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This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I’m Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today’s episode, we’re going to discuss the power of gratitude in business. 

Feeling Disconnected from God

When I was in high school, there was a time when I felt disconnected from God and was not feeling Him near. At night time, I would read scriptures sitting by the light in our hallway. One night, as I was trying to understand this lack of God’s presence in my life, and what I needed to do, I opened my scriptures randomly, and they fell open to this verse:

“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” (KJV 1 Thessalonians 5:18)

That scripture gave me the answer I was seeking. I knew that I needed to fill my life with more gratitude to find the connection with God and others in my life that I was missing. I tried to heed that counsel and found deeper connections. For example, instead of filling my prayers primarily with requests, I incorporated a lot more specific expressions of gratitude. I even dedicated some prayers to only expressions of gratitude. I have also tried to express a lot more gratitude to the people around me. 

Tough Circumstances and Gratitude

A church leader named Dieter Uchtdorf gave a sermon about gratitude. In his sermon, he described the opportunity he’s had to meet with many people whose sorrows seem to reach the very depths of their souls. “In these moments,” he said, “I have listened to my beloved brothers and sisters and grieved with them over their burdens. I have pondered what to say to them, and I have struggled to know how to comfort and support them in their trials.”

“Sooner or later,” Uchtdorf continued, “I believe that all of us experience times when the very fabric of our world tears at the seams, leaving us feeling alone, frustrated, and adrift. It can happen to anyone. No one is immune.”

He goes on to describe how “there is something that would take away the bitterness that may come into our lives. There is one thing we can do to make life sweeter, more joyful, even glorious. We can be grateful!”

“Those who set aside the bottle of bitterness and lift instead the goblet of gratitude can find a purifying drink of healing, peace, and understanding,” he said.

I think the reason this is true is when we want to get rid of negativity in our lives, the best way to do it is to replace it with something positive. It’s like a room filled with darkness we want to go away. The only way to make the darkness leave is to fill the room with something else . . . light.  I have found that when I have negative feelings towards someone when I strive to replace those feelings with gratitude, the gratitude can help replace the negative feelings, and I feel more positively towards that person. 

Gratitude in Business

It is well-known that gratitude can help us have a better attitude in our personal lives, but how does this apply to us as entrepreneurs?

Gratitude is a critical aspect of our business relationships. “It satisfies the higher psychological need to feel a sense of belonging to something greater than ourselves–to feel a sense of meaning at work.” (Source: Forbes)

Recognizing the good and saying it out loud “helps [us] connect with other entrepreneurs and build lasting partnerships. No [one] is an island, and the same goes for business owners too. Correspondingly, success is most easily achieved when we back up each other.” (Source: Enterprise League)

I believe gratitude in the workplace is critical for many reasons. Here are 7 examples:

1. It helps us build stronger relationships with our co-workers. 
2. Most of us deal with insecurities and fears that we are not good enough. Expressing gratitude is an affirmation that in that thing, they are good enough.
3. Expressing gratitude gives a positive reference point of the actions and behaviors that work, so people know how to act, and what to do more of. 
4. Showing gratitude can shift the focus from us to others.
5. Expressing gratitude can show our co-workers that we saw what they did.
6. Focusing on the great things people have done, instead of the mistakes, is showing grace. When we show grace to others, we will probably receive more grace in return.  
7. Expressions of gratitude can show that we care about the feelings of our co-workers.

Expressing Gratitude

Uchtdorf shared a story of a server and a customer. He said, “There is an old story of a waiter who asked a customer whether he had enjoyed the meal. The guest replied that everything was fine, but it would have been better if they had served more bread. The next day, when the man returned, the waiter doubled the amount of bread, giving him four slices instead of two, but still, the man was not happy. The next day, the waiter doubled the bread again, without success.”

“On the fourth day, the waiter was really determined to make the man happy. And so he took a nine-foot-long loaf of bread, cut it in half, and with a smile, served that to the customer. The waiter could scarcely wait for the man’s reaction.”

“After the meal, the man looked up and said, ‘Good as always. But I see you’re back to giving only two slices of bread.’”

In this story, there is a disconnect between the customer and the server, and this disconnect comes from the customer’s lack of gratitude. Because of this, the server felt unappreciated even though he was doing everything he could to make this customer happy. 

This isn’t to say we should stop doing things for customers that don’t seem grateful. We need to make sure that we aren’t the customer in this example. We should be expressing gratitude to our families, partners, employees, clients, vendors, and customers, so they know how much we appreciate them and their efforts.

Ways We Can Show Gratitude

Results of research in the workplace so far link it to more positive emotions, less stress and fewer health complaints, a greater sense that we can achieve our goals, fewer sick days, and higher satisfaction with our jobs and our coworkers (Source: greatergood.berkeley.edu). Here are a few ideas and stories for how we can show gratitude in our business relationships.

“Giving Props”

Steven Benson, founder, and CEO of Badger Maps says his favorite thing about the company’s culture is that they show thanks to employees on a weekly basis. “We have an all-hands meeting once a week, and we finish the meeting by ‘giving props’, which is recognizing people on the team for their accomplishments that week. Anyone on the team can give props to anyone else on the team, which fosters an atmosphere of appreciation and teamwork.” (Source: Medium)

“For example,” Benson explained, “someone who noticed another employee doing a great job with a particularly difficult customer, might ‘give props’ to that person and recognize them in front of the group as having done an amazing job. It’s a great way to be thankful and show appreciation as a group for all the accomplishments of the week, and make sure everyone gets recognized for their contributions.” (Source: Medium)

“This has helped us build a strong team and sense of community. The success of your business depends on your employees, and establishing a positive culture where everyone feels appreciated and enjoys coming to work makes a big difference in increasing employee satisfaction and happiness.” (Source: Medium)

I love how the Gladney Center for Adoption does this and reserves time in nearly every full-company meeting for people to express gratitude through a shout-out for something another team member has done. 

Gratitude with Customers

Dr. Justin Wood, a business problem-solving specialist, shared how gratitude saved a restaurant with low chances of survival from closing down. He “was put in charge of a small breakfast team, which was one step away from being shut down. . . . It was a tough game, as the team wasn’t bringing much profit to the restaurant, and people’s jobs were at stake.” (Source: Intelligent Change)

The first thing Wood changed was customer appreciation. “He instructed the team to express gratitude and appreciation to every customer because the key to a profitable restaurant is satisfied and returning customers.” (Source: Intelligent Change)

At the end of the first month “, they doubled the number of receipts from the previous month. By the end of the three-month period, they were setting continual records. It took so little: a ‘thank you for coming,’ a smile, and a regular check-up, and people immediately felt more appreciated as customers.” (Source: Intelligent Change)

Gratitude and Appreciation Retreat

Consultant Stephanie Pollack was brought in to work with the state chapter of a national nonprofit. “The organization was in the middle of a transformation that brought in new leadership, a new culture, new rules—and lots of tension and uncertainty.” Pollack was tasked with teaching appreciation and gratitude during a three-day retreat (Source: greatergood.berkeley.edu). 

“She taught a small group of reluctant employees about the benefits of recognizing the good things in their lives and saying thank you.” Something shifted among the employees. “After one person wrote a genuine note of thanks on an ‘appreciation wall,’ soon everyone was participating.” (Source: greatergood.berkeley.edu)

Pollack was surprised by the connection and authenticity that appreciation inspired. Even some of the more closed-off employees had opened up by the end of the retreat. “They walked in with a lot of tension and frustration,” Pollack said. “I’m not saying they walked out with none, but there was a willingness on everyone’s part to move forward together in a different way.” (Source: greatergood.berkeley.edu)

These are just a few of the ways we can implement gratitude into our business, but it could be as simple as a “thank you” at the end of an email or note reminding an employee that we appreciate them. William James, American philosopher and psychologist said, “The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.” If appreciation is one of our deepest cravings, then we need to make sure we are showing our appreciation to others.

Key Takeaways

Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. Those who are grateful can find healing, peace, connection, and understanding.
2. Gratitude can help us replace negative feelings with positive feelings. 
3. Gratitude is a critical part of the business. It helps us build stronger relationships.
4. In the workplace, gratitude can foster more positive emotions, less stress and fewer health complaints, a greater sense that we can achieve our goals, fewer sick days, and higher satisfaction with our jobs and our coworkers.
5. Focusing on the great things people have done, instead of the mistakes, is showing grace.
6. We can express gratitude by ‘giving props’ to our employees in meetings, telling customers we appreciate them, going on a gratitude retreat, or simply saying thank you in an email or note.
7. Expressing sincere gratitude to customers may increase revenues.
8. The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.

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Iron Man’s “Jarvis'' is a science fiction example of artificial intelligence with which many of us are familiar. The idea of artificial intelligence in chatbots has become reality. Many businesses already implement chatbots, artificial intelligence that mimics the conversational abilities of a human. 

Jennifer Etchegary, an expert in technology procurement and implementation, helps companies find and implement the right technologies in the most effective ways possible. Some of her specialties include virtual reality, augmented reality, and chatbots, along with a variety of other technologies. 

In today’s episode, we’re going to discuss how businesses can effectively use chatbots and what benefits they can expect to see as it is done right.

Chatbots 

In today’s market, we are seeing a shift towards everything digital. Jennifer said, “If you’re not digitally transforming, you’re losing.” 

New technologies are being developed at a higher rate than ever before. Chatbots are one of those technologies businesses are starting to use a lot. 

A chatbot is a conversational experience that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing to mimic a conversation between real people. Essentially, it is a robot that can have a conversation. 

Surprisingly, the first chatbot was developed even before the personal computer. Joseph Weizenbaum, a computer scientist, and professor at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory created the first chatbot in 1966 named Eliza (Source: Daffodil). The personal computer wasn’t developed until 1974 (Source: Britannica). 

Eliza was designed to imitate a therapist by asking open-ended questions and follow-ups. She operated by recognizing a keyword or phrase and then produced a pre-programmed response (Source: Analytics India Magazine). 

The world didn’t truly see the rise of chatbots until the smartphone era. In 2010, Apple acquired Siri and then revealed her as an integrated part of the iPhone in 2011 (Source: SRI International). After Siri, Amazon created Alexa in 2015 and Google created Google Home in 2016 (Source: Daffodil). 

Since then, we have seen an increase in chatbots, even within smaller businesses. Chatbots are found on customer service phone lines, websites, and social media platforms. Chatbots have become increasingly popular as they offer many potential benefits. 

5 Benefits of a Chatbot

Here are five potential benefits chatbots can give us in our business.

• Saves Time

Chatbots can save time for both the company and the customer. They can maintain a 24/7 response system so the customers can have constant access to communication. With a 24/7 customer service line, customers can solve their problems faster without ever needing to come to a live customer service representative. 

Over 50% of customers expect 24/7 availability with businesses (Source: AI Multiple). If we implement a chatbot, it can increase customer engagement and satisfaction to meet their expectation of constant service. And if a chatbot is doing it, we don’t have to spend so much time doing it ourselves. 

A chatbox can also significantly reduce customer service response times, depending on how advanced it is programmed to operate. A chatbox can help answer any level 1 questions. This could include how to find something on our website, check the status of an order, or provide our business hours. Then, if a customer comes to us with a level 2 or 3 questions, they can transfer the customer to the direct person they need to communicate with for that question. 

By answering the easy questions for us, we won’t have to take as many calls or chats, and we will have more time to help customers with bigger problems. This can help reduce the wait time on our phone lines or online chats. This benefits the customer since a chatbot can help them solve their easy questions without having to wait 30 minutes on hold to reach a customer service representative. 

“Initially a chatbot might only save 5% of your customer service time, [but] as it gets smarter and smarter, as you train it, it can get up to about 30% to 40% to 60%,” Jennifer said. “It saves a lot of time.”

With reduced time, not only increases customer satisfaction but also employee satisfaction as they don’t have to constantly answer back-to-back calls. 

• Reduces Costs

By saving time, chatbots can also help reduce costs. Juniper Research estimated that chatbots could save the banking industry $7.3 billion globally by 2023, up from an estimated $209 million in 2019 (Source: Juniper Research). 

Instead of paying a group of employees to answer phone calls or respond to chats, chatbots can do it. While chatbots may not be able to take over the role of the customer service representative completely, they can answer simple questions so we don’t need as many customer service employees. Chatbots can help businesses save up to 30% of their customer support costs by reducing response times and answering 80% of routine questions (Source: IBM). 

As chatbots help reduce customer service response times and offer 24/7 availability, they can also increase customer sales. Business leaders have claimed that chatbots increased their sales by an average of 67% (Forbes). Customers often look for the fastest solution possible. If they have to wait 30 minutes on hold or wait until the next morning, we may have already lost their business. 

• Increases Efficiency

Chatbots can help increase efficiency. One way they can do this is by being programmed to speak many different languages. If someone calls in, but only speaks Spanish, we can have our chatbot instantly programmed to take their call. Our chatbot can be programmed to respond in any language we choose such as Spanish, Chinese, French, or Portuguese. 

Chatbots can also get instant access to information. Jennifer had a vice president come to her for help because she was having a really difficult time with her contact center. They were seeing many inefficiencies such as not being able to access information as easily as they would like. Jennifer connected her through another person in her network and they were able to develop a chatbot that helped increase efficiency in access to information by about 40%. 

A chatbot can also be custom-built to better respond to our customers’ needs. “[There is] the intelligence advantage there, meaning [chatbots] have a deeper understanding of how people are speaking, and you're able to respond better to their needs,” Jennifer said. As we program chatbots to understand our customers’ needs, we can increase our efficiency. 

• Is Data-Driven 

Chatbots are scalable and data-driven. When a customer asks a question in our online chat, our chatbot can record and store that information. They can take frequently asked questions or common problems and turn them into data we can use to improve the customer experience. 

Jennifer explained that one of the biggest business tectonic shifts is the increase of data. “A lot of the data captured, especially in chatbots, is very powerful,” Jennifer said. We should lean towards the increased data we get from chatbots and use it to understand what our customers are telling us. Instead of going off of a gut feeling, we can use actual data to make customer-based decisions. As we do this, our products and services will resonate with customers a lot more. 

Beyond answering questions, chatbots can also reach out with surveys to gain customer information and track a customer’s purchasing patterns. With this data, we can find new ways to direct our customers’ responses and guide them in their journey to making a purchase decision. 

• Increases User Engagement

Chatbots can also increase user engagement. With 24/7 availability, chatbots can always communicate and engage with our customers when needed. A survey found that 83% of online shoppers need support while shopping (Source: Econsultancy). By having a chatbot readily available, we will be able to communicate with our audience more frequently. 

Research also found that companies that engaged with their customers on social media increased their customers’ spending by 20% to 40% (Source: Bain & Company). As chatbots increase our user engagement, we can also increase our sales. 

Jennifer shared the example of a large beverage company that did a big campaign for one of their soft drinks. They used a chatbot with a Halloween theme and gamified it. When a customer clicked on the chatbot, it took them through a game that eventually ended with a coupon for their drink. This helped the company increase its engagement by about 60%. 

Another example Jennifer shared was from a retail company. She helped them create an augmented reality chatbot experience. While a customer shopped for sunglasses through the chatbot, they could “try on'' different sunglasses through an augmented reality layer to see what they looked like on their face. “The user engagement exploded and the buy-ins were just unbelievable,” Jennifer said.  

The Dangers of Chatbots

Just because a chatbot may be beneficial for some businesses, this doesn’t mean it will benefit every business. If we want to install a chatbox, there has to be a great use for it. We should ask ourselves, “How will this improve my customer’s experience?”

Jennifer said that one of the biggest mistakes she made in her career was overcomplicating things, which was a waste of time and money. There is a power in simplicity and sometimes a chatbot may take away from that.   We should only use a chatbot if we believe it will help the customer.

Chatbots have the danger of taking away the personalized touch. With chatbots, we need to be very careful with the fine line between efficiency and human connection. There is a certain extent to which technology can help. Past that point, it makes the experience more frustrating. Chatbots are an effective way to help with level 1 customer service questions. However, if customers have a more complex issue, they should be able to reach a real person. If a chatbot can’t provide the right help, it begins to feel more like an obstacle standing in the way between the customer and the customer service representative. 

When I asked Jennifer for her best advice about retaining human touch while implementing a chatbot, she said we should:

1. Get multiple opinions and feedback on our chatbot.  
2. Make sure the chatbot has the right personality and brand voice. 
3. Focus on conversational design. We need to make sure the conversation is natural.

If we decide a chatbot is right for our business, we can take the next steps to create one that fits our brand’s personality. We should only choose to use a chatbot after significant research and time to determine if it is the right solution for our business. 

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Jennifer for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. Chatbots can help save a company and customers lots of time. They can maintain a 24/7 response system so the customers can have constant access to communication.
2. Chatbots can help reduce customer service costs and increase customer sales. 
3. Chatbots can help increase efficiency.
4. Chatbots are scalable and data-driven. They can take frequently asked questions or common problems and turn them into data we can use to improve the customer experience. 
5. Chatbots can increase user engagement.
6. If we want to install a chatbot, there should be a great use case for it
7. Chatbots have the danger of overcomplicating things and reducing personalized connection. 

Connect with Jennifer

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Jennifer or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn or her company’s website chatc.ai. 

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?

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2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
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5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

Do you use chatbots? If so, what benefits have you seen? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/128-5-benefits-of-chatbots/ 

Welcome back to another episode with Jason McDonald. In the first episode, we talked about the benefits of publishing a book on Amazon. In today’s episode, we’ll discuss five secrets of personal branding. 

Personal Brands vs Business Brands 

A personal brand is built around our name and personality whereas a business brand is built on a new, independent identity, separate from ourselves. 

Becoming personalized in our brands and businesses is becoming more and more crucial to success. A study found that 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product or service from a brand that provides a personalized experience (Source: Forbes). As we develop a personal brand, we increasingly resonate with our audience. 

“I think personal branding is the most underrated skill that people have today,” Jason said. “Everyone needs a personal brand.” He continued, “People do business with people, not with brands per se, and so personal branding is a recognition of the strength of that.”

Elon Musk is one of the best examples of a personal brand. If we asked a group of people who the CEO of Tesla is, the large majority could tell us it’s Elon Musk. But if we asked that same group of people who the CEO of Ford is, the large majority wouldn’t know. The same applies to Toyota and Honda. Very few people could name their CEOs. This is what personal branding is—putting a face to our businesses. 

Tesla doesn’t have a public relations person who controls the company’s Twitter account. Elon Musk Twitter account is the primary Twitter account. He’s the one talking to people and connecting with them. That movement is highly appealing to people. 

5 Secrets to Personal Branding

As we create and develop our personal brand, we strengthen our relationships with our customers and have higher success rates. As a consultant in personal branding, Jason gave five secrets to help us build our personal brands. 

• Become a Helpful Expert

After we determine our personal brand and find what makes us unique, we need to become a helpful expert in that area. 

We should figure out what we want to be helpful in and then do it. The first step to building a personal brand is all about providing value and giving back to our customers and inviting people to follow and trust us. Once we’ve determined how we can be helpful, then we need to become an expert in that area of expertise. 

According to Malcolm Gladwell, anyone can become an expert in nearly any field as long as they devote 10,000 hours to studying and practicing the subject or skill (Source: VeryWellMind.com). To become an expert, we simply need to take the time and resources to learn and grow in that one specific thing. We can take what little knowledge we have and start to build our personal brand, building our expertise on the internet even before we actually feel like an expert.

“We live in this era of personal brands,” Jason said. “It’s your brand on the internet. Where you position yourself generally is what I call a helpful expert in a certain topic.” 

If we go back to the example of Elon Musk, we see that he takes his personal brand and makes himself the expert on it. He’s very good at getting his name in the media and connecting his name with being an entrepreneur. 

We can’t just assume everyone will figure out what our personal brand is on their own. We need to make what we stand for, what values we have, and our personality obvious on our website, social media channels, and other platforms. As we do this, our audience will slowly come to believe we are an expert in our field. As we become an expert and share our knowledge, we gain credibility. 

In a way, we make ourselves an expert by projecting our personal brand consistently and constantly. Musk did just that. He shows and tells the media that he is a great entrepreneur until they believe him. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

• Learn the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 

Jason said he is an expert at making something out of nothing. “How do you know that I'm an expert on SEO? You go to Amazon and you see my book or you Google ‘SEO expert San Francisco’ and you find me. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he explained. 

After we’ve dedicated ourselves to becoming an expert in our niche area, we have to show it to the world. We need to take action ourselves. We need to develop our online presence and show our audience why they should believe we are an expert. If our personal brand includes social media marketing, we should write a book on it, be active on every social media channel, write a blog, and more. Then, when someone searches for our topic, our name will show up. Eventually, we will become the leading expert in that topic according to our consumers. 

“What are the signals that people look for that establish you as an expert in [your] area? You've got to create those signals,” Jason said. 

What is going to validate the truth of what we say? For many people, this signal can be something as simple as how many followers we have on our social media channels. Jason describes this as an illusion of being successful since it is grounded in something that doesn’t necessarily reveal our expertise. Having a million followers doesn’t prove we know what we’re talking about, but it does show our audience that we offer value that one million people are willing to trust. 

One platform Jason uses to fulfill the self-fulfilling prophecy is LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, he has over 500 connections. He also creates videos and posts about SEO, telling the world he is an expert. With enough content and enough followers, people will eventually start to believe it. 

“People are going to go to my LinkedIn, and they're going to see I have over 500 connections, and I have a lot of videos, and I have a lot of content. I create the illusion on LinkedIn that I'm really successful,” Jason said. Eventually, with time, the illusion fades until we actually do become successful and an expert.

• Find a Movement 

Personal branding is often about finding a movement or tectonic shift and taking advantage of it. Success isn’t just based on building a great personal brand; it is also about watching the marketplace and our customers. 

Going back to Elon Musk, his company isn’t just about Tesla or SpaceX. It's also about the electric car movement, green energy, and space exploration movement. Musk became the face of electric cars and space exploration, appealing to a specific market that already existed. Musk didn’t create the desire for green energy, he tapped into the movement already there and substantially increased that movement through his influence. He resonated with the culture and things already happening. 

Jason once read that marketing doesn’t create demand, it moves the demand forward.

Jason writes books to help build his credibility and establish his expertise. He has found that the books that succeed are the ones that resonate with an already-existing audience. We should think about what demand is already out there that we can directly target.

• Become a Detective 

If we aren’t sure how to build our personal brand on certain platforms, we simply need to do the research. We need to become detectives. 

One of the newest social media platforms is TikTok. TikTok launched in 2016 and has exploded in popularity with 689 million active monthly users worldwide (Source: DataReportal, 2021). With so many active users, this platform has the potential to give our company access to millions of people. 

Many businesses may wonder how they can take advantage of TikTok to help build their personal brand. A great way to discover how we can use new platforms such as TikTok is by looking at what our competitors are doing. Researching our competitors is a great way to determine how we can effectively share our personal brand. 

“One of the things I try to teach people in my class is [to] learn to be a good detective or to go look at other brands and see what they're doing. Take a brand and [do a] simple Google search,” Jason said. 

• Be Aware of the Permanent Record

The internet never forgets. As we develop our personal brand, we need to be aware of everything we put onto the internet. One silly tweet from 10 years ago can still damage our personal brand today. 

“The internet is like an elephant, it never forgets. If I could give one [piece of] advice to people, [it is] before you tweet before you create that TikTok before you create that Instagram post, think about the downstream implications that this could have for your whole life. . . . We clearly live in an era in which you're leaving this massive digital footprint, and it can really come back and get you,” Jason said. 

Before we post anything online, we need to consider the future implications of that post, especially as we build our personal brand. Not only should we avoid posting negative things, but we should also seek to post positive, impactful things. Just as something bad can come back to bite us, good things can also leave a lasting impact, and come back to benefit us in the future. 

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Jason for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. Building a personal brand is becoming crucial to success. People connect with people.
2. We need to become helpful experts in our specific field. 
3. We should create signals that tell our audience we are an expert. 
4. Personal branding is often about finding a movement or tectonic shift and taking advantage of it.
5. Before we post anything online, think about the effects it could have on our personal brand now and in the future.

Connect with Jason

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Jason or connect with him, you can find him on his LinkedIn or his website, jasonmcdonald.org. You can also find his books on Amazon. 

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?

Did you like today’s episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

How have you built your personal brand? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/127-5-secrets-of-building-a-personal-brand/ 

Jason McDonald is an author, teacher, and consultant focused on personal branding, SEO, social media marketing, and Google ads. He has an undergraduate degree from Harvard, a master’s and a Ph.D. from Berkeley, and he teaches at Stanford. He also has many bestselling books on digital marketing topics available on Amazon. 

In today’s episode, we’re going to discuss why we should create digital products and publish a book on Amazon. 

Jason’s Journey

Jason studied at Berkeley for six years while working towards his Ph.D. For two of those years, he lived in Europe and wrote his dissertation on economic policy in Eastern Europe. Once he graduated, he began working with a computer reseller start-up to grow international sales, becoming familiar with the internet for the first time. 

His first experience with the internet inspired him to start an email newsletter for design engineers which got him into SEO. About 10 years later, he discovered he was good at teaching. He had a friend who encouraged him to teach a class, and that’s when Jason began teaching SEO in San Francisco. He enjoyed it so much he eventually started teaching for Stanford and also began publishing. 

Building a Skill Set 

The ability to publish books on Amazon has been a huge blessing in Jason’s career. 

While Jason was teaching a class at Stanford, he thought it would be a good idea to try writing a book on SEO. He already had the knowledge and just needed to learn the skills to get it published. He put in the time and research and learned how to publish a book on Amazon and get it set up on Kindle and CreateSpace. He published his book on Amazon which started to generate around $30,000 a year in royalty revenue and established his name in his industry. 

“There are people who think you're born with a certain skill, like ‘I'm born and I'm able to do the math.’ I really think that’s a terrible attitude. A better attitude is, ‘I want to have this skill, and I'm going to learn how to do this skill. I'm going to invest in the skill and get good at this skill.’ I didn't know that much about how to publish a book on Amazon at the time, but I really dug into it. . . . I created that skill set by just saying, ‘I'm going to do this,’” Jason said. 

Jason didn’t have the skill set to publish a book, so he developed it. If we want to be an expert at something, we have to put in the work. It’s not a matter of being born with or without a certain skill, it’s a matter of drive and determination.  

“You have to decide you want the skill set,” Jason said. “That's how you want to think about your skills in life. . . . It really hurts people when they think, ‘Gosh, I could never do that.’ That's self-defeating.” 

Are we willing to pay the price? Are we willing to put in the time and resources it takes to develop a new skill? We have the ability to pick what we want to be an expert in, we just have to pay the price. It’s often said that if we put in 10,000 hours into something, we can become one of the world's leading experts in it.

One of the best skill sets we can learn is creating a digital product. While we may not have the skills naturally to create a digital product, we can put in the time and effort to learn how and develop those skills. 

There is an old saying that goes, “It doesn’t matter how much milk you spill as long as you don’t lose your cow.” As entrepreneurs, there will often be “spillage” and wasteful decisions as we start trying to learn something new. However, our mistakes don’t matter as much if we keep trying. What we see as failure may not have a huge impact on the bigger picture or an impact on our revenue. 

Publishing a Book on Amazon

When I asked Jason what his best monetization secret is, he said it is to create a digital product. For him, that digital product was his books. 

“If you have a special kind of knowledge or if you're an expert in ‘x’ . . . you should write a book,” Jason said. “ If you can create a digital product, which is what books are these days, you can create a passive income stream around that product.”

Books not only provide a passive income stream, but they also build our credibility. Writing a book shows our customers our knowledge. As we really become an expert in our specific field, we can write a book to establish our name. However, we need to make sure we write a book with a purpose. We shouldn’t publish a digital book just to show off our knowledge; we need to write a book that will provide value to our audience.

For example, college students will look for books on financial aid, budgeting, easy home-cooked meals, relationship advice, and more. We need to write a book that answers a question for someone or solves a problem for them. A new parent may purchase a dozen books on baby names and how to raise a kid. If we can answer a question or solve a problem, a book can really be a great source of revenue. Jason was able to do this with the topic of SEO. He wrote a book on what he was an expert on, answered questions and solved problems for his audience, and then made around $30,000 a year off the royalty revenues of his book. 

It is very common for people to turn to a book when they are trying to solve a problem. According to the Pew Research Center, the average American reads about 12 books a year. If we can make our book the #1 in its category, we have a good chance of success. 

“One of the things I've learned in business is you want to fish where the fish are,” Jason said. “Certain markets, like the book market, have a defined player (Amazon) where all the action is. And Amazon has made it very easy for people to publish and find books.”

Amazon has a system that allows anyone to self-publish a book relatively easily. All we have to do is write it. Once we do, publishing takes less than five minutes and our book appears on Kindle stores worldwide within 48 hours (Source: Amazon). Amazon also allows us to earn up to 70% in royalty sales to customers and stay in control of our prices. Instead of going through a publisher, we can do it on our own from our homes. 

Amazon is a great platform to take advantage of for book publishing. “Amazon dominates the book market. It's where people go for books,” Jason said. “Think about areas where there is a defined marketplace that you can then insert yourself.”

The Association of American Publishers filed a statement in 2019 with the Federal Trade Commission, saying, “A year ago, The New York Times reported that Amazon controlled 50 percent of all book distribution, but for some industry suppliers, the actual figure may be much higher, with Amazon accounting for more than 70 or 80 percent of sales.” (Source: Publishing Perspectives). 

We can leverage Amazon to potentially reach millions of people and get our book out there. There are currently 150 million Amazon Prime subscribers, a 50 percent increase from 100 million in April 2018 (Source: VentureBeat) and even more people use Amazon without Prime. 

Just because millions of people are on Amazon, that doesn’t mean we have millions of people looking at our book. In 2020, there were 48.5 million books on Amazon (Source: JustPublishingAdvice). Becoming an expert in our field and answering a problem our customers are trying to solve gives us a competitive edge in this vast book market on Amazon. 

Another digital product that builds our credibility and can create recurring revenue is online courses. Online courses are a great way to provide value to our customers. We can share our knowledge and teach them how to do something they need help with. However, the disadvantage with online courses is that there isn’t one platform that dominates that platform as Amazon does with books. Jason believes that publishing a digital book on Amazon is one of the best digital products we can use to our advantage. 

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Jason for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. We have to decide what skill set we want and then put in the time and effort to become an expert in it.
2. One of the best skill sets we can learn as entrepreneurs are how to create digital products.
3. Books provide a passive income stream and build our credibility.
4. Amazon is a great platform to take advantage of because it dominates the book market and makes publishing relatively easy. 
5. We should become an expert in our field and answer a question or solve a problem for our customers.
6. If we can make our book the #1 in its category, we have a high chance of success. 

Connect with Jason

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Jason or connect with him, you can find him on his LinkedIn or his website, jasonmcdonald.org. You can also find his books on Amazon. 

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?

Did you like today’s episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

Have you published a book on Amazon? If so, what advice can you share? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers. 

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/126-why-entrepreneurs-should-publish-a-book-on-amazon/ 

Welcome back to another episode of Monetization Nation with Sam Mallikarjunan. In the previous episode, we discussed how to market ourselves and how to get a job with our dream company. Sam shared a creative strategy he used to get a  recruiter from his dream company to contact him within 3 hours and 26 minutes.  

Sam is the co-author of the book, Inbound Commerce: How to Sell Better Than Amazon, which is ironically the number one bestseller in its category on Amazon. In today’s episode, we’ll discuss inbound commerce and the buyer’s journey. 

Inbound Commerce

In Sam’s book, he explores e-commerce applications of inbound marketing and emphasizes the importance of using content and engagement to create likable marketing. 

Inbound marketing is a business system that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences targeted to them (Source: HubSpot). Inbound marketing attracts customers while outbound marketing interrupts them through methods such as sales calls or ads on social media. 

“What if instead of being as obnoxious as possible, marketers actually tried to create experiences that people wanted to have? Instead of interrupting people, could you create something that drew them to you instead of cold calling? For example, could you create content that educated them?” Sam said. 

Sam first discovered HubSpot because he was drawn to their educational content. A great way to get customers is through the methods of inbound commerce. We should be creating value our customers will naturally want instead of imposing products or services on them they aren’t really interested in. Our content, services, and products should bring our customers to us, not the other way around. 

“If you just cold call people, you're not going to be nearly as effective as if you’re really good at educating them and creating that inbound experience to bring them to you,” Sam said.

Sam saw a survey in which marketers were rated as less trustworthy than car salesmen, politicians, and lobbyists. This is the exact opposite of what we want to see. Customers should feel they can trust us. Inbound marketing forces us to create products or services our customers will actually value. This will build trust and strengthen customer relations.

Jeff Bezos, founder, and CEO of Amazon said, 

"One thing I learned within the first couple of years of starting a company is that inventing and pioneering involve a willingness to be misunderstood for long periods of time. One of the early examples of this is customer reviews. Someone wrote to me and said, 'You don't understand your business. You make money when you sell things. Why do you allow these negative customer reviews?' And when I read that letter, I thought, we don't make money when we sell things. We make money when we help customers make purchase decisions."

This is a core goal of inbound marketing. We need to create an experience that our customers like and that provides them value. We need to create an experience that builds trust. The goal needs to be about helping our customers make a decision on their stages of the buyer’s journey, and then continue to drive their repurchase cycle. 

The Buyer’s Journey

When I asked Sam to share one of his monetization strategies, he said it is to understand the marketing funnel and the buyer's journey. 

We have to solve problems for each of the different stages of the buyer’s journey: awareness, consideration, and the decision stage. We can’t only focus on building awareness and staying dialed in on website traffic and leads. We also can’t only focus on the final purchase decision. We need to have the entire buyer’s journey in mind if we want to optimize conversions and gain lifetime customers. One of the biggest mistakes Sam sees is people getting too focused on only one part of the marketing funnel. 

To really understand what our customers’ needs are at each stage of their journey, we need to do research. We have to take the time to look at the data and combine that with analysis to get an accurate understanding of who our customers are. 

The first stage of the marketing funnel or the buyer’s journey is awareness. Building awareness should be focused on inbound marketing, not outbound. To raise awareness, we shouldn’t be cold calling or constantly using targeted ads necessarily. We want our customers to come to us because they are interested in what we have to offer. We should be doing research and getting good at providing valuable education for our consumers. Throughout the consideration stage and decision stage, we should educate our customers—it should be a continuous cycle of education.

“Once [customers] buy from you, it means they have purchased one thing from you, but they are back in the awareness and research [stage of] a buyer’s journey for whatever they're going to buy next,” Sam said. 

If we want to gain customer retention, we need to remember that a one-time buyer is not a customer. They should go back to the first stage of the buyer’s journey, and we need to treat them as if they are a first-time buyer again. We need to educate them all over again. 

Sam explained that if we make the incentive for our products about price, Amazon is going to “kick our butt.” But, if we make it about a continuous cycle of education and awareness, we’ll win customer lifetime value. 

A Challenger’s Mindset

Part of focusing on the buyer’s journey includes having a challenger’s mindset. If we don’t adapt to tectonic shifts, we’re not going to make it, and so it is essential we constantly challenge our methods and systems to make sure we are doing things in the best way possible. Sam advises we challenge our core principles frequently.

“I can be a $100 billion company today, but it is not guaranteed that I'm a company at all five years from now,” Sam said. “Create that challenger mindset inside your own organization. . . . [Ask yourself,] is there anything I don't know about my customer that somebody could create value for them in a way that I wasn't expecting and kill [my] company really, really fast?”

We need to make sure we are always providing value for our customers because if someone else solves a problem for our customers that we didn’t know about, we’ll have lost a portion of our audience. 

We need to make sure we are researching every part of the buyer’s journey all the time. We need to be looking at the data, analyzing it, pulling insights out of it, and then making a change where necessary. If we can adapt to the changes in our market and the changes in our customers’ needs, we’ll be much more likely to survive in the business world. 

Millennials make up about 30% of the American population and they are the most diverse generational cohort in US history (Source: Deloitte Insights). Not only are they diverse, but they have constant, changing needs. They are constantly looking for new, fast, and easy ways to solve their problems, and if someone solves their needs before we do, we’ll lose their loyalty. One-third of adults aged 23-38 are quick to drop a brand that doesn’t meet expectations (Source: Brightpearl). We need to make sure we are quick to meet their changing needs. 

If we have a challenger’s mindset, we will be more likely to solve a potential problem, before an actual problem arises. This will help our businesses stay ahead of the game and increase our customer lifetime value. 

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Sam for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. Instead of interrupting our customers through methods such as sales calls or ads on social media, we should attract them by creating valuable content and experiences targeted to them.
2. We need to have the entire buyer’s journey in mind if we want to gain a lifetime customer. 
3. Our buyer’s journey should be a continuous cycle of providing education and value. 
4. A one-time buyer is not a customer. They go back to the first stage of the buyer’s journey after they have made a single purchase. 
5. We need to have a challenger’s mindset. If we don’t adapt to tectonic shifts, we’re not going to make it. It is essential we frequently challenge our business methods and systems. 

Connect with Sam

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Sam or connect with him, you can find him on his LinkedIn or visit his website, www.onescreen.ai. 

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?

Did you like today’s episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

Do you use inbound marketing? If so, what is your best inbound marketing strategy? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/125-understanding-inbound-commerce-and-the-buyers-journey/