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Derek Halpern is a blunt, straight-talking New Yorker who tells it like it is. While still in college, he decided to start a celebrity gossip website, but in typical Halpern fashion, he did not do any part of the project half-way. He did a thorough analysis of the market and found a way to stand out in an already crowded niche. As a result, he created a phenomenally successful site which at one point attracted over 1 million visitors in one 24-hour period. Today, he is most well known as the founder of Social Triggers, a marketing blog where he demonstrates how to use psychology to convert casual browsers of a website or blog into customers and subscribers.

In this episode, Derek shares a few of the secrets to his success and some practical, actionable ways you can convert more visitors to your website or blog into raving fans, subscribers and buyers. This episode will be of most value to entrepreneurs and small business owners who have a website or blog they want to attract more clients or customers to visit -- which, after all, is most people today. Enjoy!

A little over a year ago, John Lee Dumas was an unknown podcaster, hustling to get good guests for his new podcast. He barely even knew how to start a podcast, much less run a good one.

Today, he has a thriving business based off that same podcast, Entrepreneur on Fire, and he's interviewed an incredible array of guests, from Tim Ferriss to Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran to Seth Godin.

He even interviewed my own client, Carl Mattiola, who started a software business on the side that allowed him to quit his job at Tesla within 6 months. Check out that interview.

s learned so much, in fact, that he recently launched a new podcaster's training program called Podcaster's Paradise, which walks budding podcasters through how to start a podcast, including everything from what equipment to buy to getting good guests.

I know some people who are members of?Podcaster's Paradise and they have said good things about the community.

So if you are curious about how to start a podcast, I'd recommend you check it out. (Note: that link is not an affiliate link – I'm just recommending based on others' recommendations and because I've met John and he's a good guy.)

Personally, I can say that launching my own podcast was a huge undertaking with a lot of technical hurdles to overcome. So I recommend having a community who can help you through the process.

John has some great, practical advice in this interview about entrepreneurship in general, including some tips on how to be productive (spoiler alert: it involves getting up really early). Enjoy!

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful social networks available today. But a lot of people find it very confusing. Many people sign up, set up a profile, and then don't know what to do next. They end up abandoning it or wasting a lot of time because they don't know how to use LinkedIn and to make it work for them. That's where my guests Lori Ruff and Mike O'Neil come in. Lori and Mike are known as the "LinkedIn Rock Stars" and they shown hundreds of people how to use LinkedIn for business. I've been privileged to be a guest on their podcast, Rock the World with LinkedIn, where they combine their passion for music with their passion for LinkedIn (yes, really!). What I love about them is they are willing to express some of their individual personalities, which is so rare in the often-stuffy world of business. So definitely check out their podcast. In this episode, Lori and Mike share some great tips on how to maximize your LinkedIn profile, how to use LinkedIn effectively, and how to develop and nurture relationships using LinkedIn. Enjoy!

Imagine starting a new professional sports team... from scratch.

That's what my latest guest did. Mike Shapiro is the founding partner and current managing partner of the San Rafael Pacifics, an independent league professional baseball team in San Rafael, California.

Many years ago, Mike had the idea for starting a professional baseball team to play at a local ballpark where his kids played baseball. Only unlike most people who come up with a crazy, hare-brained idea like that, he followed through.

Mike shares how his new team ran into every barrier you can think of as they tried to get the new endeavor off the ground:

• raising the money to fund the initial startup costs (about $1 million)
• legal challenges - neighbors who filed a lawsuit to challenge required environmental impact reports prepared by the team
• a local community that had never heard of the new baseball team before
• the challenge of getting attention for an unknown, untested baseball team right in the backyard of the World Champion San Francisco Giants (who had won the World Series the year before the Pacifics began playing)

Mike has a fascinating story to tell, and I think it illustrates the importance of nurturing strong relationships in business. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to start up a professional sports team, you're going to love this interview!