Strategy & Action

Today on the show, Strategy + Action = The Cultivation of Courage.

Laban Ditchburn joins me on the show today and we're talking all about courage.

Laban is a phenomenal guy whom I had the good fortune to meet a few weeks ago in Drew Deraney's Profit Compassion group.

I jumped and grabbed his audiobook, Bet On You, which I highly recommend as well as his podcast, Become Your Own Superhero, where he interviews amazing people every week.

Laban has overcome so much in his life, including about every addiction you can imagine, which he talks about very openly in his book.  And he's transformed not only himself but his clients over the years.

And very specifically, this new direction that he's gone is really helping people cultivate that courage in themselves to change and to take action.

We get into the origin of where the label of The World's Best Courage Coach came from and how it goes far beyond some vanity thing that someone might think about when they first hear it.

This idea of courage is so critical and it's not the idea of never being afraid.  It's about setting that fear aside and doing the thing anyway.  And the most amazing outcomes can happen when you have that mindset and you take those actions.

We get into really specific instances of where we can use that skill, as well as how to cultivate that skill of having courage, and how we can even use it to separate ourselves from the millions of other people who do the exact same thing that we do.

Courage is everything when it comes to developing certainty in business, but even in your personal relationships, we know that we all are drawn to those folks who have that confidence and who know what they stand for.

So I'm excited for you to meet Laban and really benefit from everything that we dig into today.

Let's jump in.

Today on the show, Strategy + Action = How to Train Others to Enable Success

This is part three of our conversation with Anshar Seraphim.  It has been a blast having this amazing, in-depth, giant conversation around all these topics with him. 

I encourage you to check out parts one and two - episodes 52 and 53 - of our conversation because there are a lot of contexts there that we're bringing together in part three here. 

There's a lot of education that went into Part One and Part Two that Anshar really brings together in today's episode, making it very applicable to now go train someone else or even learn a new skill yourself.

Today on the show, Strategy + Action = The Real Power of Personality Types

Welcome to Episode 53 of Strategy + Action.  

Today is part two of my interview with Anshar Seraphim. If you haven't checked out part one, make sure you go and do that because as much as you'll learn from Anshar in this episode, you'll have even more context around his expertise and some of the things leading into today's discussion. 

In this episode, we're digging into one of my favorite subjects that I first heard him speak about, which is different personality types.  And I think most folks in the business world, the coaching world, and certainly in Corporate America, have heard about the different kinds of personality tests you can take.

People's reactions to them range from thinking, "Oh, it's a bunch of nonsense," to believing the tests are the Gospel - and everything in between.  I'm fascinated with them because they are an insight into people.  And people, of course, fascinate me. 

And there's a baseline that these tests give us that allows us to make sure that line of communication is flowing the way it's supposed to so that we're not speaking in a way that's not being received by the other person in the way that we intend, and vice versa.  So it's really powerful to have any kind of insight into people in a quick and efficient manner so that as soon as we meet someone, we can navigate that conversation in a much better way.  

Also, this isn't about putting someone in a bucket and leaving them there forever because you've decided who they are from the beginning.

This is simply a way to start.  This is a way to better navigate a relationship with someone, however high-level and casual or deep and intimate.  It's amazingly powerful and Anshar educates us on not only understanding our own personality type and figuring out what some of the others are but also how to quickly use that knowledge and apply it in all these different ways.  Alright, let's jump in.

Today on the show, Strategy + Action = How to Get Your Clients to Apply What You Teach

In this episode, and the next two episodes as well, we've got on Anshar Seraphim.

I have had a blast getting to know Anshar over the last couple of months.  I saw him in Steve Sims' interview and just was amazed at the subject matter of different personality types because all of that fascinates me.

But then I got the chance to get to know Anshar and he is so knowledgeable and experienced in so many areas from personality types, to sales, PR, copywriting, and so much more.

What he's done to teach himself these skills is impressive enough.  It's even more impressive when you then learn about Anshar's neurodiversity - his being almost nonverbal until age 11, due to undiagnosed autism.  He's had to work even harder than a lot of folks would just to function in these roles, not to mention excel in them the way he has.

And that's one of the things that's so incredible about his story, certainly.  But what he brings to these next few episodes ... get ready, because you'll be learning a mile a minute.  And it's not simply knowledge for knowledge's sake.  It's how you as a coach, consultant, or business owner, can apply a lot of these skills in ways that maybe you didn't even think about before to improve your marketing, have better sales conversations, and even get your clients to apply what they've learned.  But in this process, too, we learn how to use the same set of skills on ourselves so that we learn better in anything that we're trying to do.

I'm excited to bring you these next three interviews.  I know you'll hear several things that affect the way you do business from now on.

Today on the show, Strategy + Action = Crafting a Winning Offer

We've got Jay Haussman on the show!  Jay works with coaches, consultants, authors, and speakers ... helping these folks in the expert industry who are really focused on building their business online.

What we dig into deep in today's episode is crafting a compelling offer.  It's usually where he starts with someone.  Sometimes they come to him for that specific help.  Other times they come to him for his expertise in building a business online, but he'll still start with crafting that winning offer.

It's such a critical component of your business.  If you don't have that dialed in, nothing else really matters. You can run all the ads in the world to it.  You can have all the sales calls in the world.  But if your offer isn't really dialed in and what your audience is wanting, everything else is going to fall flat.  But when you have that figured out, it makes everything else easier.

So that's what we dig into today and including his journey to getting to where he is now.  I love the journey he's been on and what he's jumped in and done over the last few years.

Today on the show, Strategy + Action = Thriving in Transition. 

Lisa Kipps-Brown joins me for this great discussion around helping people thrive in times of transition, whether that's being at a point in your business where something major has to change in order for it to stay open, or if you find change being thrust upon your industry. 

Lisa's expertise is guiding people through those kinds of changes.   She certainly works with entrepreneurs, usually.  But even with that specificity, how she helps people really kind of runs the gamut, from helping those business owners with new technology or even put some systems in place so that they can either remove themselves from that business or set things up so that they can sell that business in a few years time.

She even helps folks who have retired and they'd really like to start their own thing to bring their expertise to the world.  And so now they're transitioning to that. 

We have a great discussion around all of these aspects of transition as well as her books and podcast.

Welcome to Ep49 of Strategy + Action.

Jeremy Blubaugh is on the show today and we dig in around this concept of personalization, particularly when it comes to outreach and trying to break through the noise as a sales rep or business owner. 

So often we find ourselves struggling for a chance to simply sit across from that prospect whom you know you can help if you can just get the opportunity to connect with them and have a conversation. 

Jeremy's entire business and expertise are around this concept of finding those personalized ways to connect to that other person, reach out to them, and get that meeting.

He does this for himself to get his clients, of course.  But his specialty is doing that for his clients.  They understand that the creative ways he uses to get in front of somebody are great, but they don't have time to do that themselves.  

That's where his company Coinflip Marketing comes in.  They handle all of that for their clients and find these new, innovative ways to get them in front of high-quality prospects.

Larry Kaul is on the show today. 

I met Larry on LinkedIn like many of my guests lately.  It's been a fantastic place to just really come alive and network with some amazing folks.  And Larry is a great example of that.

I had a blast having this conversation around the topic of clarity.  It's such a foundational skill to be able to identify exactly what you want to accomplish.  Today, we talk a lot about clarity when it comes to your business, both in starting one from scratch and when you're three years in, for example, and you keep hitting the same obstacles.

Larry has an amazing process for not only identifying those obstacles but finding the root obstacle of them all.  And then being able to help you work past that one so that you open up the floodgates.  Then you can figure out how to get to where you want to go.  And it sounds easy on the surface. Unless of course, you've been in that situation like I certainly have, and a lot of people I know have, which is either starting a business, creating a new offer, whatever that might be, and hitting those roadblocks sometimes just within yourself and struggling to figure out which direction you really want to go.  

So we dig into finding that clarity and really working through how he's helping his clients, how he helped himself, and what you can take away and do as well.

Today on the show, Strategy + Action = The Power of Market Research & Thriving on LinkedIn

I'm so excited to bring this episode to you. 

Andrew McKinney is on the show today. 

We have a phenomenal conversation around the really important and yet often overlooked topic of market research and the ways that it blends into the overall customer experience.

There's really no excuse anymore, no matter how small or giant your company is to not take advantage of this integral part of understanding what your prospects and customers think about your brand, your offer, or what you're thinking about offering

It's such a critical aspect of business, especially in the beginning days of starting up a company.  And it's easier than ever to actually do well at this. 

Another area we dig into deep is LinkedIn. 

Andrew has been on the platform for quite a while and has a huge following.  In this past year, he has experimented extensively on what's working and what isn't. 

Besides some individual tactics, what he has discovered and shares in this episode that is really important is the mindset that is really working on LinkedIn.  And not only the numbers aspect of what's working but  also what's working in terms of how to really connect with other folks on the platform. 

Today we've got Jane Patterson on the show, having an amazing conversation all around communication.

She is an absolute expert in giving people the tips and strategies to communicate better, whether that's speaking from the stage, doing well in a job interview, or talking with your kids at home.

But her genius goes so much deeper than that for folks by addressing what's actually stopping them from communicating in the first place. And that is a big aspect of this conversation and to the subject of communication overall, that honestly, I just never even considered.

So I love this conversation because she is such an expert at this and we go down several paths including why it's so important to focus on both sides of communication:  speaking and listening and how you can do both better.  We also discuss what it takes once you have that intention to become better at all of this as well as why you should.

The art and skill of speaking go so far beyond standing on a stage and giving a speech.  How you communicate with folks affects absolutely every area of your life.  So why not be great at it?