Today I’m interviewing my friend Melaine Howe. Some of you may remember that Melanie is the reason that I embraced the “more cowbell” concept in my business. In this episode, we dive into how she found her current niche: live video. She also shares openly about the challenges she has faced in building her business and how live video can help you grow your business. This is a fun episode, so be sure to tune in.

• Melanie’s journey into the online marketing space and how her ideal client has changed over the last 4 years
• How Melanie found herself hanging out more with her peers than her ideal audience and how she learned to leverage that
• How Melanie has processed some of her false starts in her business
• Some of the common problems that Melanie and Bobby have faced
• Why action is difficult but also the most important way forward
• How Melanie decided on her niche and how that changed her business
• Why consistency has been a problem for Melanie and how she made it work for her
• Why people misunderstand what a “freedom” business is
• Why Melanie doesn’t like writing emails and how she is working around that
• Why Melanie doesn’t like writing sales pages

• Melanie’s YouTube Live (Tuesdays at 2 pm ET)| Facebook Group | Melanie’s website
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In today’s marketing fundamentals episode, we’re talking about an important economic concept: barriers to entry. These are factors that make it more difficult for a newcomer to enter a market. Barriers to entry protect existing businesses from competition and tend to allow monopolistic pricing. Let’s dive in and discuss why you need to create barriers to entry in your online business.

• Where barriers to entry are high, you tend to have higher prices and profits
• Where barriers to entry are low, you have to bring prices down because of competition
• Regulatory and professional requirements are examples of barriers to entry
• High start-up costs in a market create a barrier to entry
• Switching costs are another type of barrier to entry (e.g., banking)
• Technology requirements can create also a barrier to entry
• In the online space, there aren’t many barriers to entry — this means it’s easier for you to get started but it’s also easy for your competitors
• One way switching costs show up in the online marketing space is technology
• You need to create barriers to entry in your business to help you protect it
  • One way to do this is customer loyalty
  • Another way is via technology (for example, I created legal agreement generators, which creates a type of barrier to entry for potential competitors)
  • Another example of a barrier to entry is creating a repository of assets that would make it difficult for anyone to catch up with you (for example, I created my FREE training program BADA$$ Online Marketing University)

• BADA$$ Online Marketing University
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Today’s episode is a little unusual cause we’re going to talk about why your business sometimes needs to be “boring.” The reason we need to talk about this is because the most common message we hear about business is that it should be “fun” all the time. We need to talk about the distinction between enjoying what we do in our business and having fun. Your business will involve work, but there should be more to life than your business.

• The different types of personality challenges people face/create in business
• The challenge of being a “multi-passionate” entrepreneur
• • Your attention is spread too thin
  • You confuse your audience
• The challenge of being a constant “tinkerer”
• • You don’t allow enough time to get data to make a decision
  • Constantly trying to make adjustments to evergreen products before you know what you should change
• The challenge of constantly having new ideas
• • Acting too quickly before you can tell if the idea is worth pursuing
  • Always chasing new ideas diverts your attention and doesn’t allow enough time for things to work
• Create systems to keep up with your ideas
• Allow a cooling off period for your ideas rather than acting on them immediately
• Avoid talking about every new idea with your team
• Commit to doing fun stuff and also allow some aspects to be boring

• BADA$$ Online Marketing University
• Free Privacy Policy
• BADA$$ Online Marketers
• Follow Bobby on Instagram

Today I’m interviewing my friend Heather Sager about speaking from stage. Heather recently led a session in my group coaching program, and I wanted more people to be able to benefit from her expertise. 

Just to be clear, when we say “stage,” we’re not just talking about a physical stage. We’re talking about all the ways you speak to your audience. If you don’t feel confident speaking to your audience, this episode is for you.

Heather and I might look like opposites, but we both have a lot of experience with public speaking, so we had a great time talking about the ups and downs of speaking, messaging, and running a business.

• Why speaking is a marketing tool
• Why Heather struggled with her messaging and what she did about it
• What Heather’s breakthrough realization was
• How Heather talks about messaging
• What ingredients you need in a presentation and why there isn’t a specific recipe
• Why presentations need to be clear and structured and aligned with your style and audience
• Why Heather struggled with her high influencer tendencies (DISC profile) and how she came to terms with it
• How Heather has dealt with feeling like she doesn’t fit in
• How the death of Heather’s mother helped her learn about speaking, fundraising, and dealing with being in the spotlight 
• Why you need to pay attention not just to a program but also the person behind it
• An activity to help you get clarity on your message
• Why your speech needs to align with your brand, natural tendencies, and message
• Speaking isn’t just about sharing ideas, but it’s also a marketing tool and a skill

• Heather Sager | Instagram | Heather’s Podcast
• Understanding Your Gallup Strengths with Anna Nelson
• BADA$$ Online Marketing University
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In today’s short marketing fundamentals episode, we’re diving into the question of what is holistic marketing and why it matters for your online business. This concept of marketing is well-known in the traditional marketing world, but it hasn’t fully translated into the online business space. We’ll cover what holistic marketing is (and isn’t) and what it looks like in your business.

• What holistic marketing is
• Relationship marketing
• Integrated marketing
• Internal marketing
• Performance marketing
• Why you need all four aspects of holistic marketing in your business
• Why a broad understanding of marketing is necessary for business

• BADA$$ Online Marketing University
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Today we’re talking about the most overlooked part of your online business: customer experience. We talk a lot about the cool stuff that happens in the front-end funnels but not so much about what happens after people buy. Focusing on this part of your business will give you more bang for your buck than anything else. We’ll look at 3 reasons it’s important to “wow” your customers (and audience) and how to actually impress people.

• Impressing your existing customers will get you repeat customers
• It costs more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one
• If you don’t “wow” your customers, you’ll continually have to acquire new customers
• To get repeat customers, you have to deliver
• Impressing your existing customers will get your referrals
• Referrals are basically free leads
• Having a program that gets results and takes good care of customers is the foundation of an affiliate program
• Why your program needs to get people the results you promised them
• You need to overdeliver on what you promise
• Why you need to take responsibility for the results of your customers
• Why you need to get better at coaching/teaching so you can help your students
• Why you need to be willing to do the non-scalable work

• BADA$$ Online Marketing University
• Free Privacy Policy
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Today we’re talking about designing a visual brand. My guest, Patrick Sesko, is a designer who has years of experience working with traditional brands to create visual assets. Now he works with online entrepreneurs to help them with their visual branding. Patrick also contributed a course on branding that you can access for free in BADA$$ Online Marketing University.

We’ll be talking about the struggles that Patrick has faced in his business, especially due to the pandemic. Be sure to stick around to catch his best branding advice for online entrepreneurs.

• Patrick’s journey into the online course space
• Some of the struggles Patrick has faced along the way
• Some of the make-money schemes Patrick and Bobby have observed
• The different ways that Patrick and Bobby deal with overwhelm
• How the pandemic affected Patrick’s business and how he pivoted as a result
• Why it’s important to be consistent in your business
• Why most people don’t have both an eye for design and messaging
• Common design mistakes that many online marketers are making
• How to pick the right colors and how many you should have
• Why less is more when it comes to color
• Patrick’s best advice on fonts
• Why it’s better to be consistent than perfect with your visual branding

• Patrick Sesko 
• BADA$$ Online Marketing University
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In this episode, we’re going to be talking about the 7 Ps of services marketing and why they matter to your online business. Last week we covered the 4 Ps of marketing that apply to all businesses. This week, we’ll talk about the other 3 Ps that apply to services businesses. It’s important to recognize that when you’re in the online marketing space, you’re really in the services industry because you’re not selling a physical product. That’s why we need a plan for the other 3 Ps.

• Product — what is the product you’re delivering
• Price — what pricing strategy will you use
• Place — how are you going to deliver the product
• Promotion — how you message and advertise about your product
• People — the people who work in your business and help serve your clients
• Process — establishing a process to help people get results and create efficiency
• Physical evidence — establishing credibility and helping customers recognize the successes they’ve made

• BADA$$ Online Marketing University
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Today we’re talking about an important issue: why your business, course, or membership has to solve a real problem. As I’ve listened to the types of businesses and courses that people are creating, I’ve noticed that many entrepreneurs are coming up with ideas that don’t solve real problems. In this episode, I’m sharing a few important questions you need to ask before you dive into a business or course idea.

• What a business really is
• Why the ultimate goal of your business should be to make your customer’s life better
• The common mistakes people make when coming up with a business
• The question you need to ask when you’re building a business
• The areas where you can most easily start a business: health, wealth, relationships, recreation
• Why the type of solution you offer affects the size of your market and how much you can charge
• Why your solution has to address a problem your audience recognizes they have
• How to make sure your product is actually providing the solution
• Why you need to build a learning experience that helps your audience get results
• Why selling information isn’t going to get people results and your solution needs to get people into action
• The order to follow as you build your business

• BADA$$ Online Marketing University
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Today I’m talking with Arfan Husain who is the Facebook Ads coach in my group coaching program. Arfan and his wife help coaches grow and scale their businesses. As they built their business, they experienced a lot of ups and downs both personally and as business owners, and Arfan shares about his mental health struggles with us today. Be sure to stick around for the second half where he breaks down the latest trends with Facebook ads.

• How Arfan got started as a Facebook ads manager and how his business grew from there
• The personal mental health struggle Arfan faced at the end of 2020 and how he had to make changes to his business so he could take care of himself
• How a successful business can create stress for entrepreneurs
• How Arfan discovered that his rates were too low and why he decided to raise them
• The routines Arfan put in place to protect his mental health
• The types of ads Arfan runs for clients
• What’s going on with Facebook ads after the iOS changes
• Why you can’t compare 2021 numbers to 2020
• Why the reporting is more difficult to interpret and why you might need 3rd party software
• What kinds of ads to run if you’re just getting started
• When it’s a good idea to run engagement ads
• How to build out an overall advertising strategy if you’re just getting started
• What’s working with audiences
• How to find different interests to target
• What the learning phase is and what it takes to get out of learning limited
• How to use the rule of 3 in your ads
• Why you need to plan out 3 months for your Facebook ads
• How boosting posts can hurt your future campaigns
• Why you have to think through how ads fit into your overall marketing plan

• Arfan’s website | How To Create Effective Ads
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