Russ Johns – Entrepreneur and Podcaster

Russ Johns started out years ago as a professional drummer. In 1987, Russ took a fall while working on a billboard. He fell 36 feet and nearly lossed his right arm. When people shake his hand they are startled because the reconstructive surgery left him without much grip in his hand. He went through about two years of surgery. Because of this accident, he got into technology.

Russ has been in the technology industry since the early 90’s. He was relocated several times and landed in Houston. His position was eliminated and so he started working on the entrepreneurial side of things to help business owners. He was recruited to operate a couple radio stations where he started broadcasting local high school sporting games. This is what got him into podcasting.

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Having helped a lot of people with their shows and delivering podcasts or “radio on demand” to radio stations in a tradition format. He continues to think outside the box. He likes to say that he rents his brain out to business owners when they have to think outside the box. Russ really enjoys talking to other in the industry that he can bounce ideas off of.

Sometimes it takes a different lens to see a new perspective. – Russ Johns

Russ Johns Understands the Shift in Technology and Media

Media is changing. In the industrial age, there was a big requirement for building things and assembly lines for building things. Now that we are in the information age, we are more aligned with the “Story telling 2.0” through online communities. When you have something to share, it’s based on abundance and not competition. People are more likely to share rather than hide their knowledge.

It’s not far-fetched to have a community of 1,000 people, get engaged and involved in your community so that everyone does well. If you like at the big picture of media creation, you are in control now. Future Media Association is based on words, images, video and audio. Russ and his colleagues rotate each one of these focuses each week to share what’s going on with technology and these tools with business owners each week.

Russ and his partner in crime, Maryanne LaSalle, hold live meetings every Tuesday. After the meeting, they record a video called Raw and Ready. They then repurpose the video in audio form and submit it to several different platform. They’ve generated interest to open up additional chapters in Wisconsin and Dallas/Ft. Worth so that others can share their knowledge with the group.

If you want to learn more about or connect with Russ Johns, check out his links below and remember he welcomes all questions, comments and inquiries! Don’t forget to mention you heard about Russ on Stop Riding the Pine:-)

Russ Johns Website

Future Media Association Website

R&R Uncensored and Untapped Podcast

Matt Miller – Owner School Spirit Vending

Matt Miller grew up in the Chicago area. Matt went to the Air Force academy. He was blessed to be medically qualified and he did well enough in school to be invited to the flight training program after graduating. He flew for nine years. He was stationed in Lubbock, TX for six as a Air Force instructor pilot. He then went to Dover, DE for three years and when his commitment was up in 1998, he exited the military to join corporate America.

During his time in the miliary and the corporate world, he realized that he didn’t like people telling him what to do. After a short chuckle, Matt admitted that he didn’t like the fact that the rules were always changing and they weren’t changing in his favor. It was frustrating for him to have other people telling him who, what, why and where he was going.

Matt took to business online. He sold books on Ebay and he did some multi-level marketing, but none of these ventures produced what he was seeking. He was seeking an income that was passive in nature and offered something that he was really passionate about. One of his friends from church who mentioned that he and his young daughters had gotten started in the vending business. They were spending time together as a family and making money.

He thought this might be an opportunity for him to live the lifestyle he dreamed about. Matt bought his first gumball machine on Ebay. He drove across Houston on a Saturday morning in his 1998 Honda Accord with two of his kids in tow and that was the beginning of his vending career.

Making the Change and Succeeding

When Matt came out of the military and had to take a pay cut. He slowly worked his way up in the advertising space. He was #2 in the company out of 750 sales reps with the company he was working with. For some reason, his boss didn’t like this. She increased his quota by 96% when the average quota increase was 5 – 10%. That decision on her part ended up costing Matt and his family about $80k the next year. This caused a huge financial burden for Matt and so something needed to change.

Since Matt’s wife was responsible for home schooling her kids, the financial burden was Matt’s responsibility. This is why Matt decided to ultimately seek out entrepreneurship. Matt is a big believer of taking action.

“You can strategize your life away, but the only way you are going to move forward is to get it done, make it happen and figure things out.” – Matt Miller

The reason Matt decided to start School Spirit Vending was simple. In 2007 and 2008, the market tanked. People weren’t spending the extra money in the vending machines he had placed in the various restaraunts. Matt was frustrated. Right around that time, he had many kids from the neighborhood stop by his house raising money for the school. Matt didn’t think this was right. He thought that if he could find a way to help schools raise money and make it so the kids didn’t have to run around by themselves without their parents to keep them safe.

A couple months later, a good friend of Matt’s came by for dinner and told him about his idea. His friend, a gym teacher for a local school, thought it was a good idea and wanted to run it by the principal. Two weeks later, his friend called Matt and let him know they had an approval to bring in the first machine. Matt set up the machine and the numbers that machine did was incredible.

After testing the market even more, he found a model that was finally working.

Aaron Walker – Business Man and Life Coach

Aaron Walker is a native Nashvillian in Tennesse and has been there for 55 years. He started out at 13 years old working for a local pawn shop. At the ripe age of 18, he convinced a couple guys that had plenty of money to partner with him to start their own store. At 21 they bought their second store, 25 their third store and at age 26 they purchased their fourth store.

Cash America in Ft. Worth, Texas was a fortune 500 company was going through acquisitions and made an offer to Aaron that he just couldn’t refuse. Just 27 years old, Aaron retired from the Pawn Shop business. At first he thought this was going to be great; however, after 18 months and 50 lbs heavier, Aaron got bored and depressed. His wife told him that he needed to do something so he went back into the pawn shop he started with. During the next ten years, Aaron quadrupled business at the pawn shop.

Aaron’s life changed forever on August 1, 2001. He was on his way to work early in the morning. A pedestrian was crossing the street and didn’t look where he was going. Unfortuneatley, Aaron hit the pedestrian and he didn’t make it. He lived for three days in the hospital, but the extent of his injuries was just too much. This really rocked Aaron’s world. He went back to the office and told his partner he was done. He told his partner that he had been chasing money all his life, had done very well finanically, but he needed to take a break.

How Did Aaron Walker Get into His Life Coaching Career?

Aaron took the next five years off. He built a new home and traveled extensively. His wife Robin was very supportive through this process because the life-altering incident that occured wasn’t something Aaron was going to get over in a couple months. For the third time, Robin woke him up from a nap and said “Your getting fat again. It’s time to get back to work”.

Growing from Success to Significance is a big theme of mine. It’s important for everyone in all areas of life: Business, Personal and Spiritual. – Aaron T. Walker

Aaron went into the construction industry. The guy that built Aaron’s house was a great guy and so Aaron decided to partner with him. Using his expertise in sales and marketing, Aaron grew the business to the #1 builder three consecutive years in a row in middle Tennessee. When Aaron turned 50, he retired from the construction business. He thought he was finally done with work, finally.

His good friends Dave Ramsey and Dan Miller that he has been in a mastermind with for over two decades told him that he needed to start coaching. Aaron had so much experience in business and he was married for 30+ years. He was in a great position to help other guys become successful. Now he has national and international clients where he gets to help ordinary men become extraordinary each and every day.

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Aaron goes into so much more during our interview so I can’t recommend enough listening to the show. It’s a little north of 45 minutes, but if you are looking for ways to improve your business, you will definitely want to strap in and enjoy. This is a perfect show to listen to while you are walking on the treadmill or driving to work. I really can’t recommend this episode enough. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did getting to interview this amazing man!

If you want to learn more about or connect with Aaron Wa...

Dennis Brown – LinkedIn Trainer, Speaker and 6-Time Inc. 500’s Fastest Growing Companies Recipient

Dennis Brown has been an entrepreneur for over 20 years. As a child, he always thought he was going to be in law enforcement, an attorney or an FBI agent. He never dreamed he would be an entrepreneur. After college, he worked in sales and enjoyed some early success. He then ventured down the entrepneurial path and found it to be very challenging. It wasn’t until 2003, and after several failed startups, that he was presented with an opportunity to start a logistics company that is projected to do over $50 million in revenue this year. He ran it for ten years and has since retired from that business.

Due to the success of his logistics company, Dennis was ranked in Inc. Magazine’s 500 Fastest Growing Companies six times. Once a year, Inc. Magaizine publishes an issue once a year called the Inc. 500 where they rank the country’s fastest growing 500 companies. After a grueling auditing process in 2008, he received a letter from the magazine telling him he ranked 298th in the 500 fastest growing companies. Other companies that have been on this list were companies like Google and Microsoft. He shared some great company.

The Transition from Successful Corporate Executive to LinkedIn Expert

In 2007, the logistics company was doing really well. They were doing about $12 million in sales, but they flattened out. It was getting harder and harder to continue to increase revenue. Dennis claims to be one of the nay-sayers about social media early on. One day, he received an invitation to connect on LinkedIn from a friend of his that worked at a bank.

While Dennis was a successful internet marketer, he just didn’t see how anyone could receive a return on their investment with social media. He secretly created an account on LinkedIn. He started learning what it was all about. In pretty short order, the next thing you know, he literally tripped over a six-figure client for his logistics company. He realized at this point that one of two things had just happened:

* Either Dennis Brown was one of the luckiest guys in the world, or

* he had stumbled across what could be the “golden egg”.

He took the latter of his thought process. He dove into to learn as much as he could with LinkedIn. He narrowed it down into the 80/20 process. He asked himself what the 20% of his activities that were working by putting him in front of his target audience. He then developed a system on how to target his prospects, how to engage with them and how to, most importantly, convert his prospects into customers.

He then took that system and taught it to his logistics team. Over the subsequent years after that from 2007 – 2013, his logistics company generated over 20 million in sales from LinkedIn marketing. His company went from $12 – $45 million in sales and over 70% of new business came from his LinkedIn marketing.

During the years of 2008 – 2010, many of his business partners weren’t seeing the success that his company experienced and they asked him how he was doing so well. Dennis told them they needed to get on LinkedIn. They all wanted him to train them and he told them he simply didn’t have the time and that wasn’t what he did.

After his retirement, he found that he had a lot of time on his hands so he decided to move forward with his consulting LinkedIn business. He got to work with a very diverse group of CEO’s and business owners. LinkedIn is not a soft medium. It’s very trackable.

Stephen Esketzis – Dominate Internet Marketing 2015

We start this interview off by having some fun and Stephen was up to the task. He has a great outlook on life and truly enjoys what he does. Stephen Esketzis is a young successful entrepreneur. Stephen is 21 years old and he is an internet marketing from Melbourne, Austrailia. He currently holds a position as head of content with click funnels. Stepehn builds out sales funnels for his clients.

Stephen started by building an app for night clubs in Melbourne, Australia. He noticed the app wasn’t getting much traffic so he started researching ways to generate traffic to the app. He found the answers and his sales funnel strategies business took off from there.

Stephen has been traveling the United States for the past couple weeks. The main reason he made the trip is to visit the Click Funnels headquarters in Boise, Idaho. We discussed the growth of online entrepreneurism in Austrailia and how that has impacted the United States and online marketing in general. In the next couple of years, Austrailia will become an even bigger part of internet marketing.

How to Market and Grow Your Business?

Internet marketing is fantastic because you can leverage your income so that you can continue generating income while you are doing something else. While this isn’t easy, it’s definitely a real possibility. Within the internet marketing industry, it’s very crowded.

Stephen likes to take the strategies that internet marketers use and teach that to offline businesses. People can take internet marketing strategies and sales funnels and incorporate those into many offline companies. There seems to be a bigger market offline than there is online. Many people aren’t as knowledgeable about online marketing when they are running a brick and mortar business.

It’s really exciting when you apply concepts that are being used online and incorporate similar strategies to a business outside of internet marketing. A lot of people try to link entrepreneur with the internet and that’s not necessarily the case. There are many people that cross over into the realm of internet marketing from the offline business world using these strategies.

What Can Someone Do to Generate Traffic Online?

It’s one of two things:

* You either have money – spend money to acquire an audience – or

* You have a lot of time – spend time to acquire an audience

When Stephen first started, he didn’t have a lot of money so he had to launch a guerilla marketing campaign. He started blogging. He spent a lot of time blogging and growing his website. This is a very low cost solution to build up your target market. Another way is to start a podcast to help build an audience. When you start getting to a certain level of authority when people start recognizing you and you are starting to generate income through affiliate programs, etc., then you can start paid campaigns.

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Three things to get going today on a budget:

* Start a WordPress Blog

* Start a Podcast

* Create Content as a guest blogger or get interviewed on other Podcasts

If you have money then Stephen suggests:

* Facebook Ads

* Google Display Network

There isn’t a “magic bullet”. To be successful, you need to remain consistent and create a lot of content....

It’s so hard to beleive how fast this past year flew by. It’s been so awesome. I have been so blessed to have met so many great people. Podcasting is so fun and as a matter of fact, I think I enjoy it even more than when I first started. The relationships I’ve been able to build as a direct result of this podcast is amazing.

Over the past year I’ve changed my introduction many times. I haven’t posted on a consistent day each week and I’ve even missed a couple weeks. One thing is for sure though, I have never given up. I was at Podcast Movement 15 and was able to have dinner with Todd Cochrane, the CEO of Raw Voice and BluBrry, and Rob Greenlee, Head of Content for Spreaker. I learned so much during that dinner and it was very inspiring to me as a podcaster.

Having just finished recording my 51st episode, still yet to be published, I’m simply amazed at the amount I’ve learned in just one year. I love the freedom of publishing the content I want to publish that I feel will resonate with my audience. I also enjoy talking to people I share a similar interest in and I hope my “opiners” enjoy what has happened this past year on Stop Riding the Pine.

I can’t wait to see what happens over the course of this next year because we are growing, the production and the content is only going to get better. There are a ton of people that have been so helpful. The friendships I’ve built will surely last a lifetime and some of the experts in the industry have been instrumental in my continued motivation.

They say that you need to surround yourself with people that are more successful than you are and I am definitely positioning myself and this show to be successful. People like Cliff Ravenscraft, Tim Paige, Paul Colligan, John Lee Dumas, Pat Flynn, Kate Erickson, Aisha Tyler, and Marc Maron, to say the least, have been ground breaking and revolutionary within the podcast industry. Whether or not you like their content, they’ve done a great job of clearing the path for those of us who have completely embeded ourselves in the wonderful world of podcasting!

Thank you again for all your support over the past year! It’s been great getting a chance to travel, interview and become friends with some of the coolest people on the planet. I wouldn’t change a thing. I hope you’ve enjoyed the content and make sure to buckle up because this next year is going to be a doosie!

Remember, the puck stops here!

Sincerely,

Jaime Jay

Host, StopRidingthePine.com

If you are interested in being a guest on the show, feel free to submit an inquiry.

Thank you again… also, if you see a link or image of a product or service on this site, there is a good chance that it’s a product or service I am affiliated with. If you purchase that produce or service, I stand to make a commission, but know this, I will never recommend anything I don’t think is worthy.

Have an awesome day!

Stop Riding the Pine is a lot of fun and we love sharing the shows we’ve done. We would greatly appreciate your assistance in helping us grow this show by not only downloading the episodes, but also sharing them. Leave comments and rate our show so we can make the show even better.

Justin Verrengia – The Hippie Jedi and Freedompreneur

Justin Verrengia comes out of his mother’s womb and he is from the planet earth… after a hearty chuckle, we got into Justin’s real background. Justin totally believes in freedom… financial freedom. He is a self described “freedompreneur”. A couple years ago, Justin was struggling financially and he tapped into his inner voice and generated a lot of money. He started paying it forward after he found his unusual success. He has his own podcast where he talks to other “wierd” entrepreneurs and finds out what drives them to succeed.

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He believes success is more of a belief rather than having a technical foundation like knowing where to place an ad. His mission is to awaken the mentally dead. He wants to help people find their spiritually by awakening their pineal gland, the third eye. He did a video all about the pineal gland. The pineal gland is positioned between a person’s eyes. It’s shaped like a pine cone and that’s why people will see the pine cone represented in so many places like the Vatican.

The third eye is one of the biggest cover ups in history because it simply isn’t talked about. The third eye is one of the seven chakras in the human body. Justin went to a David Wilcock conference. A lot of time was spent talking about the pineal gland. Basically, Justin describes the fascination behind the pineal gland as a way to tap into higher powers and higher levels of consciousness that most of us don’t even know exists.

Based on Justin’s research, he believes there has been a war on the pineal gland. There are things like sodium flouride which is in our drinking water and toothpaste. Flouride is just like cancer. Many people listening now have a completely calsified pineal gland due to their diet. However, there are things people can do like meditation, maintaining a good diet and drinking filtered water.

Stop using flourinated toothpaste… it’s poison (read the label). – Justin Verrangia

Justin Verrengia – The Hippie Jedi Story

People refer to Justin as “The Hippie Jedi”. Justin hasn’t cut his hair since he was living in China. He and his wife were making $1,200 per month teaching english in China. Justin was very introverted growing up. He gradually came out of his shell the more teaching he did. After living in China for 13 months, he and his wife saved up enough money to move to Costa Rica.

Justin used to have a fade and he wanted to get his hair cut the same way. He showed the stylist a picture of how he wanted his hair to look and the stylist completely messed it up. So, Justin said he would never get another haircut again while he was in China. His philosophy carried over to Cost Rica and he hasn’t cut his hair to this day. Thus, the “Hippie Jedi”. When people see Justin, he rarely wears shoes unless he has a special event to go to.

The Jedi aspect comes from his love of the Star Wars movies. Justin studied TaiChi, yoga and Kung fu. He identifies his appreciation for Star Wars and qui gon through “The Force” which is similar to the Tao.

Shane Melaugh – Co-Founder Thrive Themes

Shane is a half swiss – half irish guy who built is own business a few years ago. Shane says the nice way of describing himself is that he is self-taught, but the more realistic way of describing himself is that he made a million mistakes to acheive the success he realizes today. His latest project is Thrive Themes. Thrive themes is a brand under which he creates conversion focused WordPress themes and plugins.

The reason Thrive Themes was started is because Shane is a WordPress user himself and everything was designed focused. Shane comes from a conversion optimization background. Shane specializes in writing copy and creating the sales pages. Design won’t sell a product. Thrive Themes takes a unique approach to optimizing your WordPress website with conversions in the forefront instead of design.

The content builder was initially designed to be able to quickly build pages without having to know any special coding. He wanted the design to not only look good, but keep with his main goal to make sure it converts well. In the regular WordPress editor, it’s very difficult to add “buttons” or other conversion centric applications. In order to create these elements, you will need to download plugins and taking the time to learn how to make these plugins work.

If you are trying to build sales pages or funnels, it’s very difficult to build these in the regular WordPress editor. This is a major pain point. It’s too time consuming. The reason the content builder was developed was so that you didn’t have to worry about any of this. The way the content builder works is the way everything you see in the builder is how it’s represented on the live page.

If you are looking at a page made with WordPress and you want to change a button, and you are using the WordPress editor, you have to log into the editor and find the code to edit it. The other main problem is that the editor doesn’t look like the page when it’s live so the user has to continually go back and forth between the pages to view the changes the user made.

Click here to be redirected to the video from Shane explaining how to use the new WordPress plugin to build your mailing list faster than ever before!

Shane Melaugh is Not a Programmer, He is a Marketer

Shane specializes in marketing, not programming. So, he built Thrive Themes so that users don’t have to have knowledge of the various WordPress development languages like php, html, css, etc. The signature of good marketing is understanding your audience. The simplest thing you can do to acheive “copywriting wizardry” is to talk with people and listen to how they talk about the problems they are facing. If you listen to the actual words they use, you can use these words in the copy that you’ve heard other people say.

When multiple people continue mentioning the same thing over and over again, copy their language into your sales pages. Shane’s explainer videos are very detailed and one of the best ways to learn about the plugins. Instead of just sharing what the solution can ...

Dorie Clark - The Author

Dorie Clark is an accomplished marketing author. She has a couple books out and her first book is called Reinventing You: Define Your Brand Imagine Your Future where she provides a step-by-step guide to help you assess your unique strengths, develop a compelling personal brand, and ensure that others recognize the powerful contribution you can make.

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The second book was recently released and it's called Stand Out: How to Develop Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It. Too many people believe that if they keep their heads down and work hard, they’ll be lauded as experts on the merits of their work. But that’s simply not true anymore. To make a name for yourself, you have to capitalize on your unique perspective and knowledge and inspire others to listen and take action. But becoming a recognized expert is a mysterious and opaque process. Where do the ideas come from, and how do they get noticed?

Dorie also wrote an e-book that was a follow up to Stand Out called Stand Out Networking. Few professional activities are as nerve-wracking as networking. There’s the paralyzing prospect of entering a room full of strangers. The awkward introductions and stilted small talk. The concern that “networking” means you have to exploit others for personal gain – or might appear that way. It’s no wonder so many talented professionals eschew networking altogether. Unfortunately, that means they’re limiting their chances of making the kind of great personal and professional connections that can expand their worldview, enrich their lives, and – yes – even lead to new business opportunities.

Dorie Clark - The Speaker

Dorie has done a couple TEDx talks. One talk was with TEDx Beacon Street that was organized by John Werner who works out of the MIT medialab. Last November, Dorie spoke about how to find your breakthrough idea. It was a pre-cursor to her book Stand Out. She addressed some of the ideas she covered in her book related to innovation and how you can keep being creative as a business or a person.

The second TEDx talk she spoke at was TEDxWPI - which stands for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. This is a university just outside Boston where she discussed many of the themes in the latter part of Stand Out. It was based on how to build a following around a business or person's ideas.

Dorie Clark - Overcoming Failure

Since anyone can create videos and write blogs these days, there is really no barrier to entry. You can "Get Your Message Out There", but the problem is whether or not anyone is going to be listening to your message since there is so much noise and competit...

David Traub – Simple Podcast Press

David is an extremely nice person who really appreciates his customer base. He thinks of himself of being a salesman. Many people have a negative connotation with a “salesman”, but when you do it right it’s absolutely not the case. Sales is about having conversations with prospects and helping them come to an understanding on their own. David Traub does two things:

* He works with business clients that sell their own services and they don’t have the income they want because they aren’t getting enough new customers.

* He also makes sure that he continues to practice what he preaches. He not only coaches other sales people, but he works as a sales person himself.

So many people hate “selling”. It’s not necessarily the act of selling, it’s the thought of selling. People don’t like to be pushy or manipulative about the process. David says that you don’t have to be “pushy” in order to be a good sales person. The main objective is drawing out a conversation so that prospects come to a decision on their own.

David Traub Writes Book About Sales

Team of One is a book that David wrote that incorporates two core concepts.

* The 5 Secrets of Top-Performing Sellers

* 4.5 Step System

David highly recommends reading The EMyth Revisited by Michaele E. Gerber if you are a business owner or leader. The most successful businesses are set up with systems in place.

The 10-Second Sale – How to Write Powerful Emails that Help You Sell Smarter, Better and More was his second books. He basically took a collection of the emails he used over his career. David realized that he was using similar emails for everything he was doing so he decided to put these in a book to help others generate ideas for their own email campaigns.

Types of Different Email Campaigns

A drip campaign is an email camapaign that has prospects in some sort of auto response system. Using this strategy, you can send your prospects emails about that topic so it keeps them engaged and continues to build the relationship for future business opportuities.

An active campaign is directed toward people that you may have a better relationship with. These sorts of people, until they say they are not interested or they buy, will receive a more frequent and personal email in order to generate phone conversations instead of selling through email itself.

David adds value in his email campaign. He is less likely to add “Sales Offers” in every email. He is a big believer in providing content that will help your audience for free… no strings attached. He will add offers in some emails, but keeps them spread out to ensure his audience likes, loves and trusts him.

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If you want to learn more about or connect with David Traub,