Podcasting Secrets

86% of consumers suffer from banner blindness. This means that they consciously or subconsciously ignore information that looks like an advertising banner, even if it contains the information they are looking for (Infolinks).

Furthermore, a study on adblocker usage in the United States, found that 45% of respondents aged 15 to 25 said they used an adblocker. The same was true for 42% of respondents between 26 and 33, and respondents between 46 and 55. (Statista)

Why are so many businesses focusing their advertising campaigns around advertising banners, when the vast majority of internet users are ignoring or blocking those advertising banners?

With the proliferation of adblockers and users ignoring ads online, it is becoming harder for advertisers to get their messages to potential customers. One way to get around adblockers and banner blindness are through native advertising. Native as are 60% more engaging and 3x more memorable than traditional advertising (source: IHS).

Todd Handy, a native advertising expert, will share his insights in today’s episode. Todd Handy is the chief digital officer at Beasley Media Group, which runs 65 radio stations in 15 markets. He is an endurance athlete who has done LoToJa, a 206-mile race from Logan, UT to Jackson Hole, WY, 11 years in a row. He was the CEO of Intermountain Hearing Centers and was a sales manager at AOL during its heyday.

What is native advertising?

Native advertising is the use of paid ads that look, feel, and function like the media format in which they appear. They are often found in social media feeds or as recommended or sponsored content in the content feed of a website. Native ads usually are valuable pieces of content or features that are part of the native functionality of the site and don't really look like ads. Consumers look at native ads 53% more than display ads, and they create an 18% increase in purchase intent (Source: Outbrain.com).

Why Use Native Advertising

Native advertising has been a tectonic shift away from banner ads, partly because native advertising helps solve the problems with banner blindness and ad blockers. Native advertising provides value first with the information it gives, and as such can help establish the credibility of the advertiser. Contrast that to banner ads which generally focus on persuading users to click and then buy their product or service, before the advertiser has provided any value to the users. 

Success with Native Advertising

A little while ago, Todd helped work on an article called “10 Ways to Know You’re a Utah Driver.” This article was sponsored by a personal injury attorney. It’s difficult for personal injury attorneys to advertise because we don’t need them until we’ve had an injury. Because of this, PI attorneys are constantly trying to build their brand so that people know who to contact when they get in an accident. The article this PI attorney sponsored went viral because of its content, taking the attorney along for the ride. This virality helped the attorney build their brand and get their name out there.

In 2013 while Todd and I were working at Deseret Digital Media, our sponsored content or native advertising was taking off. We had the opportunity to go to a large conference with many big companies. This conference enabled us to be at the forefront of seeing what was working and what wasn’t in the advertising world. Todd also put together an entire conference around sponsored advertising.

AOL and CompuServe

Todd worked for AOL during its most popular time. AOL started out with an hourly model. Users paid based on how many hours they used AOL’s services. When AOL switched to a flat-rate monthly model, their customers suddenly increased the amount of time they spent using their dial-up service. The problem was that this was in the days of dial-up internet, and with the increased usage their customers frequently encountered busy signals. CompuServe, one of AOL’s competitors, decided to take advantage of this situation. A 30-second Super Bowl ad that year spent almost all of the ad playing the busy signal from AOL. Then at the end of the ad CompuServe gave their phone number: 1-888-NOT-BUSY. Although this ad does not fit the description of native advertising. Compuserve created an entertaining, memorable and unexpected ad aimed at solving a pain point of their target audience. 

Shifting Businesses with Tectonic Shifts: Analog to Digital

Todd was the CEO of Intermountain Hearing Centers, a business founded on an antiquated model of advertising. People who use hearing aids are usually older people who would go to a phone book to find hearing aid companies. The internet and specifically Google changed how people search for companies and their products and services. Todd and his associates became very good at bidding on key search terms related to hearing aids, so in a Google search, they were one of the first companies shown in the results. They took a business that was founded on an antiquated model of yellow page advertising and transformed the company through the tectonic shift of digital advertising. 

Focusing on Low Prices vs Target Market

Todd and I talked about some of the successful examples of credibility marketing he has seen. There seems to be a difference between brands like Walmart that focus on having low prices and brands such as Allstate or Home Depot that focus on their target market. Allstate’s slogan is "You're in Good Hands with Allstate." They know, being an insurance company, it is important to their customers that they feel taken care of, so they strive to do that. Home Depot’s slogan is all about doers because they know that their customers want to get things done. So their focus is all about helping them do more. In our marketing, we can choose whether we want to focus on low prices or our customers. 

Tips for Setting Up Recurring Revenue

 (Source: blog.fusebill.com) So how do we implement subscription business models or recurring revenue streams? Todd gives us a couple of tips.

Todd had an opportunity to build an inside sales team. One of the things he coached this team on was not saying, “that’s $500,” to the advertiser. Instead, he told them to say, “that’s $500 monthly.” It’s essentially the same thing, but it immediately sets up an ongoing transaction. This monthly cost also allowed them to set up a system to charge their credit card monthly instead of calling them every month to complete the transaction. because they told the advertisers upfront that it was a monthly cost. Todd and his team let them cancel at any time. With these strategies, their recurring revenue increased every year.

Key Takeaways

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

1. Native advertising may be a great way to solve the mounting problems with ad blockers and banner blindness. 
2. Consider using native advertising to provide value first before trying to sell.
3. Native advertising can help build a sponsor’s branding and credibility.
4. As CompuServe did with their ad, we can take advantage of the situation around our businesses and niches and turn it into something unexpected and entertaining to help promote our products and services.
5. When tectonic shifts happen, we must shift our businesses to match those tectonic shifts and leverage them.
6. Consider which focus will help our businesses best succeed: low prices or focusing on providing top-quality products and services to our target market. We often cannot have both. 
7. We can establish our revenue models to be immediately recurring with a few simple words to our customers.

Connect with Todd

If you enjoyed this interview and want to connect with Todd or his company, you can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddjhandy/ or at bbgi.com. 

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. Connect with Nathan Gwilliam on Linkedin. 
6. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

What problems have you seen with advertising banners and what success have you seen with native advertising? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/49-how-native-advertising-can-help-solve-banner-blindness-and-ad-blocker-problems/

Recurring revenue models can provide our businesses with many benefits. “The recurring revenue model is the model most commonly used by businesses because it is predictable and it assures the company’s source of revenue as ongoing.” (Source: corporatefinanceinstitute.com)

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/48-why-you-should-consider-implementing-a-recurring-revenue-model-in-your-business/

Recurring revenue models can provide our businesses with many benefits. “The recurring revenue model is the model most commonly used by businesses because it is predictable and it assures the company’s source of revenue as ongoing.” (Source: corporatefinanceinstitute.com) In addition, introducing subscription-based services or recurring revenue models to our products or services could increase our valuation by up to eight times that of a comparable business with little recurring revenue (Source: fusebill.com). 

Katie Harris is one of the managing partners at Get Found First, a digital agency that specializes in PPC (pay per click) advertising. She is also a member of the Forbes Agency Council. In today’s episode, Katie Harris and I discuss the benefits of the recurring revenue model.

Benefits of a Recurring Revenue Model

According to Katie, recurring revenue is one of the greatest things ever created for a business owner. Katie has clients that work in all areas of business. Some have recurring revenue models and some don’t, but Katie has seen many of the benefits recurring revenue can provide. 

She thinks those clients with recurring revenue models sleep better at night, not having to worry about making the next payroll. Recurring revenue provides stability in a bad economy or bad times. With recurring revenue business owners have some idea of what cash flow is going to look like month to month, which is incredibly important to allow for planning, investment, hiring, and growth. Recurring revenue takes away a lot of the risk. Another benefit to a recurring revenue model is it frees us up to be a little bit more creative with our businesses instead of having to focus on making payroll each month. Recurring revenue can also make it a lot easier to make long-term decisions. Once we have a recurring revenue model in place, we just have to look at what is the next thing our clients need and how can we offer that product or service that they’re going to need.

“If there’s a way you can look at your business and find a way to create a recurring revenue model somehow within it, your days will be better.” -Katie Harris

Restoration Companies and Recurring Revenue

Katie works with a lot of restoration companies, and it is very difficult to implement recurring revenue within restoration companies. Recurring revenue is the most common challenge her clients face no matter what part of the country they’re in. There just isn’t an inherent recurring revenue model for restoration. That means cash flow is always a challenge because they might be so busy in December when weather events hit, when pipes freeze, or basements flood but come March or April and they’re wondering how they’re going to keep their employees busy. A recurring revenue model takes a lot of that inconsistency, instability, and risk out of the equation. 

For example, many of Katie’s clients pair restoration and cleaning together. Katie had one client that only focused on the restoration aspect of the business. Year after year this client was struggling to keep their employees busy at certain times of the year. Then, they added carpet cleaning services, which was an easy way to implement a recurring revenue model. The client purchased all the equipment, and they already had relationships with potential clients from their restoration work, so they could easily set up a model where they clean a customer’s house every 90 days and the customer pays for that every month. They were able to keep their employees busy and apply a recurring revenue model to the business that gave their business much more stability.

Recurring Revenue and Building Long-Lasting Relationships

Something that has been important to Katie is when she has a recurring client, she has a longer period of time to build a relationship with that client. It is so important to move from a vendor-client relationship to a strong relationship. For those first 30 days, Katie and her associates are still a vendor to their clients, but then they start to connect with their customers in a different way, showing them they really care about their business. 

At Get Found First, they look at the first 90 days as a time to build a strong relationship and connect with their client. Their recurring revenue model is not automated in the sense that a client buys something once and never hears from them again. Instead, their model is set up in such a way that the relationship grows month after month, getting better and stronger.

This model also gives them time to get to know their clients’ goals. They spend the time, in the beginning, to go in and understand the highest level passions of their target audience, in Katie’s case the business she works for. When we understand what those top priorities are, we can then build a relationship with them, connect with them, through those highest-level priorities and passions.

How COVID-19 has Impacted Katie’s Business

Initially, Katie’s business had a 20% decrease. It was heartbreaking for her to watch what was happening. Every business was unique, and each experienced a bit of a roller coaster in different ways. Get Found First had a client based in San Francisco that booked tours and travel for Japanese tourists, and COVID was extremely hard for businesses like that because they could not operate in the pandemic environment, and there was nothing Katie could do to help.

She also had clients that had to shut down because of orders by the state or different situations like that. Luckily, that was a very short-term thing and about 92% of those clients are back. They were also fortunate to have many clients doing e-commerce, who had record-breaking sales during the pandemic. The huge growth can also be stressful as they figure out how to deal with that many sales. 

Another large chunk of Katie’s business is focused on in-home care for the elderly, restoration services, sanitization services, or taking care of floods or other disasters. These services didn't stop, so for that Katie is very grateful that they had a strong client base in those industries.

Bridging the Credibility Gap

In the early years of Katie’s business, they had a hard time convincing people in their small town that they were really good at what they did; they couldn’t get people to do business with them, so they focused on getting business from other more populated areas like Chicago and California.

A representative from Google came to talk to Katie’s business and asked them about their local clients. Katie told him they didn’t have any local clients because they couldn’t convince them that they were trustworthy. The Google rep was incredulous. He told Katie, “you have a responsibility to take care of people in your local community. If you need to convince them, convince them, but you have a responsibility to do it.”

This changed Katie’s way of thinking. She started thinking about how to change these perceptions and build credibility. It was around this time that they had some great opportunities with Forbes and different recognitions from Google. They shared those points of credibility and it helped a bit.

Ultimately it came down to relationships and trust. The way she bridged that credibility gap was through talking to people and being real with them. Katie’s business hosted one-on-one meetings and joined the local chamber of commerce and BNI group, not to tell people how great they were, but to make connections and see how they could help people. It took time, but they were able to bridge that credibility gap.

Video Marketing

Katie’s first piece of advice when it comes to video marketing is to just start. It doesn’t have to be super professional as long as it is real. Stop waiting for it to be perfect. We can easily pull out our phones and film a genuine client and just let them talk. If we start somewhere our video will get better and better as we go.

Then we can start looking at what is common and what is going on in marketing. Right now we’re seeing major shifts in consumption of YouTube videos. They are being viewed at an unprecedented rate, and it’s only going to grow. Each day, people watch more than a billion hours of video on YouTube (Source: blog.hootsuite.com). 

Katie has a local client that sells appliances and furniture. They’re very successful, but they have an annual parking lot sale that has been a bit stagnant for the last couple of years. Katie helped them do some videos promoting it on social media. The sale was a huge success that year and those videos were the only thing that changed in their marketing.

Google and YouTube Ad Strategies

Katie has a few tips for using Google and YouTube ads. The first is to understand your audience. Google’s and YouTube’s audience targeting is fantastic, so the number one thing we have to do is figure out who our audience is. Sometimes who we think they are is not really who they are. We must take a look at our Google analytics and see what kind of secrets or insights about our audiences we can get from that. Then we can see how to implement targeting based on those audiences.

For example, we might think our best audience is a 40-year-old woman, but if we dig into our analytics and figure out our best audience is actually somebody who is really interested in the stock market and in traveling, now we’ve expanded the whole approach to who we can target.

Katie’s next tip is don’t be afraid to ask questions. Sometimes we waste a lot of time because we are afraid to ask for help or we don’t know who to ask. To solve this, we should find someone with experience and knowledge and simply ask them for help.

Katie’s last piece of advice is to subscribe to Think with Google. It's a free service with a lot of information that’s going to keep us on the cutting edge and keep us thinking big with forward-thinking.

Key Takeaways

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

1. Recurring revenue models can help business owners sleep better at night, provide stability, reduce risk, allow for more creativity, help us make long-term decisions, and plan for the future.
2. If there isn’t an inherent recurring revenue model for our business, we may be able to find things related to our business that we can set up in the recurring revenue model.
3. We can use the month-to-month or annual time that recurring revenue can give us to build stronger relationships with our customers.
4. If our businesses are experiencing a credibility gap, we may be able to bridge that gap by getting involved in the community, talking with people, and being authentic in the connections we make.
5. Start somewhere with video marketing. It often doesn’t have to be extremely professional at first.
6. When using Google and YouTube ads, use their analytics to learn about our audience. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and consider subscribing to Think with Google to stay informed.

Connect with Katie

If you enjoyed this interview and want to connect with Katie or her business, you can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-harris-idaho/ or reach out to her directly at [email protected]. 

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 feel recurring revenue is important for your business? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/48-why-you-should-consider-implementing-a-recurring-revenue-model-in-your-business/

I’ve seen numerous business ventures fail when they build metaphorical “skyscrapers” on “land” or platforms they don’t own.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/47-how-jon-stoddard-recovered-from-building-a-skyscraper-on-land-he-didnt-own/

I’ve seen numerous business ventures fail when they build metaphorical “skyscrapers” on “land” or platforms they don’t own. This happens when a business relies too much on a platform they don’t control like Google or Facebook and then the platform changes something and it destroys that business. The problem with this is that the business has no control over the “land” or the platform on which they have built their business. 

Jon Stoddard is a partner and Investor at Acquisition Partners. He was the CEO of Century Hearing Aids, which was the second-largest online seller of hearing aids. He worked in business development at Intuit, and he was the co-founder and VP of TurboSquid. He is also the author of Pitch Deck Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Attracting Investors to your Deal.

Recovering from Building a “Skyscraper” on “Land” We Don’t Own

Jon was working at Intuit when he realized he wanted to own his own business and not work for someone else. He knew one of the fastest ways to build a business and get revenue is by buying an existing business. So he bought a company that already had a website and a relationship with the manufacturers. Because the company’s advertising was making more money than it cost, his job to grow the business was pretty easy. All he had to do for a while was spend more money on Google Adwords. It was kind of like a money machine. If you put a dollar in and get two dollars out, then we just need to put more money into the money machine to grow our profits.  

Unfortunately, Google decided to make major changes to the way they displayed their advertising. Because of Google’s shift to more mobile-focused advertising, they eliminated ads on the right side of the page. Unfortunately, those side ads were where Jon was seeing the most effective return on his advertising. This change substantially increased Jon’s advertising cost. Jon discovered that his business was too dependent on one source of leads, but he quickly had to figure out other sources of advertising to reduce his dependence on Google.

Jon couldn’t profitably advertise in Google’s new system, so he had to do something different. He looked at Facebook, but he couldn’t really advertise hearing aids on Facebook because it’s a medical device, and Facebook has some restrictions on this type of advertising. Instead, he tried inbound content marketing, answering every question related to hearing aid he could (how to read an audiogram, how to change your hearing aid battery, how to clean your hearing aid battery, etc.). Jon published 100 videos online answering these questions. He put the videos up on Facebook and whichever video got the most engagement he would just retarget to that video again and again.

He also sought testimonial videos from customers. He would often get them from these men that were 75 or 80 years old, sitting there stoically saying, “I love these hearing aids.” Those videos did really well and led to sales. So Jon’s advertising model changed completely after moving away from Google Adwords, and he grew the business to be the second-largest online seller of hearing aids.

Trying to Do Everything

When Jon went to sell the business, he was talking to a potential buyer who asked him how much time he spent on the business. Jon told him he spent 60-70 hours a week on it. He was taking all the orders from customers and doing too much. 

The buyer was appalled. He told Jon that he should only be spending 15-30 hours a week; he should be optimizing his tools and outsourcing. That way someone will buy the business because they can easily add that to their other businesses because it is running automatically.

Jon took the next year, not only moving to the new funnel and advertising sources, but also automating all of his systems, outsourcing everything he could, and taking himself out of much of the day-to-day operations. He got to the point he didn’t have to do anything except just make sure things were running well. When he put the business up for sale again, Jon received offers in 24 hours and sold it in three days.

"Rule a kingdom as though you were cooking a small fish - don't overdo it." -Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese philosopher, writer, and founder of philosophical Taoism

Competing with an Insurance Company

The margins for hearing aids were fantastic. Jon could buy a hearing aid for $135 and sell it for $795. The problem, and one of the reasons Jon wanted to sell the business, is there was no upsell, cross-sell, or down-sell. There was just one product. 

One of Jon’s major competitors was an insurance company. He couldn’t compete with them because, even though their hearing aids were the same price, they could spend unlimited amounts of money to acquire a customer, and all they have to do is sell a small number of health insurance policies to make a lot more money than Jon. In other words, they could easily outspend Jon on the advertising because they could make a much higher profit per order.

Part of the reason that an insurance policy as a monetization element is so valuable because it’s recurring. Unlike the one-time sale of a hearing aid, the insurance policy is a product that delivers a monthly revenue stream. The valuations are so much more on recurring revenue models.

Providing Value

Jon hired a digital agency to help him redo his website or funnel. On his new funnel, Jon gave away a free lead magnet to provide value, establish a relationship, and capture leads of site visitors. The agency helped Jon implement the 7 laws of persuasion into Jon’s website, showed customer reviews and testimonials, and worked on the conversion funnel to increase his sales. As a result, over a period of four months conversions improved by 220%, revenue by 300%, and profits by 3000%.

Goodwill

“In many cases, the amount of money you make will be in direct proportion to the amount of goodwill you have in your market.” -Frank Kern, internet marketer and copywriter

Jon feels that the vast majority of the initial communication between businesses and customers happens on Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. So we have to send out goodwill on those platforms to build up trust in our brand. We have to create products and content that people care about to add value to our relationships. We must show people how we can help them, otherwise, we will lose their interest.

When we provide value it turns into a credibility spiral, building every time we deliver. To boost our credibility spirals, we can over-deliver on the value we add and nurture our relationships. Then we’ll be able to reach the point where they’re willing to pay for those high-ticket purchases.

Million Dollar Pitch Deck

When Jon was working at TurboSquid, they needed to raise money. Jon found that he really liked this. He enjoyed writing the marketing plan, looking at resources, what they need to do, and how they’re going to get it done.

He started offering this service with free training on pitch decks, going through all the necessary slides in a deck, what’s behind each, and why they need to be in the deck

Jon’s advice on pitch decks is to make sure we know our numbers, market, and how we’re going to succeed more than anyone else. He said if your pitch deck looks like a high school hypothesis, it will be easily dismissed. People would rather put money into a company that they know the facts about, so it can’t just be a high school hypothesis. It must be a proven business.

“You need to know your numbers, your market, and how you’re going to get there better than anyone else.” -Jon Stoddard

Certainty

People are often willing to pay a lot more for certainty. Let's say there’s a 90% chance that the funnels someone creates for us are going to be successful. We may be willing to pay that person $200,000 to build that funnel. However, let’s say someone like Russell Brunson has a 100% certainty that the funnel he creates for us is going to make $20 million. We will easily pay $1 million dollars for that. So, what can we do to increase the certainty that our products and services will help our customers achieve their desired outcomes?

Key Takeaways

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

1. Don’t rely on only one source of advertising, especially when that is a source we can’t control.
2. We can recover from building skyscrapers on land we don’t own by diversifying our advertising sources and moving to platforms we can control, such as gathering email addresses of potential customers.
3. When running a business it is important to not try to do too much of the work ourselves. Creating a business that can run without us can give us a much better entrepreneurial lifestyle, and it can be much more attractive to potential buyers.
4. Just like Jon’s competitor added an upsell insurance policy, we should strive to add in other upsell products or services. We want to make more money per sale than any of our competitors. One of the best ways to achieve this is to implement recurring revenue streams.
5. When creating pitch decks it is important to know our numbers, market, and how we’re going to differentiate our business to succeed. Investors are more likely to invest in a proven business, not a hypothesis.
6. People are willing to pay a lot more for certainty.

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.

Connect with Jon

If you enjoyed this interview and want to connect with Jon or his company, you can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonstoddard/ or visit his website at https://www.investorattractionsecrets.com/. 

Share Your Story 

Have you seen others recover from building a skyscraper on land they don’t own? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/47-how-jon-stoddard-recovered-from-building-a-skyscraper-on-land-he-didnt-own/

What is your greatest pet peeve as a manager? In this episode, I’m going to share my greatest pet peeve as a manager, and I’m going to share with you the story that I tell my team to help them understand our culture, what we expect from great team members, and what it takes to thrive in our organization.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/46-my-biggest-pet-peeve-as-a-manager-and-the-story-i-use-to-help-our-team-understand-what-we-expect/

What is your greatest pet peeve as a manager? In this episode, I’m going to share my greatest pet peeve as a manager, and I’m going to share with you the story that I tell my team to help them understand our culture, what we expect from great team members, and what it takes to thrive in our organization. 

I feel so blessed to have an amazing team I get to work with. Every single one of them. Entrepreneurship is not an individual sport. I would not have achieved any business successes without talented team members, and I’m so grateful for them.

In the masterpiece book Good to Great, Jim Collins teaches how one of the most important roles of CEOs and entrepreneurs is to first focus on getting the right people on the bus, focusing on the “who” before the “what”. In other words, get the right people on the bus first, and then decide where to drive together. I agree that hiring the right team is one of the most important things CEOs and entrepreneurs can do. 

Most successful entrepreneurs and CEOs surround themselves with great team members who take ownership and responsibility, innovate, pay attention to the details, and help others to be successful. Instead of just complaining to their supervisor about problems, these team members identify, recommend and implement solutions. These individuals don’t just do what we ask them to do, but they find a better way to accomplish our top priorities more effectively. These individuals help drive the company’s success and profitability, and not just their own raises and promotions. I call these the “get-it-done, make-it-happen” team members. These team members are worth their weight in gold, and I’ve been blessed to work with many of these team members during my career. 

I love it when I assign an important task to a team member, and they take care of it, solving any problems they encounter, and reporting back to me when it is done. When team members do this, I can emotionally let go of the task and I don’t have to worry about it anymore.  Do you want to know my biggest pet peeve as a manager? I have a really hard time when I assign a task to a team member, they commit to doing it, but they let it slip through the cracks. Then, later when I follow up with them they tell me they didn’t do it because of some challenge, yet they didn’t try to overcome the challenge or ask for help. 

Unfortunately, sometimes we have a team member who has a lot of potential to be a right person on the bus, but that person is not yet reaching their full potential yet at work. So, what can we do to help them achieve this potential so they can stay on the bus, and help us drive the bus to amazing places? 

One thing I like to do in this situation is to tell a story. I believe that stories are the best way to say something that engages our listeners in a way they can best remember, and that will more effectively drive change. There is a story called the Parable of the Oranges, that has been told and retold in my company over the years, to help team members understand our culture, and the expectation we have for people who take responsibility to get things done and make things happen. 

I’m going to tell the story in my words, as it has evolved over the years, but the original version of the parable came from the book “Living with a Purpose” by Randall L. Ridd. 

An ambitious young man took a job with a company at a lower role and compensation than what he was hoping for. However he liked the company and he felt that if he put in his time, he could work his way up the ladder. Over the next five years, he did what was asked of him and completed his assigned tasks. Then, the position he was hoping for opened, and he applied for the position. However, one morning he arrived at work and discovered that an employee who had only been with the company for a few months had been given the manager position. He was very upset and went to his boss and demanded an explanation. 

The boss said he would answer the question, but first, he had a favor to ask from the employee. The boss asked “My wife needs some oranges. Would you please go buy some oranges?” The young man agreed the boss gave him $30 and a short time later the young man returned with a bag of oranges for his boss. 

The boss thanked him for his help and said he had two questions. First, “What type of oranges did you buy?” The young man replied that he didn’t know. “You just asked me to get oranges, and that’s what I did.”

The boss then asked, “How much did you pay per orange?”  The young man again replied that he didn’t know. He said “You gave me $30 and I bought the biggest bag I could buy for that amount. Here are your receipt and change.” 

The boss thanked the young man again and asked him to have a seat in his office for a moment. Then, the boss called the new manager in his office, asked her to do the same task. She agreed and the boss gave her $30. A while later, the new manager returned and reported back to the boss that the task had been completed. 

The boss asked her if she could have a seat, and also invited the young man back into his office. The boss then asked the new manager, “What type of oranges did you buy?” The new manager replied, “When I arrived at the store I discovered there were many varieties, and I had no idea what type of orange to buy because I didn’t know what they were going to be used for. You told me that your wife needed them. So, I called your secretary, she gave me your wife’s number, and I called your wife and asked for what purpose she was going to use the oranges. She told me you guys were going to have a party tonight and that she needed the oranges to make orange juice. So, I went to the produce manager at the grocery store and I asked him which oranges make the best orange juice. He told me that the Valencia oranges would be the best, and we looked it up online just to confirm. So, to answer your question, I purchased Valencia oranges.”

The boss then asked the new manager, “How much did you pay per orange?” The new manager replied, “I didn’t know how many oranges I needed to buy. So, I called your wife back and asked her how many people would be attending the party. She told me, and then the produce manager helped me calculate how many oranges we needed to buy to make enough orange juice for that many people. I realized that you didn’t give me enough money to buy enough oranges to make enough orange juice. The oranges were priced at 75 cents each, but because the produce manager and I had become friends, he agreed to sell me enough oranges for 50 cents each. I hope you don't mind, but your wife told me what time your party starts tonight, and I knew you would not get home with enough time to make the orange juice, so dropped the oranges off at your house on my way back from the grocery store.”

The boss thanked the new manager and then turned to the young man, who slumped his shoulders and said “I understand” as he walked out of the office. 

In our company, we tell this story to illustrate our corporate culture that we expect people to pay attention to the details, to take ownership in their assignments and responsibilities, to get things done and to make things happen. We are not just looking for people to execute what we tell them to do. Even more, we expect people to think and to innovate, and find better ways to accomplish the things that really matter than what we even asked them to do. Also, the best way to be successful is to help others be successful.  We let people know that we don’t give raises and promotions based on how long someone has been with the company, or for “doing their job”. Instead, we give raises and promotions based on how people have exceeded our expectations and helped to drive the growth of the organization. 

Key Takeaways

Here are some of the key takeaways from today’s episode.

1. Focusing on getting the right people on or off the bus first may be more important than figuring out where we’re going to drive the bus.
2. Hiring the right people is one of the most important things we can do as a CEO or entrepreneur. 
3. Storytelling can be a very effective way to teach our team in a more engaging and memorable way that can cause longer-lasting change. 
4. We need to hire team members we can trust to take responsibility, get things done, and make things happen. 

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 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

What stories does your business tell its team members and why? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/46-my-biggest-pet-peeve-as-a-manager-and-the-story-i-use-to-help-our-team-understand-what-we-expect/

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I’m Nathan Gwilliam, your host. Today, we’re talking about how to forgive. 

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/45-how-to-forgive/

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I’m Nathan Gwilliam, your host. Today, we’re talking about how to forgive. 

“Leave it Alone”  There was a man named John who was deeply in love with his wife, and they were expecting their first child. The night the baby was to be born, there were complications. The only doctor was somewhere in the countryside tending to the sick. After many hours of labor, the condition of the mother-to-be became desperate. Finally, the doctor was located. In the emergency, he acted quickly and soon had things in order. The baby was born and the crisis, it appeared, was over.  Some days later, the young mother died from the very infection the doctor had been treating at another home that night. John’s world was shattered.  As the weeks wore on, his grief festered. “That doctor should not be allowed to practice,” he would say. “He brought that infection to my wife. If he had been careful, she would be alive today.” He thought of little else, and in his bitterness, he became threatening. Today, no doubt, he would have been pressed by many others to file a malpractice suit.  A church leader asked to speak with him. The counsel was simply, “John, leave it alone. Nothing you do about it will bring her back. Anything you do will make it worse. John, leave it alone.”  This became his trial—his Gethsemane. How could he leave it alone? Right was right! A terrible wrong had been committed and somebody must pay for it.  Finally, he determined that he should be obedient, follow the counsel of the church leader, and leave it alone.  It was not until he was an old man that he could finally see a poor country doctor—overworked, underpaid, run ragged from patient to patient, with little medicine, no hospital, few instruments, struggling to save lives, and succeeding for the most part. The doctor had come in a moment of crisis, when two lives hung in the balance, and had acted without delay. If the young father had not left it alone, it would have ruined his life and the lives of others. Many times he thanked the Lord for the advice of a wise spiritual leader to “leave it alone”. (Source: Boyd Packer)

We Want to Forgive, but How do We Forgive?

In this episode I will focus on an important lesson the Savior taught from the cross when he prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

This is not a talk about why we should forgive. We already know that. We want to forgive, and we try to forgive. But, sometimes we still see the person who hurt us, and those negative emotions bubble up again. This episode is about HOW to forgive.

What Forgiveness is Not

Before I begin, I want to make 3 clarifying points.

1. Forgiveness is not a weakness. Gandhi said “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
2. Forgiveness is not condoning the wrong that was done to us. It is not saying that what they did is ok.
3. Forgiveness does not mean putting ourselves or others in an unsafe situation again.

Jeffrey Holland said: “Christ taught ‘I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.’ It is, however, important for some of you living in real anguish to note what He did not say. ‘You are not allowed to feel true pain or real sorrow from the shattering experiences you have had at the hand of another.’ Nor did He say, ‘In order to forgive fully, you have to reenter a toxic relationship or return to an abusive, destructive circumstance.’”

Now, I will address 7 secrets that can help us to forgive. 

Secret #1: We can CHOOSE to love and forgive.

Maybe a good first step in the forgiveness process is to write down who we choose to forgive, and for what. Then, we can write the reasons we love and are grateful for the person.

Thomas Monson said, “Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.” 

In 2004, a group of teenagers used a stolen credit card to buy a 20-pound frozen turkey in Long Island. As they drove, an 18-year-old named Ryan Cushing threw the turkey out of the car and into Victoria Ruvolo’s windshield. The impact broke every bone in Ruvolo’s face, which required a 10-hour surgery, three titanium plates, and a wire mesh for her left eye socket to correct. The teens were arrested shortly after, and several of them agreed to testify against Ryan. Cushing would have faced up to 25 years in prison if he was convicted. Instead, Ruvolo intervened on his behalf and worked to get him amnesty for the crime, and he was imprisoned for only 6 months. Ruvolo wrote, “Some people couldn’t understand why I’d done this but I felt God had given me a second chance and I wanted to pass it on.” (source: The Forgiveness Project and the NY Post) 

Secret #2: We can replace that darkness and hurt with light and love through acts of kindness. 

One of the first and best ways to replace darkness with light and love is for us to pray for that person.

Matthew 5:44 teaches “pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”

We can pray for Heavenly Father to bless that person. We can express gratitude for the good things the person has brought into our lives. We can pray for strength and courage to forgive. We can tell our Heavenly Father that we have chosen to forgive the person. Then we can pray for our hearts to change, to let go and ask that we can then feel love in place of hurt, sadness, anger, and resentment. We can ask Heavenly Father to help us see that person how He sees them.

Matthew also exhorts us to: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you” with special emphasis on the phrase “do good”. I think that’s one of the biggest secrets to being able to forgive.

Choosing to forgive and letting go of the darkness is not enough. We must fill the darkness with light. If someone has hurt us, we can serve them, do good to them, and watch as darkness evaporates and light and love start to increase in the place of the hurt and resentment.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Mary Johnson lost her son in 1993 after a then-teenaged Oshea Israel got into a fight with him at a party, and shot him. Johnson went to visit Oshea in jail. After their first contact, she said  “I began to feel this movement in my feet. It moved up my legs, and it just moved up my body. When I felt it leave me, I instantly knew that all that anger and hatred and animosity I had in my heart for 12 years was over. I had totally forgiven [him].” The two now live as neighbors in the same duplex, and Johnson has even referred to Israel as “son” in interviews.“ (source: The Daily Beast)

Secret #3: We must forgive others so we can be forgiven by the Savior.

Matthew 6:14-15 teaches, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Thomas Fuller said, "He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven."

In 1918, three law officers were murdered when they attempted to arrest several criminals. Glenn Kempton’s father was one of the officers killed. Glenn is my great uncle. The murderers were captured, tried, and sent to prison for life. As a boy, there grew in Glenn’s heart a bitterness and a hatred toward Tom Powers, the confessed slayer of his Father. One day, Glenn was on a business trip in Arizona and detoured to the prison where Tom Powers was being held. He arrived after visiting hours and spoke with the warden, who arranged the meeting with Glenn and Tom. The two had a long talk and at the end, Glenn shook Tom’s hand and said, “With all my heart, I forgive you for this awful thing that has come into our lives.” Glenn says it is a glorious thing when bitterness and hatred go out of your heart and forgiveness comes in. As he walked out the door and down that long flight of steps he knew that forgiveness was better than revenge, for he had experienced it. As he and his wife drove toward home, a sweet and peaceful calm came over Glenn and he had found a broader, richer, and more abundant life. (source: The Miracle of Forgiveness)

Secret #4: We can remember that everyone makes mistakes, especially ourselves.

We are all human, and therefore, we are all prone to making mistakes. Nobody is perfect. Knowing and recognizing our own faults allows us to give others the right to make their own mistakes. (Source: Allan Halls) We can seek to understand the hurt and traditions of the fathers that contributed to the person doing what they did.

We can think of the many things we have done for which we need forgiveness. When we remember how much for which we need to be forgiven, it makes it easier to show mercy to those who have hurt us.

We can also give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they have good motives.

Forgiving can also become easier when we remember a time when we were forgiven, focusing on how it made us feel. (source: Louisya Graves)

According to People, teen Jordyn Howe took his stepfather’s gun to school and accidentally shot Ady Guzman-Jesus’s daughter, Lourdes, while showing the firearm to friends. Astonishing the judge and community, Guzman-Jesus not only forgave the boy but also asked for him to get a lighter sentence, telling reporters that she believes her daughter would have wanted it that way. Howe will only serve one year in a juvenile detention center and will visit local schools with Guzman-Jesus to warn kids of the dangers of guns.

Secret #5: We can move on with the next chapters in our lives.

Our past histories are not here in our present realities. We shouldn’t allow them to be here in our minds, muddying our present moments. Our lives are like plays with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play; others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary, otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. We can embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

Former South African leader Nelson Mandela was sent to prison in 1963 on charges of trying to sabotage the nation’s government, which advocated a policy of apartheid that treated people of different races differently. Mandela advocated a democratic society in which all people would be treated equally. Mandela spent the next 27 years in prison, but after he was released in 1990, he forgave the people who had imprisoned him. Mandela later became South Africa's president and delivered speeches internationally in which he urged people to forgive each other because forgiveness is God's plan and, therefore, is always the right thing to do.

Secret #6: We can become more like Jesus Christ by forgiving.

Learning to forgive is part of our journeys to become more like the Savior.

When we hold on to anger and resentment, we lose the Spirit, and the help from the Spirit to forgive. When we choose to forgive, we can receive the help of the Spirit to forgive.

Sandra Walker, a mother of two, lost her husband in a car accident that also caused her to have a life-changing brain injury, according to The Daily Mail. At the trial for the accident, in her court statement, Walker said she sympathized with the woman who crashed into them—who herself lost a child in the accident—and gave her a hug. “I know she is going through as much pain as I am feeling. I wanted her to know that I forgive her for what she did,” Walker told WSB-TV.

Secret #7: We can give it to God.

Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves, by letting God carry the burden of judging and punishing. We don’t have the wisdom or strength to do those things without hurting ourselves and others. (source: Sherrie Call) Forgiveness is in part trusting that God will take care of things. Romans 12:19 teaches, “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.” In this scripture, Christ is asserting his role of judge and is wanting us to trust his judgments, let go, and move on. It’s a tender mercy. He’s asking us to trust his perfect understanding of the lives, abilities, and circumstances of all. I believe that as long as we have faith in Christ as a redeemer and as a judge, we don’t need to stew over those who have wronged us. Christ will give them what they need and will give us what we need. He knows that better than us, and we can trust Him. Once we’ve given it to God, it’s not ours anymore. It’s His, and we cannot hold onto it anymore. (Source: Samantha Abildskov)

Key Takeaways

If we try to forgive, but the feelings of hurt and resentment come up in the future, we can go through this process again. If we need additional help, we can find that help through prayer, fasting, and sometimes professional counseling.

I challenge each of us to pick someone today who we need to forgive and to go through appropriate steps to “leave it alone”, to forgive them, and to receive the liberating power of forgiveness in our lives.

I am so grateful for the forgiveness I have received from my Heavenly Father, from my family, and others. I am grateful for Jesus Christ’s atonement that has made this possible. I’m grateful He is quick to forgive us when we sincerely repent. I know that as we forgive, we will also be forgiven.

Join Entrepreneurs of Faith

If this episode of Entrepreneurs of Faith resonated with you, please subscribe for FREE to Monetization Nation so you can receive Entrepreneurs of Faith each Sunday.

1. Subscribe to the Monetization eMagazine.
2. Follow the Monetization Nation Blog.
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 

To whom can we extend the gift of forgiveness today? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/45-how-to-forgive/

In this episode, Craig and I will discuss the secrets of successful business relationships.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/44-5-secrets-to-successful-business-relationships/