The Bacon Podcast with Brian Basilico | CURE Your Sales & Marketing with Ideas That Make It SIZZLE!

For over a decade, Shel Horowitz, “The Transformpreneur,” has shown businesses how to thrive by doing the right thing. Shel shows how not just to go green AND market green affordably and effectively--but how business can thrive by transforming society: turning hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. Shel is an international speaker and TEDx Talker, transformational business consultant, and the multiple-award-winning, bestselling author of ten books, most recently Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (his second Guerrilla book with Guerrilla Marketing founder Jay Conrad Levinson). Visit him at http://goingbeyondsustainability.com

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This week is Thanksgiving in America. I don't know about you, but I am thankful for just waking up in the morning. I am also thankful for my wife, dog, house, and running my own company. I* truly get to (for the most part) control my own destiny.

I am also thankful for some of the best tools that I get to use in my business every day. Some are free, and some are paid for, but all are affordable. Here is my list...

* A2 Hosting - http://brianloves.inco/a2 - This is the best web hosting for the price. Especially is you have a WordPress website and are familiar with CPanel - Control Panel.

* Acuity Scheduling - http://brianloves.inco/acuity - Acuity is the best scheduling software out there ate a very reasonable price. It integrates with Google Calendar, Outlook and Mac calendars, and others. It also integrates with online meeting, webinar, online payment, and email programs.

* Aweber Email Marketing - http://brianloves.inco/aweber - Aweber is a broadcast marketing solution. It keeps adding new features & functionality that is found in more complex and expensive programs. I recommend this over most lower priced options like Constant Contact and MailChimp, because of its integrations with other software and programs, and ease of use!

* Evernote - http://evernote.com - This comes in two flavors, free & paid. The paid version allows you to share notes across multiple devices. Anyone can use the free version and you can safely share notes with one person or a group. You can save and share notes, web pages, audio, video, and so much more!

Most of all... I am thankful for you and your willingness to listen, share and help keep the Bacon Podcast popular and relevant.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Christopher is the creator of “The KICKASS Guide to Life,” the complete guide to living your best personal and professional KICKASS life! I help people overcome their self-created crap without the self-help fluffy bullsh!t!

When he was young, Christopher’s life was anything but KICKASS. He grew up in the inner city of Los Angeles, California. With his father nowhere in sight, Christopher’s mother nearly gave him up for adoption. Instead, she struggled to provide a life for him while battling multiple psychiatric disorders. As the neighborhood became more dangerous, his mother moved them to the nice middle-class city of Anaheim.

Then, because of her struggle to keep a job, he went from being an average 13-year-old kid living in a 4-bedroom house to being a homeless 7th-grade-dropout, living in the family station wagon — and, if that wasn’t enough… he had to share it with 18 cats and 2 dogs! As a result of his mother’s limitations, Christopher constantly endured mental and physical abuse throughout most of his young life.

For the next four agonizing years, Christopher suffered through — and survived — many painful experiences, which ultimately made him the man he is today!

After deciding he wasn’t going to be a victim of his circumstances anymore, Christopher changed the course of his life. He overhauled his belief system and seriously got down to business. As a result, he proudly earned a Master’s Degree in Organizational Management, purchased two houses, and started his professional speaking and training career! And his favorite accomplishment? … being married to the love of his life!

Of his work, Christopher says, “I help people overcome their self-created crap without all the self-help, fluffy B.S.”

Christopher is grateful for his success and believes deeply in giving back to his community. In his spare time, he mentors at-risk kids from The Brightest Star Organization and Olive Crest Children’s Foundation and loves anything related to music and cars.

Do you use LinkedIn for your business? If not... why? People still think of LinkedIn as a place for resumes and job seekers, but it's so much more than that!

LinkedIn was purchased by Microsoft at the end of last year and has turned it into an incredible business prospecting tool. It offers a great way to share your content and make connections with business people who are in need of what you do to solve their problems.

Ask Yourself some questions...

* Do you know what to do once you log into LinkedIn?

* Do you feel like your audience is not active there?

* Do you get turned off when people just try to connect and sell you on LinkedIn?

In this episode, I will explore how you can use LinkedIn to make profitable connections and grow your business.

Mark S. A. Smith designs and implements customer acquisition systems that find and recruit customers for disruptive products. He speaks at entrepreneurial events delivering pragmatic ideas to grow and succeed.He is an electrical engineer, media technologist, computer programmer, hardware salesman, a software marketer, and business owner who works with leaders who must develop the best way to bring in the right customers, fast!Mark wrote 13 books and sales guides targeting government, educational, healthcare and the private sector, including three with Guerrilla Marketing author, Jay Conrad Levinson. He has authored more than 400 magazine articles.With his engineering, sales, and business background, he can teach information in a way that customers, sales people, and management understand so that they can clearly communicate with their customers.

Creates powerful and innovative sales channel tools, combining product knowledge with proven sales skills. Creates custom white papers and books to sell technology to top management. Delivered thousands of speeches on selling.

[button link="http://executivestrategysummit.com/" window="yes"]Get Marks Special Offer To His Seminar - Click Here[/button]

Branding, especially on Social Media, is getting tougher with time. Social Media platforms are recruiting people (individuals) and businesses alike. Promoting your business is falling prey to the pay to play model. Your business posts on Facebook from brand pages are not showing up in news feeds. Most other platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and others are based on personal accounts (which can be a brand or personal).

When it comes to businesses on Social Media, "Businesses do not do business with other businesses... People do business with people!" Building a personal brand is more important than ever before, but that does not mean you should ignore your business brand. It means that you have to learn how to use your personal brand to promote your business brand without being all Salesy McSalesperson!

In this episode, we will explore how you can do both and be successful without alienating your target audience.

Mark S. A. Smith designs and implements customer acquisition systems that find and recruit customers for disruptive products. He speaks at entrepreneurial events delivering pragmatic ideas to grow and succeed.

He is an electrical engineer, media technologist, computer programmer, hardware salesman, a software marketer, and business owner who works with leaders who must develop the best way to bring in the right customers, fast!

Mark wrote 13 books and sales guides targeting government, educational, healthcare and the private sector, including three with Guerrilla Marketing author, Jay Conrad Levinson. He has authored more than 400 magazine articles.

With his engineering, sales, and business background, he can teach information in a way that customers, sales people, and management understand so that they can clearly communicate with their customers.

Creates powerful and innovative sales channel tools, combining product knowledge with proven sales skills. Creates custom white papers and books to sell technology to top management. Delivered thousands of speeches on selling.

[button link="http://executivestrategysummit.com/" window="yes"]Get Marks Special Offer To His Seminar - Click Here[/button]

I have a few questions for you... How long has it been since you updated your website? Has your business changed or evolved over the last 3 years? Does your brand help you stand out from the crowd of businesses who do what you do in business?

I recently completely updated my brand to better reflect that I "Help businesses develop and execute a customer-focused marketing system." When I looked at my website, I noticed that it focused more on what I did for my customers, rather than how and why I am different that people who call themselves web developers.

In this podcast, I will help you answer 3 more questions...

* Does your website really reflect what your business does today?

* Does your website speak to your audience in a way that differentiates you?

* Do your messages make it clear to your audience what makes you different?

Let me know your thoughts and feedback!

 

Jeff Ward has covered Illinois politics as a journalist for 11 years. He knows how to frame a message and he knows how to win a campaign.

As a prize-winning former eight-year Sun-Times suburban opinion columnist and the former six-year co-host of the well-regarded Ward & Jones Radio Show, Jeff has seen it all! He’s parlayed that experience into a successful campaign managing practice, writing a popular, insightful political blog and authoring ‘So You Wanna Win a Local Election’

Through a broad base of business, political and personal experience, Forward Communication helps public and private sector entities and individuals effectively communicate through an appropriately framed and targeted message.

Our campaign clients include Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, Elgin City Councilman Corey Dixon, Kane County Coroner candidate Tao Martinez, Geneva Alderman Richard Marks, Batavia Mayoral candidate Jason Stoops and Kane County Chairman Chris Lauzen.

Jeff’s private sector experience includes 20 years of business/database consulting for major clients like Wrigley Gum, Philips Electronics, Motorola, SBC, Morton Salt, USG and AT&T. This extensive Fortune 500 background provided Jeff with the statistical and database foundation to determine exactly who your audience or constituency really is.

After all, the best message falls completely flat if it isn’t properly targeted.

Jeff also designed, invented, manufactured and marketed the Lapinator Portable Insulated Laptop Desk which received great reviews from trusted sources like The Wall Street Journal, CNET, Gizmodo, The Gadgeteer and PC Magazine. And a campaign is nothing more that “inventing” or “re-inventing” the candidate.

Jeff lives in Geneva, Illinois, with his wife, two sons and two dogs.

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Imitation is the highest form of flattery!"? But outright copying and pasting content from somewhere to your blog or content marketing is plagiarism and stealing. That happened to me just a week or so ago.

I was alerted by TalkWalker.com that my name was being used on a website. This is usually a good thing, but in this case, someone copied my content and claimed it as their own original work. Below is the title from their post and a link to my original post...

I contacted them and they stated "This is a standard industry practice to post other people's content and add backlinks to the original posts. You get great link juice for this especially from a website like ours. The post already had over 300 shares. One of yours happened to slip in and honestly, you should be happy that we chose to post your article. By us posting your content you will get far more traffic than you will from your very own website."

Needless to say, he is completely wrong and another very large company (with biggy lawyers) that I alerted said "This person's practice is totally inappropriate, and also illegal. His response to you is obnoxious and incorrect. I've passed along to our legal team."

In this episode, we will discuss how you can avoid trouble and biggy lawyers!