire people for what they've done in the past but rather what they'll do in the future
• Why Glenn and his co-author, Deborah, decided to write the book "Build it: The Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement"
• Some of the ways that companies are disengaging employees
• How the path to better engagement is different for every organization
• The importance of helping people develop their skills
• How honesty and transparency can help you be successful at managing employee engagement
• Why it's important to focus on how you make people feel
• Why you need to always be thinking about your customer

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/glennelliott
• Twitter: @glennelliott; @rebelplaybook
• Website: www.rebelplaybook.com

Our special encore guest today is Ace Chapman. Ace bought his first business when he was 19 years old. It was an online stock market simulator called CoolWallStreet. After selling it, and seeing the benefits in buying a business over starting one, he caught the business buying bug. Since then he has bought and sold over 40 businesses and has helped his clients all over the world buy companies. Now...you may remember Ace and the wisdom he shared during Episode 561. If you haven't listened to, studied, and applied all he shared during our first interview...I highly encourage you to add Episode 561 to your list of vital priorities.

• Ace's 19 years of success since his first successful venture at age 19, when he got involved in the technique of selling businesses professionally
• The brief history of purchasing small Internet businesses and what it can show us about the art of buying mature entities
• A behind-the-scenes look at private equity firms, as well as how to leverage a budding infrastructure with future potential
• How to find deals when you can't compete in your area (including the ins and outs of finding lucrative opportunities in international business)
• Ace's private equity partner program, which thrives on progressive financing options designed to give an earn-out based upon funding deals
• The intricacies of nurturing your business' "secret sauce," or unique strength and the importance of making these strengths approachable—so as to not alienate, and push away, prospective buyers
• How to put yourself in the shoes of the customer in today's business-selling world, as well as the power of catering to Corporate America
• Leveraging the entrepreneur mindset, wherein startup owners might be a difficult sell, overall, due to their independence and need to nurture something entirely their own
• How to establish a legacy for your business and how to conduct your due diligence while your prospective buyers do theirs

• Website: www.acechapman.com
• Twitter: @acechapman
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/acechapman757

Good Morning Onward Nation…I'm Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation. And today's episode is going to be a solocast…where it's just you and me exploring a topic at some real depth — something helpful — so you can build and scale your business. So let's dive in.

Much has changed since I wrote The Small Business Owner's Handbook to Search Engine Optimization in 2009.

Google now has a longer and more complicated recipe of factors it uses to rank you and your competitors as you attempt to earn the attention of your prospects and customers.

And many of the factors within Google's list are not properly setup within the typical small business website.

That means fewer leads and perhaps less opportunity to generate higher sales.

All of which makes it important — for you as the business owner — to know some of the fundamentals to SEO. Not so you can do the work — but so you can establish expectations for your team — and then audit their results.

So for today's solocast — I am going to share with you what is, in my opinion, one of the biggest, most expensive money draining mistakes business owners make. And that mistake is being too passive regarding the amount of traffic the website for their core business is attracting. And that number should be 60 percent of your total traffic — so 60 percent, Onward Nation, of your website's traffic should be coming from organic search — a combination of Google, Bing, and other search related sources.

Full show notes available here: https://predictiveroi.com/podcasts/stephen-woessner-solocast-episode-80

Jason Hsiao is the co-founder and chief video officer of Animoto, an award-winning online video maker that makes it easy for anyone to create professional-quality marketing videos. Animoto is a certified partner with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and the Small Business Administration and give it unique insight into the changing social media and business landscape -- which may be why more than 1-million businesses around the world are already using Animoto to create marketing videos. Prior to founding Animoto, Jason was a producer for MTV Networks and Comedy Central.

• Why all businesses are trying to stand out on social media with video
• How video is becoming the preferred way that people want to consume information
• Why you should think of video as a form of communication
• The method to use to come up with video topics
• How social media has been a game-changer for small businesses
• Why video is a great investment
• Why you need to be aware of how you approach the small things in life
• The importance of surrounding yourself with people who actually get stuff done
• How to maximize the potential of your team
• How video is a way to amplify what you know already works

• Website: animoto.com/onwardnation
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/Animoto
• Twitter: @Animoto, @jason_hsiao
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/animoto
• Medium: medium.com/@Animoto
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCeqtYy6WpYkZ3Q_EUnY0fVQ

David C. Baker is an author, speaker, and advisor to entrepreneurial creatives worldwide. He has written 5 books, advised 900+ firms, and keynoted conferences in 30+ countries. His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and Inc. Magazine. He lives in Nashville, TN. His work has also been featured in the NY Times, where he was referred to as the expert's expert.

• David's history approaching U.S. Businesses after arriving in America at age 18 and the foundation upon which he's build a legacy: an intense desire to learn and the bravery to start an agency with self-taught business approaches
• The secret behind creating something from nothing and how David's approach to risk-taking thrives on calculated spontaneity
• How the challenges of an entrepreneur's "professional DNA" manifest in multi-project tackling
• The pitfalls of having multiple great ideas and why it's important to divide your time wisely
• The importance of focusing on several service options you can provide extraordinarily well
• David's idea-decision principal: saying "No" to most distractions
• The pitfall of fear: Why entrepreneurs feel the need to constantly reinvent to avoid starving
• David's most valuable habit, which is to keep developing his own insight
• The art of embracing problems as the chance to create new solutions—and how to make efficiency a constant goal
• The cycle of learning, and why it's important to put aside client work every so often to pursue education
• How to decide when it's time to reinvent yourself, and surviving the mental tug of what-if's which arise from leaving old projects

• Website: www.davidcbaker.com
• Book: www.expertise.is
• Twitter: @recourses
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/authorspeakeradvisor

Michael Stallard is a former Wall Street executive who left the Street 15 years ago to found the Connection Culture Group, a leadership training firm and focuses on improving workplace cultures. He's a keynote speaker and expert on how effective leaders boost human connection in cultures to improve the health and performance of individuals and organizations. Michael is also the author of two books, "Connection Culture" and "Fired Up or Burned Out."

• The story of how Michael became interested in culture
• How having more human connection in your life can be beneficial to your health
• The metrics that are used to define levels of loneliness
• How we can be so focused on chasing money and power that we crowd out time for relationships that really matter
• The benefits of using social media to establish offline connections
• The power of having face-to-face connections
• Why, as a leader, it's vital to care about both people and results
• Why you need to be intentional about achieving both task AND relationship excellence
• Why it's important to identify a specific client problem to solve
• Why you need to listen closely to what your clients are saying

• Website: www.michaelleestallard.com
• Book: "Connection Culture"

After traveling the world, David Osborn returned home to Austin, Texas broke and unemployed...at the age of 26. Though his travels may not have yielded wealth, they instilled the key motivation that he brings to every part of his life -- to create it freedom. David began to test his entrepreneurial merits and the results were nothing short of remarkable. In less than 10 years, David built one of the top real estate brokerages in the world, founded over 50 companies, and became the best selling author of "Miracle Morning Millionaires" with co-author, Hal Elrod.

• How saying "yes" to taking a trip around the world turned into a valuable learning experience for David
• Why it's a bigger risk to NOT take risks
• How David's book "Wealth Can't Wait" & "Miracle Morning Millionaires" came about
• Why you need to focus on hiring great people
• Why you've got to put yourself in a position to get lucky
• The importance of managing your expenses
• Why David believes that there should be abundance for everyone
• Why it's vital to have clarity of your vision as a business owner
• The power of working more effectively
• Why you need to always be prospecting for next clients

• Website: www.davidosborn.com
• Book: Miracle Morning Millionaire