Small Business Naked

Driving 200 Miles an Hour, and Running a Great Business with Adan Olalde

Every little boy dreams of racing exotic cars.  Adam Olalde at the age of 30, has owned over 20...and gets to write them off!  While you might be thinking we just wanted to talk to Adam for the opportunity to lean about growing a business with the coolest product and service, know to man, and you would be correct.  However, The Xtreme Xperience, is not just a cool business, Adam was able to create a profitable business from day one!

We learned a lot from our talk with Adam.  The bad thing was that we (and when I say "we", I mean Nick) messed up the audio part of our interview.  But thankful you can hear Adam really well, but you might not hear Nick and Johnny all that well...sorry about that.  This interview is what instigated the purchase of new sound equipment that you have actually already heard on several of our podcasts.

We all have a different path into business ownership and Adam is no different.  His started in the bathroom.  Well, not really, but he was selling bathroom supplies for a company, and that is what lead him eventually into selling amazing auto experiences.  He know his business well, and we can all learn a thing or two about building a successful business.  He started with sales first, kept his debt low, brought on staff to help him focus, listened to the market, and his customers, and is now THE industry leader in the country.

For more information on Adam Olalde and Extreme Xperience, check out their cool new website, with plenty of pic and videos of their cars.

To listen to the entire interview, please visit us oniTunes or Stitcher or at our website at smallbusinessnaked.com 

Financing your Small Business and Personal Finance

If you have started a small business, you know what it is like to have to figure out the dilemma of financing.  Most people are comfortable with going down to the bank and getting a small business loan.  Today on our What's Up section, Nick and Johnny talk about how they started their service businesses.  Johnny admits to have not borrowing any money, while Nick started his business using a credit card.  Both are in agreement to borrow as little as possible because it makes you think about the purchases for your business, not to overspend, and to keep overhead lower.

In our conversation, we talk about Love Money - money give from friends or family, either given or lent.  We also talked about bootstrapping - growing slow, just like putting one boot on at a time.

Then, we talk about personal finance.  Nick and Johnny believe that personal finance is the foundation for a happy life.  Nick shared how he made a turn around after listening to Dave Ramsey and learning how to correctly manage money:  build an emergency fund, pay off debt (smallest to largest), save for retirement and kids college, invest, give and enjoy life.  There is much more to it than that, but it is not complicated.

We also talked about leasing vehicles vs. financing a car vs. paying cash.

To listen to the entire show on finance your business and personal finance, please visit us on iTunes or Stitcher or at our website at smallbusinessnaked.com 

Nick Ruiz:  Alpha Home Flipping

We thought we were going to just learn about investing into real estate, but we learned so much more.  Nick proved to be an on fire entrepreneur that had a crazy life story.  Nick had early success in real estate, but got burned when the market tanked, and ultimately, Nick wound up in bankruptcy.  But, instead of sitting back, feeling sorry for himself, he got back up, and is once again killing it in real estate.

Nick's business is not just investing in real estate though, he now also teaches others how to invest into what he calls the single family triad:  Rentals, wholesale, and rehab.

Nick has several different ways of making money.  Nick buys, sells, flips, and teaches others how to do the same.  But if you reach out to Nick, you will go for the information about investing, but you will fall in love with his passion and energy.

For more information on Nick Ruiz go to Alpha Home Flipping.

To listen to the entire interview, please visit us oniTunes or Stitcher or at our website at smallbusinessnaked.com 

Lots to cover in this What's Up episode.  Johnny and Nick chat about Customer Service, and all it's glory.  But before we jumped into that, we had a few shout-outs and an email from Scotty Bowden.  Thanks for the nice note of encouragement.  We love that!

We announced a T-shirt campaign we will do in 2015, so if you have any ideas, please hit us up over on the right hand side.  More details to come...as they come to us I guess.

We also announced that we will be doing something with the gang over at The Big Idea.  We need to chat with them, and then we will let you know what's up.  Should be fun.

Customer service is one of the biggest thing that can set you apart as a small business.  We cannot always compete on price, but we can always wow them with our level of service.  From answering the phone, to following up when things don't go according to plan, there are a lot of ways we can deliver good customer service.  When problems come up?  How do you respond? Do you accept the blame, or do you make excuses.  Johnny's tagline for Erbert Lawns is "We show up."  That means they show up when the tell the customer, but it also points to the fact that they take care of problems fast.  At Walls by Design, Nick's team tries to over communicate, and help the customer understand everything that will happen, and what they can expect.  To figure out what you need to do, you should figure out what will emotionally connect with your customer.  This will help them connect with you.  Big shout out to Joy Gendusa, and PostcardMania (past guest of the radio show).

We also talked about doing something unexpected.  Maybe that is giving out dog bones, or upgrading a customer to a premium product or service like Zappos does with two day shipping.  Give them a surprise and they will remember you.

Good quote that Johnny pulled by Zig Ziggler:  "You can have anything in life you want, if you just help enough people get what they want."

To listen to the entire interview, please visit us on iTunes or Stitcher or at our website at smallbusinessnaked.com 

Trish Sare: BikeHike Adventures

What would it be like to step out of life and travel the world for FIVE YEARS?!  That is what Trish did at the age of 20.  Her mom had passed away while Trish was young, and had regretted that she had not been able to go see the world, and so she encouraged her daughter to NOT do the same.  Trish quickly fell in love with meeting people and getting to know different cultures.  After doing an internship with a travel company, she decided to launch her own company 20 years ago.  Trish leads a staff of four, and organizes trips all over the world, but specializes in small group multi activity holidays in South and Central America, Canada, Europe, Oceania, Asia and Africa. The trips place a strong emphasis on culture.

BikeHike's Passion for Active Travel from BikeHike Adventures on Vimeo.

Trish and her team organize the logistics, and form relationships with local tour operators that fit with her philosophy of responsible travel, environmental sustainability, and safety.  Individuals, couples, and groups can choose from a variety of ability levels and activities.  Everything from biking, hiking, climbing, spelunking, and more.  Most trips are about a week long, but most can adjusted to fit the needs of the travelers.

Keeping expenses low has been very important to Trish and is one of her keys to success.  Doing more with less always gets a big thumbs up from Nick and Johnny.  Trish admitted that her favorite part of owning the business though is going on trips, and more specifically, going on scouting trips to find resources and locations.

For more information on Trish and BikeHike Adventurs, click here.

To listen to the entire interview, please visit us oniTunes or Stitcher or at our website at smallbusinessnaked.com 

How to get PR for your small business

This week we have another episode of What's Up!  But, it is a little bit all over the board.  Nick throws Johnny several curve balls, but as always, they keep talking about growing a small business.

Big news this week, Small Business Naked hit the top 15 under "small business" in iTunes, and hit #1 under Management and Marketing in iTunes in Australia.  But maybe more importantly, we got an email!  So excited.  Paul from Australia about his lawn care business.  Johnny, with a little bit of Nick's help, answers this great question about firing an employee.  Scary ground for the uninitiated, but vital if you want to grow your business bigger than just you.

When running a small business, PR or a press release can be an effective addition to your marketing mix.  Nick and Johnny have both had some success with submitting articles and getting business for each of their businesses. As a part of trying to reach more people with the Small Business Naked message, we reached out to the folks at eReleases to help get out a press release.  In doing so, we felt that an interview with the owner, Mickie Kennedy, and had a bit of a chat about PR and small business.

Three takeaways from our talk with Mickie:

Have something to share that is note worthy

Don't be afraid to stand out

Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to know what to talk about.

Depending on what kind of business you have, will determine what kids of releases would work, and what kinds of publications would help.  If you want some help with creating a little PR for your business, give Mickie a call or just check out their website.  ereleases.org.

To listen to the entire interview, please visit us oniTunes or Stitcher or at our website atsmallbusinessnaked.com 

Timbo Reid: Marketing your small business

"There has never been a better time to market a small business."  Timbo Reid of the Small Business Big Marketing podcast, Australia's #1 marketing podcast (and pretty high up in the rest of the world as well).

It may be a little strange that we are interviewing another podcaster, but there is a good reason...Timbo is the inspiration for Nick to re-start the Small Business Naked podcast.  After finding Tim's podcast while on a family trip to Portland, Nick was hooked, and has been a loyal listener ever since;  "Listening to Timbo has helped me find focus in my marketing efforts for my painting business, and made me realize that podcasting is a great way to become an influencer and to build my personal brand."

Tim, or Timbo as he likes to be called, started his career in a big ad agency, working for the man...like many of us.  After several years, he realized that  he liked to teach, and loved talking to small business owners about their marketing.  So after finding one bigger client, he launched out on his own to do marketing consulting under his own name.  Soon he started Small Business Big Marketing, which helped to launch his personal brand.  Now he spends most of his time speaking around the world, consulting with a few clients, and producing his very popular podcast.

We had a blast talking about small business, marketing, and podcasting with Tim.  Here are a few of the key take-a-ways from our time with him:

Be yourself.  Don't try to be something your not.  Be who you are, and portray that in your business, and your marketing.

Marketing is everything and everything is marketing.  Weather you are talking about your logo, your business card, answering your phones, or how your team interacts with your customers.  IT IS ALL MARKETING.

Find your WHY, then communicate it through great marketing.

We talked about several of Tim's guests, but one example of a small business owner doing great marketing was Tom Dickson of Will it Blend?  He takes the most rediculous things possible, puts them in his blender, and mashes them up.  Take this video of him blending iPhones.  Rediculous.

For more information on Timbo, click here for his bio page, click here for his forum, to book him for speaking, and click here form his favorite interview with Melissa Maker (who we also interviewed), which was his favorite interview.

To listen to the entire interview, please visit us oniTunes or Stitcher or at our website at smallbusinessnaked.com 

I know we have talked about focus before, but we talk about it  A LOT!  So, we are talking about it again.  We need reminders.  As business owners, and as entrepreneurs, we all need MORE FOCUS.  Before we get into that, we got caught up a little.

Johnny just got back from a cruise.  He took his two managers on an end of the season reward:  a cruise.  They went on the largest boat in the world.  He blew away his team, gave then a great reward, and invested into them and their significant others, as a thank you, and to invest into them.

We announced out show sponsor, a past guest, Hatchwise.  So if you need a logo, a business card, or anything designed, we want you to give Hatchwise a try.  They give you really great value, and Nick and Johnny have both used them for several projects, and believe that they are the BEST design contest site for graphic design.

 

Rule of ONE. Anytime you have more than one of anything, it complicates things. This is Johnny's way of keeping things simple.  How do you stay focused?

To listen to the entire interview, please visit us oniTunes or Stitcher or at our website at smallbusinessnaked.com 

Melissa Maker:  Clean My Space

If you have ever thought, "I should do YouTube videos for my business." Than this is the show for you.  Melissa had just started a cleaning business (after working in a bank...BORING!), and thought that YouTube videos would be a good way to market her business.  In fact, here is her very first video she produced:

 

The editing is bad, the jokes are worse, and the editing...wow!!  How did she ever make a go at this video thing?   Well, she kept going, she kept improving, and now, she produces videos like this:

 

Melissa has made a name for herself in the cleaning business, and she started this business while hating to clean.  Now, she has a great business that employs about 20 employees, and provides a great income for her and her husband Chad. Starting to market her cleaning business, let to a second small business, she now speaks, and receives ad revenue from her website and YouTube videos.

In our interview with Melissa, we talk about how she started her small business, what she loves about being an entrepreneur, and so much more. Clean my space now has an international presence, and Melissa shared all about it. She not only shares what it was like to start a service based business, but also how to make money on YouTube, what the videos have led to, and how she splits her time in her business.

To watch some cool videos, go to CleanMySpace.com and to go to Melissa's cleaning business site, go to CleanMySpace.ca.  To listen to the entire interview, please visit us on iTunes or Stitcher or at our website at smallbusinessnaked.com 

 

Show Transcript

Hey! Thanks for joining us today. I’m Nick.

And of course, I’m Johnny John.

[Laughs] You’re listening to "Small Business Naked".

I will say something different. So, it throws Nick off every time.

He always has to just mess with me. I don’t understand this. But this is what I have to deal with him on a daily basis, guys. But we have a great show today. We've got Melissa Maker from "Clean My Space".

A.k.a. Mrs. Clean. I know the expert is an overused term, but she’s really an expert on cleaning.

She’s also from Canadia eh.

Yes, eh.

Eh.

She’s going to share with us two of her business stories. She has two because she’s actually owned the service business. She has a media company. What a great insight she has on both. So, I think you’re going to find them both are really valuable.

Yes. You’re going to learn, not only about starting a business, but how to market your business and what marketing potentially could do for you. It’s not only grown her service business. But it’s also helped her create a secondary business, one that, I think, she says in an interview, is more profitable than her actual business.

She’s also going to tell us how we can make videos if we’re interested, and how they work, and do they work, and all those types of things. So, take a listen. You’re going to like this.

Beer, wine, or a cocktail.

I don’t drink.

So neither.

 Read more>>

How you answer the phone MATTERS!

On this episode, Nick and Johnny prank call a few businesses for your benefit.  No, not just for a laugh, but they did have a few of those.  Your phone is an important part of your marketing mix, and your customer service experience.  Nick and Johnny call competing businesses to see how they answer their phone, if they answer their phone, and then turn the table on each other.  Wait to you hear what happens!

For most small businesses, the phones are an afterthought, or just an expense.  But we find that there is money to be made in answering the phone...all the time.  If you don't answer your phone, you are wasting marketing money in your small business.  Because if you don't answer your phone, your competition will be answering theirs.  If your potential customer doesn't get someone when they call, they will go on to the next company to call.  If you put customers first, you will make an effort to answer your phone all the time.

If you spend money or time to market your business, and it goes to voice mail, then you have just wasted that money.  Thrown it out the window!  Don't wast good marketing money.

Nick uses Ring Central for his phone.  Great VOiP phone service.  You can find our more about them on our resources page.