Podcasting Secrets

What would it be like to make a great living while traveling the world? Michelle is a digital nomad who has unlocked the secrets of this lifestyle by balancing work from home and traveling abroad at the same time. She is the founder of Virtual Miss Friday (an online business consultancy), Academy (a built-in virtual assistant service), and the creator of 1inSourcing, which is a service specializing in serving six and seven-figure business owners. 

Michelle began her first business at the age of 24, after leaving England and feeling unfulfilled with the typical career ladder. She landed in Egypt and not only found great success working online, but met her husband, became a mother, and pursued dreams she had of experiencing real freedom. She provides online training programs for freelancers and virtual assistants, and she now supports men and women to reach their professional and personal aspirations with the freedom of a digital business. 

“I think the biggest thing for anyone if you really want to succeed, is to get very clear on why you must succeed. Build everything from there, and know that there is no such thing as failure unless you give up. So, keep going,” Michelle said. As I spoke with this successful woman, she shared with me her story, the services and programs she provides, how she connects with customers, and tips on how to create successful YouTube videos. 

The Start of a New Beginning

Michelle was not happy working long hours, stuck in a typical work-life, and doing it all so young after leaving school at the age of sixteen. After returning home from work one night, she approached her front door that had been torn off the hinges, walked inside her home, and discovered that everything was gone including her birth certificate, utility bills, and more. As if a sign told Michelle that nothing was keeping her in England, she looked down at the ground to find her passport. 

“The only thing that I had left was something that would allow me to travel. The next day, I walked into work and told everybody at work what happened. I said, ‘I’m quitting my job!’ I put my house on the market to sell it, and I went to the travel agent to book a one-way ticket to Egypt, which was exactly three months later. I arrived in Egypt and never looked back,” Michelle said. 

A Business Model of Services & Consulting 

After many changes and at the age of 24, Michelle began her own business. She wanted to provide services to help entrepreneurs, individuals who wanted to work from home, and those starting or growing their own businesses. She also wanted to advise and consult individuals with the same tools that she learned on her own. “I wanted to give others the support they need without the restrictions of having to hire employees. I know what it’s like starting a business, and if you don’t have someone there helping you, giving you advice, or someone to bounce ideas off of, it can be quite stressful. So, I wanted to be somebody that not only understood a client’s business or what they needed, but I wanted to help them grow, evolve, and pivot if they needed to,” said Michelle. 

Her business model includes one person, either Michelle or someone she trains, which could be one of her 10-15 virtual assistants on her team, and they work to assist, support, take care of the details, or guide the client through their goals. This model provides the client with the personal service that they need. Michelle’s services are focused entirely on digital operations, so she helps clients with different digital types of businesses or services, such as consulting or coaching, selling digital programs, and more. “I’ve worked completely online, so I know a lot about this kind of environment as well as the challenges that people face working online,” Michelle said. 

Digital Courses for Virtual Assistants, Freelancers, & Online Business Startups

Michelle originally set up a free course to help others start their own online business. “It was what I basically did, from start to finish. It was how to put yourself online, start getting clients, working with clients, and getting recurring income,” she said. Initially, she wanted to offer her courses for free, but when she researched Yaro Starak’s methods on his BlogMastermind program, she decided to trust him and take his advice, which has helped lead her to where she is today. She began with a blog and daily YouTube videos, and she received more than 500 subscribers in three months! 

Michelle contacted her email subscribers with an invitation to apply to be one of seven people who could receive her course for free. Thirty-five individuals filled out the application. She picked seven individuals to try the course for free. For those who weren’t chosen, she offered the course for $1,000, and she was surprised at how many people purchased the course. That specific course, which was created in 2010, has evolved since then, and Michelle has since released several other courses. Her courses range from a small course for freelancers, 1nSourcing for those starting or growing their own business, workshops, help with marketing and coaching, and support for virtual assistants. 

Building Connections with Customers

I asked Michelle if she could share some of her secrets and tips in building connections with customers. Here is what she suggested: 

1. Always over-deliver. We need to do what we say we’re going to do, and then do a little bit more. 
2. Be honest. It is really important from the beginning that our courses, programs, and anything we offer are not just hyped up. Make sure that people are going to get what they pay for, what they see, and what they’re looking to buy. 
3. Be there for customers. We need to give people avenues to us. It doesn’t necessarily have to be to us as an individual, but it has to be something that we’re responsible for, such as a customer support team, personal assistant, a community manager of a Facebook group, etc. People need someone they can rely on in order to get a response. 
4. Always do unexpected things for customers. Throw in unexpected things, specifically when it comes to customer support. For example, if a customer is struggling with something, and Michelle thinks she has a product that will help them, she will give her customer the product and say, “Go through this £47 product. If you feel it helps you and feel like paying for it, then go for it. If not, don’t worry. It’s yours.” Michelle likes to make sure that her customers feel very taken care of. It involves relationship building and a lot of listening. 

Using Social Media

“Whenever a new social media platform came out, I would look at it as though it was going to change my business and make things easier for me to connect with more people,” Michelle said. Michelle was one of the first people on Twitter. She now has more than 50,000 followers. She loves the ease and quickness of getting her messages out there, and it’s been one of the primary ways that she markets her business now.

YouTube Videos

Here are some tips that Michelle suggests when creating our own YouTube videos: 

1. Think about topics and become an expert on each. What do you want to work with? Draft out some topics. Know as much as you should as if a friend were going to ask you questions on the topic. 
2. Don’t plan things out too much. Don’t feel as though it’s necessary to script things out. If so, we tend to come across as fake or false. It helps to create bullet points under each topic. Let things flow as though you’re having lunch with those you’re speaking with. 
3. Don’t think: “Oh no! Millions of people are going to see this!” Michelle used to be very camera shy, but she knew what had to be done in creating YouTube videos. “Pretend the camera is your friend. I would look back at questions people sent me from emails, and then I would sit there and talk on video as if they had asked me that question,” Michelle said. Then she would pretend to sit in front of them, explain the answer back, and it became her best strategy. 
4. It doesn’t matter how long the video should be. What matters is getting to the point where you’ve said all that you can say about the topic. Michelle doesn’t like fluff, but she also doesn’t like leaving out too many details. From a marketing perspective, she explained that shorter videos with more punch probably get the most followers and subscribers. People like quick takeaways because life is busy. “But, I think it depends on the topic and what you’re talking about,” she said.

Connect with Michelle

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Michelle or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/virtualmissfriday/, email her at any time to [email protected], or check out her website www.virtualmissfriday.com. 

Key Takeaways

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

1. It is possible to balance work and traveling by growing and monetizing a digital business.
2. Be clear with why you must succeed, and then build everything from there. Understand that there is no such thing as failure. 
3. Don’t give your courses away for free. Create value through products.
4. Always over-deliver for customers. Do what you say you’re going to do, and then do a little bit more. 
5. Be honest with customers and make sure that they get what they pay for. 
6. Always be available to customers in some way, whether that be through customer support, a Facebook group, a personal assistant, etc. Make sure that they always have a way to receive your help. 
7. When doing YouTube videos, become an expert on the topics you talk about. Don’t plan things out too much, but come up with a list of bullet points and let things flow. Imagine talking to a friend and having a conversation with them. The length of each video depends on the topic, don’t add fluff but provide enough detail. 

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 

Would you ever want to be a digital nomad, traveling the world while making a great living? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/34-how-michelle-dale-built-a-business-that-allows-her-to-travel-the-world-while-making-a-great-living/

More than a decade ago, I consulted for a company named i.TV where Justin Whittaker served as a top executive. i.TV was the creator of the most downloaded TV guide app in Apple’s App Store. i.TV designed and built second screen and social TV experiences for brands like AOL, Huffington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and Nintendo through a software as a service model. Every month, millions of people used i.TV technology to discover, watch, and engage with television.

Justin Whittaker used unpaid influencer marketing for i.TV more effectively than almost any other company I have ever seen. I was so impressed with Justin’s efforts and success that I’ve used his model as an example over the years when teaching other people about successful influencer marketing.

I’ve seen some businesses use influencer marketing incredibly effectively by offering high commissions to the influencers. With Justin and i.TV, no financial compensation was offered to the influencers. Yet, Justin was still able to secure huge amounts of exposure for i.TV from the influencers.

6 Steps for Successful Influencer Marketing

Here’s how Justin secured so much unpaid exposure for i.TV from influencers:

(1) Find hundreds of targeted influencers and their contact info. Before the initial release of i.TV, Justin identified hundreds of highly targeted influencers. The list of influencers didn’t just include names of media organizations, but also included the list of news writers and bloggers who created content about the types of products and services i.TV created, along with their specific contact information. 

Justin researched almost every single reporter or blogger he talked to. He looked at articles they had written on similar topics. i.TV also subscribed to a PR contact database that helped him identify and find contact information for the influencers. Once Justin got in the door with reporters, he asked them for referrals to other reporters who wrote on his topic.

Sometimes we don’t think of news writers as influencers, but if their publication writes about our niche, and the author writes about our niche, then that author is an influencer for our niche. 

(2) Build relationships with the influencers by providing value. Justin was not sending bulk spam messages trying to get influencers and reporters to promote his company. Instead, he worked to build individual relationships with those influencers. And, he built the relationship before he ever asked for anything in return. Then, he nurtured the relationships with the influencers over time. This was another big key to Justin’s success is that he didn’t approach the influencers and reporters as a one-time transaction. He invested in long-term relationships. 

Content creators love it when we are familiar with their work and the things that they care about and write about. So, Justin invested in getting to know the influencers and their work.

He provided value to the influencers and reports that helped them be successful in their jobs. As Justin reached out to influencers, he often offered them a chance to interview with the CEO of his company. 

One great way to build relationships with influencers is to follow, share and comment on their content and social channels. One of Justin’s secrets of success was to treat reporters like influencers (which they are).

(3) Build credibility with the influencers. Justin feels that a one-letter domain really helped i.TV’s credibility working with influencers. He felt that the influencers took i.TV more seriously. I have seen the same benefit of credibility by owning the authoritative Adoption.com domain name. It can be worth it for young companies without credibility to buy a domain name that can give them credibility. 

As an aside, I have used this credible domain name strategy over the years. My businesses or my clients have purchased premium domains such as Adoption.com, Law.com, Retirement.com, Advertising.com, Families.com, StockMarket.com, and many others. These types of domain names gave a lot of credibility and made a big difference. 

Also, the enormous number of i.TV users and being the leader in their niche helped grow i.TV’s credibility and the willingness of the influencers to write about them. There are many other ways we can grow our credibility with influencers, such as through awards, testimonials, advanced degrees, credible statistics, associating with credible sources, and more.

(4) Make it easy for the influencers. As i.TV released new versions of the mobile app with significant new features, Justin worked with the influencers to get articles written about the release. 

Justin was very thorough in what he sent the influencers. He didn’t just send a press release. He also sent content, images, logos, quotes, story ideas, etc. Justin made it as easy as possible for these influencers to write stories about i.TV. Justin says that he almost wrote their stories for them, and often the influencers and reporters just cut and pasted what he sent them into what he published.

This was very valuable because these writers had deadlines to create content, and Justin helped them meet their deadlines by providing them quality content they could publish with reduced effort. 

(5) Provide value to the end-user. It is really important that the content we send to influencers provides real value to their customers, instead of being an advertorial for our product or company.  For example, the i.TV content wasn't focused on why i.TV is the best TV Guide app. Instead, the content was focused on the new FREE features and benefits that readers could use to have a better experience with their entertainment. The content has to be focused on providing value to the end-user.

(6) Affiliate Marketing - Justin rolled out his i.TV influencer program before influencer marketing became the craze it is today. As such, Justin didn’t need to offer compensation to the influencers. Today, so many businesses are reaching out to the influencers, and many of the influencers are requiring compensation. Some influencers may promote our products and services without compensation, but that is becoming rarer, especially for the larger influencers.  Today, many companies are choosing to increase the effectiveness of their affiliate marketing by setting up affiliate programs with tracking links and paying influencers a commission for each person they refer who purchases the company’s product or services. I strongly encourage all of my clients to set up paid affiliate programs to facilitate long-term win-win relationships with influencers. 

What should we pay influencers?

My clients regularly ask me something like “What is the lowest amount I have to pay influencers?” I think that is the wrong question. In today’s influencer marketplace, the people who pay influencers the lowest amount possible have a hard time getting the attention of the right influencers, and they leave a lot of money on the table. 

I think the right question is, “How much can I afford to pay the influencers in my affiliate program?” Remember, that with an affiliate program, we don’t pay the influencers anything until they generate a sale. So, we really don’t have to pay the influencers anything ourselves. With an affiliate program, payments come from the profit of the business the influencers send us. 

Also, remember that with most other advertising sources, we take a big risk by paying for the advertising upfront, because the profits generated from the advertising may not be sufficient to cover the cost of the advertising. With affiliate marketing, that risk is eliminated for the business and transferred to the affiliate partner or influencers, because the affiliate partner only receives a commission after they have generated sales.

What size of influencers should we go after?

Justin organized his influencers in tiers to prioritize their reach. A lot of the big PR firms focus on the larger influencers because if we get a couple of wins with the bigger influencers it will trickle down. However, Justin's strategy was to go after all of the targeted influencers, in almost a “ground-up” strategy. His philosophy was “Why not get them all?” 

However, with this “ground-up” model Justin found that he needed to give some preferential treatment to the top influencers, such as giving exclusive information to the top influencers. He also gave the smaller publishers “embargoes” limiting when they could publish the stories, so the larger influencers could break the story first. Justin’s ground-up strategy did not hurt i.TV with the big influencers, and he was able to get covered by the leading influencers.

Huge Success from Justin’s Efforts

Because of Justin’s incredible efforts, i.TV received more than 100 mentions from media and influencers each time i.TV put out a substantial press release while I was there.

I helped i.TV with their monetization and we were able to sign deals with 5 of the top 7 movie studios in a short period of time, which was only possible because of the tremendous influencer marketing efforts and media exposure Justin secured for i.TV.

Then, because of credibility and relationships, i.TV was able to morph into a technology services provider for large entertainment companies, which provided a larger and more stable revenue stream.

Connect with Justin

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Justin or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinmwhittaker/

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Justin for sharing your stories and strategies about influencer marketing with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from today’s episode:

1.  Find hundreds of targeted influencers and their contact info through research and subscribing to databases.
2. Include reporters who write about our niche as influencers, and treat them like influencers.
3. Build individual relationships with the influencers by providing value in a meaningful way to the influencer. Get familiar with their work. Comment on and share their content. 
4. Build credibility with the influencers. 
5. Make it as easy as we can for the influencers.
6. Provide value to the end-user by creating content that the users want to read instead of an advertorial. 
7. Try to establish long-term win-win relationships with influencers. One of the best ways to ensure promotion from an influencer lasts long term is to set up an affiliate program and pay influencers a commission based on sales generated from their promotion. 
8. We should try to pay influencers a rate that will motivate them to promote us a lot for a long time, instead of trying to pay as little as we can.
9. We might find success by working with a “ground up” influencer model, trying to work with all of the targeted influencers, and not just the biggest ones.

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Follow the Monetization Nation Blog.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization eMagazine.
4. Join our private Monetization Nation Facebook Group.
5. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
6. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
7. Connect with Nathan on Linkedin. 
8. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram. 
9. Follow Monetization Nation on Twitter.

Challenge

If we desire monetization we have never before achieved, we must leverage strategies we have never before implemented. I challenge each of us to pick one thing that resonated with us from today’s episode and schedule a time this week to implement it to help achieve our monetization goals.

Share Your Story 

Can you share an example you’ve seen of effective influencer marketing? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/33-6-steps-for-successful-influencer-marketing/

Information products can come in many different formats, such as online courses, virtual summits, ebooks, and coaching programs. At their core, information products must provide guidance and value to our consumers.

Bailey Richert is today’s guest. She is a business coach for infopreneurs. She profitably built a 5-figure email list without paid ads, has sold millions of dollars' worth of info-products, and earned a ClickFunnels 2-Comma Club Award, which means she has created a funnel that generated more than $1 million.

In this episode, Bailey is going to share 6 Tips for Adding New Revenue Streams to our businesses with Information Products.

A virtual summit is an online conference, very similar to an in-person conference, but it’s all virtual. The host of a virtual summit reaches out to others in their niche or industry and invites them to be guest speakers at the virtual event. 

There are many benefits to virtual summits. One reason you might want to host one is that it’s a great way to generate leads. Bailey feels that the number one benefit of virtual summits is that we will be able to grow our email list. The people invited to speak at the summit have an audience and an email list that are also the host’s ideal audience members. Hopefully, many of the guests will promote the virtual summit to their audience and that audience in exchange for a commission on upgraded tickets the people they refer buy.  Many of the people who register will register to our email lists.

Summits can also generate revenue. We can sell all of the tickets to the summit as the Social Media Marketing World does. Or, we can give away a free ticket to a limited portion of the event and then sell upgraded “All-access passes” like Bailey usually does, such as I did with my Adoption Summit. Or, we could have people put in a credit card for payment but not charge their card. We would tell them that if they don’t feel they received sufficient value, they can cancel for any reason within a certain time period after the event ends. But, if they don’t cancel by that date, their card will be charged. Russell Brunson uses this model, and he says the vast majority of people who attended his online summits don’t cancel and allow their credit cards to be run to pay for the event.  During the pandemic, I attended one of Russell Brunson’s virtual summits, and I received so much value I did not cancel, and I allowed my credit card to be run. Attendees must subscribe with their email when they register for the summit. We can then pitch products or services related to the summit to them via email. Summits can be a great platform to launch or promote an online course related to the summit’s topic.

The more abstract reasons for doing a virtual summit are growing our networks and finding other opportunities. We can build relationships with people and put ourselves out there. Summits can give us more visibility in our space so that people start to know who we are and respect us. This visibility gives us opportunities. People may ask us to do podcast interviews, to speak at their summits, or be interviewed for their YouTube channel. These can lead to other things such as more sales, clients, collaborations, etc.

An important part of the virtual summit strategy is to select speakers who are willing to help promote the event. Bailey helped plan a summit for a client once where he had 62 speakers. Her client insisted on going after A-level influencers in his field. Bailey had told him many times that getting B-level influencers was a better idea because they will see themselves as partners with him and will be more willing to promote the summit. However, he really wanted to get big names and didn’t listen to her. Out of the 62 speakers only 4 promoted the summit.

“The size of the eLearning industry was $176 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $398 billion by 2026.” (Source: sellcoursesonline.com)

Many people say online courses are the first information product we should provide. Bailey cautioned against this, saying that it really depends on where we are and what our goals are. If we don’t already have an email list or an audience, it is likely that an online course won’t be highly successful for us. We can first build our audience through something like a virtual summit and then once we have an audience we can launch an information product like a course to that audience. 

Bailey also cautioned against hosting online courses on a website that isn’t our own. This is another instance of building a skyscraper on land that isn’t ours. We should strive to create products in a space that we can control.

However, once we have a substantial audience that trusts us, and we build a course on a platform we own, then courses may be the most lucrative way we can leverage information products to add a new revenue stream to our business.

Challenge courses are like online courses, but instead of giving the customer all the content at once and letting them go through it at their leisure, challenge courses are designed to be a step-by-step guide to lead a customer to an end goal that they can accomplish. For example, the course could be something like “7 Steps to Publishing Your First Ebook”. Thus, by the end of the course, customers will have published their first ebook. Challenge courses can be the main product or they can be a great way to lead to something bigger. If someone had a course called “30 Days to Finishing Your eBook Manuscript”, a customer who took that course would receive the help they need to finish their manuscript during the course.

Coaching packages are another great information product. We typically think of coaching as a service, and it is, but Bailey tells her coaches not to think of it as an hourly gig. Coaches should be putting together a coaching package that has incredibly high value so they can charge more for it and aren’t just trading hours for dollars. 

Most coaches can’t tell their customers that they’re going to be charged $1,000 per hour, even if they are worth that much. However, they can put together a $5,000 package for three months that includes our time and services, but it also includes other elements. These packages could include things such as weekly meetings with the coach, unlimited email and message support, a customized action plan that the coach will create just for the customer, lifetime access to the coach’s signature online courses, checklists, etc. These packages give the coaches the ability to build something once and then monetize it with each of their customers. Because of the package’s value, it will then seem like such an irresistible deal that it will be a “no brainer” they have to take. This can be a particularly effective strategy if we have already developed many of the materials we will provide to our coaching clients. 

Memberships can be a great way to generate recurring revenue; however, we don’t assume they're easy money. According to Marketing General, 57% join associations to network with their peers, while 26% of people want to learn about their industry’s best practices, and 25% want to access specialized information (Source: Member Press). 

People only stay in the membership if they are using it and it is providing recurring value to them. If not, they usually leave after about 3 months. We must give them a reason to stay, whether that be through the continuous addition of new materials or something else where they’re getting so much value that it is worth it for them to stay. We should be giving them opportunities to network with their peers, learn about their industry’s best practices, and access specialized information.

Bailey’s final piece of advice is to give something a try. If you’ve never done anything with information products before, now is a great time to delve into it. It will likely be hard at first, as most things are, but down the road, it could lead to something great.

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.” -Neil Gaiman

Key Takeaways

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

1. Host virtual summits to build our audiences and email lists.
2. Host virtual summits to provide value and make connections with experts in our community.
3. Invite influencers to speak at the summit who will be willing to promote the summit to their following.
4. Building our audiences before starting an online course will allow the online course launch to be much more successful.
5. Host our online courses on our own websites.
6. Create challenge courses that lead to our more expensive courses.
7. Create coaching packages that have an incredibly high value for our customers and bundle value in addition to our time.
8. In our membership services, keep providing members with recurring value that will make them want to stay each month.
9. Try something new with information products. It may lead to learning and great success.

Connect with Bailey

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Bailey or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/baileyrichert/ or visit her website at https://baileyrichert.com/. 

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 

What information product could you add to your business to create a new revenue stream from your existing customers? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/32-6-tips-for-adding-new-revenue-streams-with-information-products-with-bailey-richert/

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I’m Nathan Gwilliam, your host. 

Forgiving $10 Million in Debt

In November 2020, Dave Ramsey’s company bought $10 million of debt for 8,000 people from two private debt collection companies and completely forgave all of the debt with no strings attached. That’s $10 million of debt completely forgiven. This is an inspiring example of a business giving an enormous amount of grace. 

In today’s episode, we’re going to explore how to be more “graceful” and give grace in business. 

What is Grace?

Grace is one of my favorite words. Grace is a gift of kindness and mercy we don’t deserve. “Grace is the opposite of karma, which is all about getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve.” - Justin Holcomb 

We’re familiar with and grateful for God’s grace for us. “The very center and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine of the grace of God.” –J. Gresham Machen

However, what role does grace play in the business world? Grace is not just something we receive from God, but it is also something He expects us to give to others as we strive to be more like Him. 

Colossians 4:6 teaches, “Let your speech be always with grace…”

Matthew 6:14 teaches “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”

Grace and French Fries

Here’s an example that happened to me this week. I have a daughter who is 17 years old and will be headed to college in another state in the fall. I want to make the best use possible of the time she is still living in our home, so I’m trying to take her on a 1-on-1 father-daughter date each week. As part of those dates, she gets to choose a treat. She loves the french fries from a restaurant named Freddy’s, and that's the treat she chooses most frequently. 

A few nights ago, this daughter and I went on our date and drove to Freddy’s for some fries. We ordered in the drive-through, but as I was pulling up to the pickup window I realized I had left my wallet at home. I told the worker at the drive-through window, expecting him to tell me they would make me fresh fries when I return with my money. However, to my surprise, the Freddy’s worker said he would give us the fries at no cost. Furthermore, he told us that they had made two concretes (their frozen custards with mix-ins) for someone and messed up the order. They asked if we would like to also have the frozen desserts for free. 

My daughter quickly figured out how we could pay them through Apple Pay, but Freddy’s still didn’t take our money. That Freddy’s team had extended grace to me in my forgetfulness. How do you think my daughter and I felt about Freddy’s when we left?

As we drove out of the Freddy’s parking lot, we were already leaving them a great review. My daughter and I found a place to park, eat our food, and play a magical unicorn’s card game.  What the Freddy’s workers did wasn’t really about french fries. That date with my daughter could have been a dud. However, thanks to the grace of the Freddy’s team in Rexburg, Idaho, they helped turn our father-daughter date into something magical. 

Grace When Firing a Team Member

Sometimes companies use unfortunate firing situations as moments to belittle their departing team members. That does not need to be the case. I am aware of one company that had an employee who had a series of financial crises, and the company loaned a substantial amount of money to her to help her get through that situation. Later, it became necessary to let that team member go. At that time, most of the money loaned to the employee had not been repaid. The company had the right to deduct the remaining borrowed amount from the team member’s last payment. However, the company realized the team member would need those funds to survive as she searched for a new job, so the company completely forgave the debt at the time they let her go. This is a great example of grace during a time an employee really needed some help.

Grace When We Deleted My CEOs Presentation

In a previous episode, I told the story of how I sold my Adoption.com business to the Gladney Center for Adoption. In the first board of directors meeting after that sale, we were scheduled to make a presentation about the plan for Adoption.com going forward. My presentation and the presentation of the Gladney CEO were both in one Google Slides file, and somehow, late the night before the board meeting, the file was completely deleted in a non-recoverable way. 

I let the Gladney CEO know, and our team worked through the night, and up until the moment of the presentation to try to recreate as much of the presentation as we could from memory. The loss of the file was completely my fault, and it would have been very understandable for the CEO to lecture me about the importance of the board meeting, and how I need to be more responsible about making backups. However, the only things I heard from the CEO and the rest of the Gladney team were supportive. They just wanted to know how they could help. That is an example of amazing grace extended to me when I didn’t deserve it. Their kindness and grace motivate me to want to extend much more grace back to others who also mess up and make mistakes. 

Police Officer Gives Grace Instead of a Ticket

Today I saw a Facebook post about a man named LaVonte Dell who was recently pulled over by a Westland, Michigan police officer because of the tint on his windows. LaVaonte posted, “This stop was nothin’ like I thought it would be. He got my s—t and was walking back to the car and seen my daughter wasn’t in a car seat. So he asked me to get out and speak with him. He asked why didn’t she have one and I told him all I been thru this year like I barely making it because of these garnishments and I really don’t like asking people for (stuff). Do you know this white police officer told me to follow him to Walmart on Ford road, and he purchased my daughter a car seat with his own money? If you would have seen us in Walmart u would have thought we were best friends. It was like night and day. U got me hella tats walkin side by side with a white officer Westland at that. I’ve been calling all day trying to get his name because I was so in shock. I didn’t even look at his name tag. Never judge a book by its cover it’s most def is some good guys left. I told him I never met an officer like u. He said I’m just doing my job what good would giving u a ticket do besides putting u further in the hole making it harder on you to come up." (Source: LaVonte Dell on Facebook)

That officer could have easily given a ticket, but instead, he extended grace and helped with the highest priority of making sure that the little girl is safe and the father knows somebody cares about him and his family. Thank you so much LaVonte for sharing your inspirational story on Facebook. 

Let’s Be “Graceful” 

Our challenge for this week is to try to be a little more “graceful” in our businesses. Let’s be a little more patient, forgive, ask for forgiveness, and be kind. Instead of always telling people what they are doing wrong, when they already know it, maybe we can try to understand and help. When a customer or vendor is in a hard financial situation, maybe we let them out of their annual contract when we don’t have to. When a co-worker drops the ball on something, maybe we express our gratitude for how much they are juggling so well. 

Let’s remember that we all have done many things wrong or been in difficult situations where we desperately need grace. How much more likely are we to receive grace if we are striving to extend grace to others? Let’s also remember that everyone is going through challenges in their lives and sometimes we’re the angels that God is trying to send to help them. 

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 

When have you seen businesses give grace? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/31-how-to-give-grace-in-business/

In this episode, I interview one of the best investors that any entrepreneur could ever hope to have. His name is Karl Huish, and he was one of the primary investors in Adoption.com before we sold it. 

Karl is the managing director of Bela Flor Communities, a real estate development company. As an investor and board member, he participates in venture capital investments in a variety of fields. He was the founder and CEO of a risk management firm, which was sold to a public company. He was the founder and CEO of a turn-key asset management platform for 401(k) and retirement plans, which was also sold to a large private company.

Karl started his career practicing corporate and transaction law. He has a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. (Economics) from Brigham Young University. In addition to a law license (now inactive), Karl has previously held licenses as a CFP (certified financial planner), Series 7, 6, and 63 securities licenses, AIF (accredited investment fiduciary), and general insurance licenses.

Did you know that 97% of consumers read online reviews (Source: Bright Local) and 86% of consumers would pay more for a service provider that has high ratings and good reviews (Source: Software Advice)? In today’s episode, Karl and I are going to discuss secrets to succeed with online reviews in an untrusting world. 

Karl Huish and his family used to put together gift baskets and give them away around the holiday season to contribute to the holiday spirit. In previous years, people had been very accepting, receiving the baskets with a lot of gratitude. It was a joyous event for both the Huish family and the recipients. In recent years, Karl and his family have stopped giving them out. They were finding that people were less and less receptive to the generous gift. Since these recipients didn’t know Karl and his family, the recipients did not trust Karl’s family.

In recent years, our society has become far less trusting of people we do not know are credible. We’re wary of unknown people who want to give us a gift. Before buying many products we look through online reviews. Many businesses have found that our potential customers don’t trust what we say about ourselves, and these businesses are striving to find more credible and effective ways to build trusting relationships with potential clients. In this episode, Karl and I talked about online reviews and how they can help us create that trusting relationship.

Here are some of Karl’s thoughts on credibility and reviews:

95% of people trust recommendations from others over branded content, even if they don’t know them personally. (Source: Josh Hager, Top Influencer).

In order to use reviews to build trust, our companies need online reviews. Unfortunately, most customers only give reviews if they are extremely happy with a company or extremely unhappy, but 97% of consumers read online reviews (Source: Bright Local). 

One of the best ways to motivate customers to write reviews is to simply ask them, but what is the best way to do that? Here are a few ideas on how to ask for reviews:

The most common way to ask is in person, right after the customer has received the product or service. If a customer gives a compliment about the company, employees can easily ask them to write what they’ve said on a review platform of their choice. We can also ask questions like “Did you find everything you were looking for?” or “How was your experience in our store today?” to facilitate conversation and provide an opening to ask for a review.

If there isn’t an in-person interaction, we can send an email or make a phone call after customers receive the product or service and are feeling the happiest about the product or service. The company ThriftBooks does a great job of keeping this simple. A few days after the product is delivered, customers will receive an email asking them to rate the produce and service. The email has options for one through five stars and by clicking a rating the customer is taken to a review site where their rating is already in place and there is a space to share more details about their experience.

Another simple way is through SMS. Most people have their phones with them constantly and 56% of all online reviews are posted from mobile devices. Sending a quick text with a link to a review site is an effective method for gaining more reviews because it’s easy for customers to leave them. 

Keeping our review requests simple will encourage more customers to leave reviews. If customers have to click through several pages or read a lot of information, many will likely give up before they finish the process.

2. Monitor Online Reviews

“Feedback is a gift. Ideas are the currency of our next success. Let people see you value both feedback and ideas.” -Jim Trinka and Les Wallace, Authors of A Legacy of 21st Century Leadership

When Karl and his wife went on a trip to Italy, they stayed in a hotel where the air conditioning wasn’t working. To help cool the rooms, the staff had opened the windows, letting in a lot of mosquitoes. Within ten minutes of being at the hotel, Karl’s wife was ready to write a negative review. She did, giving the hotel one star, and five minutes later they got a call from the hotel’s management telling them that they saw the review and asking what the hotel could do to help. They brought fans and did the best they could, explaining the situation with the air conditioner. Because the hotel was monitoring their reviews, they were able to see that a customer needed help and respond, resulting in Karl's wife changing her rating to a four-star rating. 

"Most people in the world are fair-minded. If you do the best you can, are honest with people and upfront with people, and explain the situation, even if the result is not optimal, people will accept it. People will generally say, ‘I get it, you're doing the best you can.’ They will not be highly critical.” -Karl Huish

“Be quick with service in a way that's authentic, real, direct, and timely. All those things make a huge difference." -Karl Huish

We can learn another lesson about immediate responses from the experience of Karl and his wife. The hotel had a system in place to quickly identify negative reviews and then immediately take action to resolve the situation. This hotel responded to the review in person within five minutes. That’s really impressive. If they had waited until the next day it would have been too late, and there would have probably been very little chance that the review would have been changed. Immediate responses are much more impressive and have a “wow” factor because most businesses don’t do that.  

If you can deal with it quickly and show exceptional customer service in response, you can often completely, or at least to a great extent, remedy that negative review or that negative situation.

The employees who responded to that negative review also seemed personally invested in the situation. Karl speculated that there was money at stake for the individual employees along with the hotel in general. We can incentivize our employees by giving things like spot bonuses for those who were working when the company received five-star reviews. We can also take this in the opposite direction for the employees on staff when the company receives one or two-star reviews. Either way, this type of system will help align our team priorities with our company priority of increasing 5-star reviews. It will ensure our employees have a personal stake in the outcome, and it will drive them to give the very best customer service they can.

Customers know the power of reviews; especially the power of a bad review. So what do we, or our employees, do when a customer threatens to leave a bad review and demands something unreasonable in return?

Firstly, we want to do everything we can to not create situations where customers could become unreasonable. Be upfront with our customers when there is a problem and don’t make promises that the company can’t keep. Set good expectations.

There are situations that aren’t preventable, however. In these instances, we want to listen to the customer and make sure we understand the problem. This will help the customers to feel heard. Steven Covey taught us to “Seek first to understand before seeking to be understood.” Once we think we understand, it is often good to explain to the customer what you’re understanding is of their problem to check if we are understanding correctly. Feeling understood can help diffuse a lot of the negativity. 

Once the customer feels we understand their perspective, we can calmly explain our situation and try to solve the problem. Forbes advises to “ask [the customer] what [he or she] feels should be done or put forward your own fair and realistic answer to the problem. In most cases, that’s all the customer is looking for—and may result in providing some degree of satisfaction.”

As part of the real estate business, Karl has seen a shift as developers have started transitioning from buying land, building on it, and selling it to buying land, building on it, and holding onto that property and the revenue stream connected to it. Sometimes the answer is to hold onto what we’ve built. This goes for physical assets as well as digital ventures. 

More and more businesses are turning to recurring revenue streams. For example, IDC predicts that by 2022, 53% of all software revenue will be purchased with a subscription model. One business Karl has experience with didn’t create a recurring revenue model. Twenty years later they looked back and regretted it. Another business put all their energy into recurring revenue streams and they were very successful for it. Every business should evaluate whether there are recurring revenue streams that can be built into the business. Recurring revenue streams make it easier to plan, create higher margins and more predictability, and provide a better lifestyle with less stress from an owner’s perspective. Recurring revenue streams often also help companies to sell for a lot more money. 

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Karl or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/karl-huish-72276a114/ 

Thank you Karl for sharing your stories and wisdom. Here are some of my key takeaways from today's episode: 

1. Encourage online reviews to build your credibility.
2. Monitor online reviews so you can quickly solve problems.
3. Give immediate customer service to fix problems where possible.
4. Be honest with our customers when there is a problem.
5. Give our employees incentive to get good reviews.
6. Listen to our customers.
7. Consider if there are recurring revenue streams that could be built into our businesses.

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

Challenge

If we desire monetization we have never before achieved, we must leverage strategies we have never before implemented. I challenge each of us to pick one thing that resonated with us from today’s episode and schedule a time to implement it to help achieve our monetization goals.

Do you have any tips and tricks about increasing 5-star reviews?  Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/30-using-reviews-to-build-credibility-in-an-untrusting-world-with-karl-huish/