This week's episode is for you if you don't have a solid, uninterrupted 8 hours to focus on your business, have various demands on your time and are struggling to fit everything in. We talk about:

• How to choose which tasks to do when
• The joy of focus sessions
• Why it's important not to overschedule your day

Key Takeaways

• Work out what time slots you have available in the day but don't timetable every second. You need a buffer in case unexpected things come up
• Try out Microsoft focus sessions. Set the timer and the do not disturb will go on. You won't see notifications popping up so you can give your task your undivided attention
• Do not work all the hours trying to squeeze everything in. If you're working late don't work early as well
• It's important to look after yourself. Don't give up everything such as Netflix. You need time to recharge as well.
• Outsource what you can and ask your team members to support you with client work and other tasks

Mentioned in This Episode

The 10x Rule by Grant Cardone

Microsoft Focus Sessions

Episode 58 with Kris Ward - Win the Hour, Win the Day

Connect with Victoria Bennion

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In episode 60 of The Best Guest we welcome Donna Kendrick, the author of A Guide to Widowhood: Navigating the First Three Years, to the show. We talk about:

• What you can do to prepare for an unexpected loss
• The best ways for friends and family to support a widow or widower
• The stages of navigating your finances in widowhood

About Donna Kendrick

Donna Kendrick will never forget that “Omgosh, what just happened?!?!” moment when she discovered her husband Greg passed away suddenly in November 2013. 

During her time of grieving Donna quickly realized that she had stepped into a new role overnight, one where she had to take control of her family’s finances in order to keep life consistent for her and her kids. Important family decisions came on real soon and real quick, and Donna had to figure out how to navigate this new season in her life, which meant finding the professional resources to help. 

Donna has made it her life’s work to help other widows and widowers navigate their own financial decisions in the first days, weeks and months of widowhood... and the years to follow. She is the author of A Guide to Widowhood: Navigating the First Three Years (pub. Epic Author July 22) which is here to help through the first days, weeks and months of widowhood… and the years to follow. Donna is also the host of the Widow, Wisdom and Wealth ™ podcast, which aims to remove the intimidation out of financial planning, so families can handle any transitions that come their way. 

Donna is an avid long-distance runner who turns her passion into an ability to raise funds for local causes such as Safe Harbor, a grief counselling program. In 2022 Donna married her husband Jim and between them, they have six children. Together with their Newfoundland and English bulldog, they enjoy living in the community of Springfield Township, Wyndmoor, PA.

Key Takeaways

• If the worst happens make sure you take a moment to breathe
• Surround yourself with trusted people
• Get your state documents done
• Make sure you have enough life insurance
• Don't wait for widowhood to get prepared
• Have someone come to meetings with you to take notes
• If someone you know has recently lost a partner think what you can do to make their life easier

QuoteIt's okay to take the quiet time. Don't be scared of it.Mentioned in This Episode

A Guide to Widowhood: Navigating the First Three Years

Connect with Donna Kendrick

Sephton Financial Website

Widow and Wisdom Website

Widow and Wisdom Facebook

Widow and Wisdom Instagram

Widow Wisdom and Wealth Podcast

Connect with Victoria Bennion

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Do you ever fall into the trap of thinking bigger is better? In our experience of booking guests on podcasts this just isn't true. There are so many benefits of talking to a small audience consisting of the right people. We talk about:

• Why small audiences are powerful
• How talking to a small audience can help you with your messaging
• Serving the right people over everyone

Key Takeaways

• The fact that podcasts typically have small, niche audiences is actually one of the reasons they’re so powerful.
• We’ve seen some really great results from our clients being guests on smaller shows and that comes from the intimacy of the medium and the connectivity through sharing stories and giving the audience the chance to know, like and trust you.
• With a small audience you can develop a group of loyal fans
• Small audiences are really powerful. They're more likely to buy from you
• The more you understand who your audience is they more specific you can be with your marketing, your messages
• "The goal isn't to serve everyone. The goal is to serve the right people." Seth Godin.

Quote Conversions are way higher when you have a smaller audience.– Stu MclarenMentioned in This Episode

Seth Godin

C S Lewis

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In episode 58 of The Best Guest we welcome Team Building And Systems Strategist, Kris Ward. We talk about:

• The Lack of Pillars in Most Businesses
• The Importance of Outsourcing and Building a Team
• How to Avoid Shiny Object Syndrome

About Kris Ward

Kris Ward is the leading authority in scaling your business. Kris is the founder of the Win The Hour, Win the Day philosophy. She helps entrepreneurs create their W.I.N Team (what is next) team using her signature Super Tool Kits so you can get your Idea to execution! 

After the loss of her husband, Kris returned full-time to her work as a marketing strategist. She was thankful to see that her business had not only survived her absence but was growing. Now, Kris has completely changed the landscape for entrepreneurs by sharing the successful practices that allowed her absence.

Kris has been interviewed by one of the original sharks from Shark Tank, Kevin Harrington, and ABC’s The Secret Millionaire – James Malinchak. She has been featured on award winning podcasts, radio and TV shows throughout the world.

You can hear Kris on her own podcast – Win The Hour Win The Day, where she has engaging conversations with dynamic guests covering a variety of business topics so you can get to your next win now!

Key Takeaways

• Your team, your time and your toolkits are the biggest misunderstandings and the lack of pillars in most businesses.
• Think of your calendar as your time bank account. If you're not putting everything into it, like answering your emails, you may think you have eight hours available when you actually have six.
• The two big things that people miss are outsourcing and building a team.
• With the Win Formula you should always be 60% execution mode and only 40% admin
• Businesses do not run on memory. You cannot keep everything in your head.
• When your calendar is laid out if eliminates shiny object syndrome as you know how much time you've got.
• You should be able to handle anything, otherwise it's not a proper business

QuoteYou can tell a lot about a business just by looking at their calendar.Connect with Kris Ward

Get Your Free Gift from Kris here

Website

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Book your free podcast guesting strategy session today.

To learn more about working with us visit https://victoriabennion.com/

As Halloween approaches and we're busy picking out scary costumes I thought it would be an ideal time to talk about common fears that can come up when you're thinking about being a guest on a podcast and look at how you can deal with them.

Key Takeaways

• Podcast interviews are not the same as public speaking. They are a one-on-one conversation. It's you and the host talking, so it can be really helpful to think of it that way. Forget the hundreds or thousands of people that might listen to this episode when you're recording it. Be in the now in your conversation with the host.
• Take time to research shows properly before pitching and take time over your pitch to ensure the best result possible.
• If you're asked something you don't know, you can handle it like a politician and say, the real question is or say, that's an interesting question. I'll have to get back to you on that
• Share what you've seen and you can never be wrong.
• As Denise Duffield-Thomas says, you don't have to be the only voice in a space, you can be one of a number of voices talking about a topic, bring your thoughts, knowledge and experience. That's enough.

Mentioned in This Episode

Andrew and Pete - Atomic

Glossophobia

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Book your free podcast guesting strategy session today.

To learn more about working with us visit https://victoriabennion.com/

If you're looking to be a guest on podcasts make sure you're maximising your efforts and not making common pitching mistakes. Today we talk about 10 podcast pitch mistakes to avoid.

Key Takeaways

Podcast Pitch Mistakes to Avoid:

1. Saying you’ve listened to the show and connected with something discussed when you’ve just picked something out of the show notes. 
2. Starting every paragraph with ‘I’ and solely talking about how fantastic you are.
3. Sending a pitch that’s vague and wishy washy.
4. Getting the host’s name wrong. (This should be number one.)
5. Pitching to a show that doesn’t have guests or to a show that only has women, for example.
6. Pitching to a show that’s not recording any more.
7. Not identifying the show you want to pitch to in your outreach. Some hosts have more than one. Be specific.
8. Ignoring how hosts ask to be pitched to.
9. Going on and on and on and on. You need to cover the essentials but don't write an essay.
10. Following up aggressively (but do follow up.)

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Book your free podcast guesting strategy session today.

To learn more about working with us visit https://victoriabennion.com/

The podcast hosts you connect with when you're a guest on shows are often your ideal client. Let that sink in for a moment. This week we had an email from a client telling us that a host had asked to work with her directly after her first interview. This isn't unusual and is a valuable aspect of a podcast interview strategy. Today we talk about:

• How to make a good impression with podcast hosts
• Ways to build relationships with podcast hosts

Key Takeaways

• Make a good impression - schedule your interview without delay, send the host everything they need for the interview and show up early
• Connect with hosts before your interviews on social media
• Add value during your conversation. Don't be salesy
• Continue your conversation after the recording has stopped
• Build your relationship after your interview - send a thank you note/ join a host's community
• Share your podcast episode when it's live

Mentioned in This Episode

Improving Business Efficiency with Yvonne Heimann

Connect with Victoria Bennion

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Stories build an emotional connection and make listeners stick around longer. They lower our defences and they enable us to teach principles in a much more engaging way than sharing a list of bullet points. Today we talk about:

• Why telling stories is so powerful
• What elements to include in your stories

Key Takeaways

• When we hear a story our brain lights up, the neurons wire together which triggers us to remember more of the information we're hearing
• A good story consists of a 5 act structure set out by John Yorke in Into the Woods
• Well told stories release chemicals in the brain. They give the listener a hit of dopamine, oxytocin and PEA which make them feel generous, trusting and in a good mood
• Your stories don't have to be long and they don't have to be perfect
• The more you practise telling stories the better you'll get

Mentioned in This Episode

Expert Empires

Marie Forleo

Tim Schmoyer

Paul Mort

Liv Conlon

Tess Cope

John Yorke

Connect with Victoria Bennion

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Today we welcome leading ClickUp YouTuber and Business Efficiency Consultant, Yvonne Heimann to the podcast. We talk about:

• Efficient ways to manage your podcast interviews
• Why focusing on efficiency over productivity is important
• How to ensure your business can handle major growth

About Yvonne Heimann

Yvonne Heimann is not only the leading ClickUp YouTuber, but also a highly valued Consultant to its developers, as well as a passionate Business Efficiency Consultant & Mindset Coach to Live Streamers, Social Media Managers, YouTubers, and Coaches.

Using her knowledge of over 12 years running multiple businesses, she helps her clients organize, strengthen, and streamline their businesses into profitability and success.

Yvonne is a force to be reckoned with. When her husband died, she was determined to not only resume her passion for building “bulletproof businesses” but also to make sure that those who go through something similar can find the same solace and excitement in entrepreneurship that she did.

She wants everyone who goes through a life-changing challenge to know they can come out on top too – even if it takes time.

Her work is driven by a vision of a world where digital entrepreneurs not only make a living doing what they are passionate about but thrive and wear their passions as badges of honor.

“A world where no one is ever faced with the decision of having to put business and making money over family and loved ones.”

That is Yvonne’s mission.

Key Takeaways

• Make sure your podcast interviews are in your calendar
• Login to the podcast 15 minutes before the interview is due to start so you're ready
• Schedule your podcast promotions so you're always promoting one interview
• Review the tasks on your list and ask if each one really needs to happen. Will it have an impact? If not get rid of it
• Automate as much as possible in your business so that you can focus on your genius

QuoteTo me, the word productive and what's behind it connects to this hustle mentality of we have to work 24/7. People seem to be getting really tired of this and wanting to make more educated and smart decisions based on data, which is where efficiency comes in.Mentioned in This Episode

Click Up

Agorapulse

AirTable

Connect with Yvonne Heimann

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

YouTube

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Book your free podcast guesting strategy session today.

To learn more about working with us visit https://victoriabennion.com/

In today's episode of The Best Guest we welcome Elen Sentier a best-selling author of British native shamanism who describes herself as a quirky, wilderness woman who is deeply connected with nature. We talk about:

• What it means to rewild yourself
• How to stop people pleasing
• What happens when you're true to yourself

About Elen Sentier

Elen Sentier comes from a long family lineage of Cunning Folk and was brought up as awenydd (spirit keeper) in the old magical traditions of Britain.

Elen trained as a transpersonal psychotherapist with Ian Gordon-Brown and Barbara Sommers when health issues led her to retire from her career at the MOD. Elen was thrilled to discover how the transpersonal perspective integrates the personal with spiritual and transcendent aspects of being human, which meshed with the old magical ways she’d been brought up in.

Elen initially opened a practice in London but always more at home in the wilderness, she and her husband, a particle physicist, left London for the Welsh Marches. Here, Elen continued to develop her practice using transpersonal psychology and witchyness to help clients become their true selves, rewild their hearts and find what makes their hearts sing.

Elen has also taught her work through an apprenticeship and three-year advanced course for over 30 years. Her students, from all walks of life such as policemen, poets, stock brokers and doctors, go on to take the work into their own specialisms.

To date, Elen has published 12 books with the Moon Books imprint of John Hunt Publishing, three of which are bestsellers. 

Her bragging rights include dancing for Arlene Philips; taking contemporary dance class with Robert Cohen; flying in Jaguar fighter aircraft; doing plasma-physics at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy; and being kissed by Mick Jagger! She loves cats, and eats paleo, and her tag-line is “If the cat and the boyfriend disagree, get rid of the boyfriend!”

Key Takeaways

• It's important to be able to say, I can't buy in to that
• Digestive problems can be about repressed emotions and stress
• Saying no gets easier when you feel your wild self
• It's important to get to the roots of why you people please
• Realise you don't have to keep playing other people's scripts

QuoteWe mostly people please because we don't feel safeMentioned in This Episode

Wanderland by Jini Reddy

Connect with Elen Sentier

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Book your free podcast guesting strategy session today.

To learn more about working with us visit https://victoriabennion.com/