Small Business Answer Man

Introducing Aaron Anderson

Aaron Anderson has been working in the SEO industry full-time since 2013. While working and consulting for multiple SEO agencies he saw a big demand for high-quality link-building services, which led him to start offering those services as a freelancer and then growing those services into a full-fledged link-building agency. He is also the host of the podcast "Let's Talk Link Building", which dives into all the different approaches and strategies one might take to build backlinks for their online business.

1. What problem do you solve?
   • He will help you understand what link building is and how to navigate the whole SEO and link building industry.

Show Notes:

• Quick explanation of SEO: Search engines look at content of your query and then they look at all the websites and results. Next, they narrow it down to authority and trust. The more links a website has, the more trusted the site is and the more likely the search engine is to send people to that site.
• When you link a different website, you are giving them a vote of confidence.
• To give your site more credibility, you want other sites to link to your site.
• Certain content is more likely to get backlinks such as a free tool or assessment.
• The more trusted the site that has your backlink, the more beneficial it is to you.
• Beware of buying backlinks. Sometimes those services are using websites that are created solely for the purpose of selling backlinks. Those types of backlinks won't give you the credibility you want.
• If you outsource your backlink building. Make sure you are using someone who is transparent and willing to educate you. It is also important to get different opinions.
• Google tries to identify and perhaps even penalize websites that are there solely for backlinks.
• Aaron likes to teach others about link-building.

Aaron Anderson's Recharge Round

1. What habit do you think has led to success in your life? Knowing himself and knowing what he's creating. He wants to know he's creating value for others.
2. If you had one do-over, what would it be? He didn't have confidence when he first started to scale his business. If he had to do it over he would try to instill confidence in himself.

Aaron Anderson's website: linkpitch.io

Podcast: Let's Talk Link-Building

Connect with Aaron Anderson:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Facebook

Learn more about Gary's Mastermind group at goascend.biz/mastermind/

Get your Daily Dose of Positive at SimplePositiveActions.com

Beth Banks Cohn, PhD is an accomplished Organizational Consultant, Executive Coach, and Thought Leader with more than 25 years of business success. Beth is a valuable asset as she helps companies use organizational, and individuals use personal, transformation to reach the next level of growth.

1. What problem do you solve?
   • She will help people solve those bumps in the road either by helping them avoid them or get over them.

Show Notes:

• Change may be harder now due to what we've been through in the last few years.
• It's easy to say we just need to be more resilient but that's not always easy.
  • Other things going on in our life can make change harder.
• First, we need to own our reaction to the change. We should then educate ourselves so that we at least understand the reason for the change. Then explore how it might help you… will it help you with growth, will it give you new opportunities
• Also, we need to realize that it may change our position. We then have the opportunity to decide if we want to stay or move on to another place.
• Organizations need to focus on the people side and engage them. They should realize that people are not used to changing they are tired of it.
• Organizations need to make sure they listen so that they can explain the change and people can understand it and understand how it affects them.
• Beth uses a framework to help explore how the change will affect every single person in the organization. This will help determine if the change is really going to work.
• Companies should focus on how to make life better for their employees. Improvement in human capital leads to an increase in your company's capital.

Beth Banks Cohn's Recharge Round

1. What habit do you think has led to success in your life? Her ability to take time off and recharge. It makes her a better entrepreneur and helps her feel more energized.
2. If you had one do-over, what would it be? Early in her career, she was told she was too aggressive, too loud, and too assertive and she tried to fix herself. Now she owns it as who she is.

Beth Banks Cohn's website: adrachangearchitects.com

Connect with Beth Banks Cohn:

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn

Twitter

Facebook

Learn more about Gary's Mastermind group at goascend.biz/mastermind/

Get your Daily Dose of Positive at SimplePositiveActions.com

Introducing Dr. Akhtar Badshah

Dr. Akhtar Badshah is Chief Catalyst at Catalytic Innovators Group, where he advises organizations and individuals to catalyze their strategy focused on social and philanthropic investments. He also conducts Purpose Mindset Leadership Workshops with organizations to help individuals articulate their strengths and values, and craft their purpose statement.

1. What problem do you solve?
   • We should be in the business of creating futures. He wants to share how to improve things for the greater good.

Show Notes:

• The purpose mindset is the intention or the why behind what we do.
• The purpose mindset is the reason behind your growth.
• 5 principles behind purpose mindset.
  • Work from your strengths (write down 3 strengths and then work from there).
  • Put on a lens of abundance (instead of a scarcity view).
  • It is not about the efficiency of how you get things done but the effectiveness of what you are doing.
  • It is about igniting movements.
  • How do we go from just being generous to being empathetic and compassionate?
    • Create a purpose mindset journal
    • Jot down every month where you were able to use your purpose.
• It's okay to focus on yourself first (but to the betterment of society). Then move to your family, community and workplace.
• Write down 3 strengths, then 3 values that exemplify you. Then write your purpose statement.
• Your work and your purpose shouldn't be fully aligned. If they are, you are a robot.
• Dr. Ahktar Badshah's book: Purpose Mindset

Dr. Ahktar Badshah's Recharge Round

1. What habit do you think has led to success in your life? He's open to taking on new challenges. Be open-minded, and take risks.
2. If you had one do-over, what would it be? Embrace failures.

Dr. Ahktar Badshah's website: catalyticinnovatorsgroup & purpose-mindset.org

Connect with Dr. Ahktar Badshah:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Facebook

Learn more about Gary's Mastermind group at goascend.biz/mastermind/

Get your Daily Dose of Positive at SimplePositiveActions.com

Dr. Carla Fowler is an MD, PhD and elite executive coach. For the last decade, she has been a secret weapon for scores of CEOs, entrepreneurs, and other senior leaders. Carla's unique approach combines the latest research from performance science with timeless best practices to help top performers level up and achieve their goals.

1. What problem do you solve?
   • How do you think about improving your performance when the answer is no longer "I just need to work harder."

Show Notes:

• High performers do some things differently
  • They lean on compounding. It's the idea of doing something small consistently over time. The growth is small to begin with but then it grows exponentially.
• Performance Science
  • Ideas that affect your strategy (picking the right thing to do)
  • Ideas that help you execute more efficiently
  • Mindset
• Brutal focus is important. How can you become more focused? You may need to really examine things and then stop doing some things.
• Cultivating power/influence is another important area. This is creating visibility. Use your network and resources. You could have the best product/service but you need it to be visible.
• Learn how to relish uncertainty because that is generally where opportunity lies.
• It's easier to relish uncertainty if you can adopt a mindset of abundance.
• Have a mindset of always growing and always learning. You may need to think of opportunities as experiments. You can decide if you want to go with them based on risk and possible return.

Carla Fowler's Recharge Round

1. What habit do you think has led to success in your life? She looks around to see the most challenging thing and then commits to how she is going to figure it out. Practically, she takes time to think and plan every day.
2. If you had one do-over, what would it be? She overthought her possibilities in rowing and literally held on with too tight a grip and caused issues. Her lesson was to hold on to things more loosely.

Carla Fowler's website: thaxa.com

Connect with Carla Fowler:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Learn more about Gary's Mastermind group at goascend.biz/mastermind/

Get your Daily Dose of Positive at SimplePositiveActions.com

Jeffrey is a nationally recognized thought leader and award-winning author on the next evolution of leadership: Conscious Leadership. He has bootstrapped 2 multi-million dollar companies; several non-profits and multiple political organizations. Jeffrey is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council and is also a stage 4 cancer "thriver."

1. What problem do you solve?
   • How to maximize your human capital to maximize your financial capital. That is to convert that collective genius and energy of your organization, of your teams, to be able to increase your profits in a way that you can actually implement in the real world.

Show Notes:

• One of the biggest challenges is that employee engagement is low. According to Gallup, employee engagement is only around 30%, but 70% of employees want to be engaged, and 100% of employers want engaged employees.
• The problem is not the people but that we have a broken model. We are still working with an industrial age model.
• The most successful design humans have come up with to collaborate is the tribe. It is not the organizational chart.
• Models which are silos, hierarchies, bureaucracy and structures are outdated.
• Keep the organizational chart because that tells people who they work for and what department they are in. But realize it's just a skin.
• There are 3 things behind the organizational chart that are responsible for 100% of performance.
  • Tribal dynamics
  • Knowledge networks (teams)
  • Culture
• Work on the above to maximize your team performance.
• We have to realize that we are in a whole different world. We absolutely have to transform how we lead.
• It's all about maximizing the collective genius in your organization.
  • Ask your people for input. They likely can offer solutions.
  • When team members help offer solutions, they have an interest in making sure that it works.
• Jeffrey has a worksheet on his website. It's a formula that shows how, when you improve employee engagement by a few points, it actually puts money in your pocket for free.
• We have to make our organizations an attractive place to work.
• You may have to wrestle with your ego a bit and you are going to have to be adaptive.
• It's we as leaders who need to change.
• A leader is an individual who can evolve, who can adapt, and who is actually leading.

Jeffrey Deckman's Recharge Round

1. What habit do you think has led to success in your life? When he learned to truly listen and W.A.I.T. -- Why Am I Talking
2. If you had one do-over, what would it be? His first company failed and he took the lessons from that to build a better business the next time.

Jeffrey Deckman's website: jeffreydeckman.com

Jeffrey is offering a free half hour of coaching time. Email him at [email protected]

Conscious Leadership Development Program: jeffreydeckman.com/conscious-leadership-development-program

Connect with Jeffrey Deckman:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Youtube

Learn more about Gary's Mastermind group at goascend.biz/mastermind/

Get your Daily Dose of Positive at SimplePositiveActions.com

Rob Ashton is an entrepreneur and former scientist who has had a life-long fascination with how the things we read and write influence what we think and do.

He's been researching the science behind the process of reading and writing for more than six years. His research runs the gamut of cognitive and social neuroscience, cognitive and social psychology, and behavioral and neuroeconomics.

1. What problem do you solve?
   • How to influence decisions by changing how you write (backed up by science).

Show Notes:

• We write all of the time but if you don't pay attention and realize how your writing is processed, you may have problems.
• We learn the spoken word before the written word and we learn it by osmosis. Reading and writing take work and needs to be done deliberately.
• We have less reserves for emotional control when we read. If you are emotional, it's best to stop and not reply immediately.
• It also takes more brain power to read and write than to speak.
• Don't trust what you think when you first read a message.
• The current emotions you are feeling over a situation can cause you to misread unrelated items.
• We overestimate how much people will understand what we are thinking.
• Rob's best advice is to talk instead of write since speech is the best form of communication.

Rob Ashton's Recharge Round

1. What habit do you think has led to success in your life? Reading. He consumes a lot of different content to absorb ideas.
2. If you had one do-over, what would it be? Don't pay too much attention to what other people think of you and do go chasing other people's success. Be yourself and do your own thing.

Rob Ashton's website: robashton.com

Silent Influence Course: influence.robashton.com

Connect with Rob Ashton:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Facebook

Learn more about Gary's Mastermind group at goascend.biz/mastermind/

Get your Daily Dose of Positive at SimplePositiveActions.com

Kate DiLeo's branding approach is rooted in her firm belief that brand is the path of least resistance to revenue. She teaches you how to eliminate complex and ineffective brand storytelling by delivering a simple yet provocative message that tells prospects what you do, how you solve their problem, and how you differ from the competition. The outcome? Brand conversations that convert. Kate is honored to have partnered with more than 200 brands across 20 sectors. She is passionate about helping organizations craft messaging that brings more prospects to the table, more users who click, and more customers who buy. Her book, Muting the Megaphone, Stop Telling Stories and Start Having Conversations, just released in July of 2022.

1. What problem do you solve?
   • Kate will help us understand the main components of how to build a brand for your business that enables you to win more work.

Show Notes:

• You need to realize the power of your brand message.
• There are actually three key components for that brand in order to get more of the right prospects to the right table at the right time.
  1. You need to have a tagline that clearly articulates what you do.
  2. You need to follow that up with a value proposition statement that is a really big, bold, audacious statement that answers the question: "Here's how I solve your very specific heart pain."
  3. Finally, you need differentiator statements. It's the 2-4 points of how you are different and better than the rest.
• A very clear tagline breaks open the door for you to start a conversation.
• Your tagline starts to set up your value proposition.
• Your tagline should make someone want to ask you more.
• There are two things with your brand on the whole that are going to make you seem and feel different.
  • Your approach
  • Your deliverable
• Your tone of voice or your personality is part of your brand.
• You should ask who you are going after and why. Kate uses a list of psychographics to help her understand who works best with her.
• The best brands are very surgical and niche in. They are not there for everyone. If you think you can serve everyone you will probably serve no one.
• For a practical exercise, Kate recommends asking yourself, "If my brand was a person, who would it be?"
• Kate's book, Muting the Megaphone, Stop Telling Stories and Start Having Conversations, is a tactical guide on how to go through the process of writing your brand.

Kate DiLeo's Recharge Round

1. What habit do you think has led to success in your life? Kate has learned how to say no to the good to say yes to the great.
2. If you had one do-over, what would it be? She would have gotten off of the hustle wheel faster. Hustle was hard on her health and almost led her to burnout.

Connect with Kate DiLeo:

Kate DiLeo's website: katedileo.com

LinkedIn

Learn more about Gary's Mastermind group at goascend.biz/mastermind/

Get your Daily Dose of Positive at SimplePositiveActions.com

Gary Geiman is a serial entrepreneur and business owner. His 30-year career has spanned owning multiple businesses and developing sales and marketing plans to assist other business owners in growing their businesses.

1. What problem do you solve?
   • 2 of the biggest problems entrepreneurs have early on are figuring out how to be present and how to be found.

Show Notes:

• Business owners get into business because either something happened in their life that brought them to that place or they are passionate about the business they started. The challenge may be that the business owner doesn't have sales skills.
• In sales, you have to have a bond-building approach with multiple touches. You have to have follow-up to complete the sale.
• Being present refers to social media platforms and being found refers to Google search presence.
• Social is about consistency and content. We get caught up in thinking our business is really interesting but people actually are interested in people they can relate to.
• Content should be:
  • Entertaining
  • Engaging or
  • Educating
• Be engaging as possible. Be authentic. Be real. Be an individual. Talk more about yourself, talk about your failings. It makes you more relatable.
• Be consistent. Also, be present in your community. Sponsor events and teams.
• Being found is about your website.
• If you want to be found on Google maps, go to business.google.com and make sure you have a map listing.
• The best thing to do is to create raving fans as customers. Let them know you want to create a 5-star relationship with them and you want them completely satisfied. Then ask them for a referral and a review.
• Give a gift card for referrals.
• Go to Gary's website and on the about us tab go to foundations to check out their mission and core values.

Gary Geiman's Recharge Round

1. What habit do you think has led to success in your life? Gary's biggest habit is persistence and not giving up. Then create habits around your persistence.
2. If you had one do-over, what would it be? Not realizing we are multi-dimensional people. We need to realize we need to focus on family and friends too and not just business.

Connect with Gary Geiman:

Gary Geiman's website: salvonow.com

LinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

Learn more about Gary's Mastermind group at goascend.biz/mastermind/

Get your Daily Dose of Positive at SimplePositiveActions.com

Zack Boothe is the host of the Driving For Dollars Mastery podcast where he shares his insider secrets to finding massively discounted properties regardless of experience level. Zack went from a successful window cleaner to an even more successful millionaire and real estate investor. With his constantly growing business, he now spends his time helping others see how simple it is to make money with real estate. Zack built a dream real estate business…and he's ready to show you how you can too.

1. What problem do you solve?
   • Show people how to get started in real estate investing even if they don't have deep pockets.

Show Notes:

• Zack started young. His dad didn't allow for excuses.
• He quit high school basketball to be an entrepreneur.
• Zack received a book from a family friend which made him understand that he had to be responsible for his own money. The book is Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
• Zack had a hunger for something more than what he grew up with.
• A key is to find deeply discounted properties.
• One technique is to wholesale properties.
• Zack realized people want speed and convenience over price.
• He also realized successful people want others to succeed as well.
• Often people will sell for less to avoid the hassles of family drama.
• Wholesaling is a great way to start because there is less risk.
• Zack shares his 40-day challenge to show how anyone can succeed.

Zack Boothe's Recharge Round

1. What habit do you think has led to success in your life? Always knowing what he's working towards, he knows his goal. It helps him manage his time and only work on needle-moving activities.
2. If you had one do-over, what would it be? He carried a self-limiting belief for too long.

Connect with Zack:

Zack Boothe's website: dfdmastery.com

Zack's 40 Day Real Estate Challenge: dfdchallenge.com

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

Youtube

Learn more about Gary's Mastermind group at goascend.biz/mastermind/

Get your Daily Dose of Positive at SimplePositiveActions.com

Introducing Sam Feeney

Sam is the Chief Strategy Officer for Real Frequency, a career and college consulting company based in Spokane. He is also the author of Why Aren't You Thriving?, a personal development book for men, which will be released in January of 2023. He and his family live in suburban Denver.

1. What problem do you solve?
   • Sam is tackling the topic of employee engagement and retention

Show Notes:

• Employers are assuming two things when they hire an employee.
  • They are thinking they are looking for a job that fits their skills
  • The second thing they are thinking is that potential employees want the compensation and time off.
• Sam says potential employees are looking for something more.
• It no longer works to just increase pay to attract more employees.
• You may have to consider outsourcing some of your jobs.
• You may find that you have some of your people in the wrong position in your company and they have skills they could use in different areas.
• Things we can do to keep our best employees.
  • Have your employees name why they are working.
  • Let your employees know that job satisfaction is under their control.
  • Find your employees' career factors and address these with your employees. Be creative.

Sam Feeney's Recharge Round

1. What habit do you think has led to success in your life? Leveling up the people he hangs out with.
2. If you had one do-over, what would it be? He got sidetracked from his plan. He wishes he would have had a mentor or a board of advisors to help keep him on track.

Connect with Sam:

Sam Feeney's website: madetothrive.coach

Get Your Free Career Factors Assessment: quiz.thecareerfactors.com

Sam's book will be out January 2023: Why Aren't You Thriving? A Man's Guide to Asking Tough Questions and Getting Better in 7 Core Areas

Sam's Podcast: Made to Thrive

Learn more about Gary's Mastermind group at goascend.biz/mastermind/

Get your Daily Dose of Positive at SimplePositiveActions.com