The Idea Climbing® Podcast

Using videos for marketing purposes is a hot topic. How can you create a successful marketing campaign that turns into dollars for your bottom line? That’s what I recently discussed with the CEO of WireBuzz, Todd Hartley.

Todd has been leveraging video for marketing purposes for over 15 years. His first project generated over 36 million unique visitors a year on zero ad dollars.

How Long?

One hot topic in the video world is video length. How long should your marketing videos be? It depends upon the product or service. How long does it take you to explain your product or service compellingly and in the most succinct way possible? That’s how long your video should be.

People tend to think that everything has to be short because people’s attention spans are shorter. That’s true if you just want to grab someone’s attention for a minute. Unfortunately, people don’t buy because of short videos. Short videos should only be used as teasers that get people to watch your next, longer video.

If you’re trying to get someone to purchase from you longer videos outperform shorter videos every time. What is longer? 10 minutes, 14 minutes or 30 minutes. In the case of infomercials an hour works. Infomercials convert viewers into buyers at a much higher rate than short videos.  The lesson here: Don’t be afraid to make longer videos.

With regards to short attention spans – attention spans are selective. They’re selective to buyers. Todd doesn’t watch knitting videos on YouTube, but his mother eats them up. Why? Because she’s a buyer. They provide value to her and help her make buying decisions. That’s what your videos should do.

3 Indisputable Laws of Using Video to Create Bingeworthy Buying Experiences

They’re all related, and they’re all taught to us on a daily basis by Netflix.

1) It must be personalized and relevant. If a video comes on about your favorite topic, it grabs your attention. One size fits all videos don’t work.

2) It needs to be on demand. People need to be able to watch your videos when the time is appropriate for them.

3) It needs to be bingeable. You need to structure the information so somebody goes down that “rabbit hole” and they binge all the way through it. You can’t do that with a 30 second video.

Listen In!

Todd shares, in detail:

About the Guest

Today my guest is Todd Hartley, the founder and CEO of WireBuzz. Embracing the power of video early on, Todd has spent the last decade mastering video marketing. In 2010, he created WireBuzz to help businesses amplify sales, reach marketing goals, and dominate the competition with video.

In this episode we’ll discuss what it takes to make a successful business video, 3 Indisputable Laws of Using Video to Create Bingeworthy Buying Experiences, how to turn your videos into sales machines and more.

Networking is the life blood of many businesses. It’s how business gets done and referrals get made. Recently I spoke with Justin Breen about networking. He’s the founder of BrEpic, a PR firm that writes compelling, newsworthy stories for its clients and pitches those stories to media across the world. Breen also has his first book, Epic Business, launched in May of 2020. He was a journalist for 20 years before starting his business on April 16, 2017.

As you get started or when you’re rebranding yourself Justin had this to share: Do what you love to do and do what you’re really good at. Partner with other people that will do the rest. Once you have those people in place you can focus on networking.

Get Focused With Your Networking

When you get the opportunity to have a mentoring experience: Learn from and listen to people and then implement the things that you learn from them. Taking action is important, you need to do more than just listen. Turn their advice into focused networking.

Don’t wait for people to come to you, proactively reach out to them. On the day of our podcast recording Justin had 13 or 14 calls. He shares that it’s important to constantly and consistently be reaching out to people. You need to foster the relationships you have while creating new ones. Justin says this will lead to you building your “tribe”, or the people that you want to hang out with. To get his first five clients he reached out to 5,000 people. He shares that you might have to reach out to 300 or 400 people to find 20 that you want to be part of your tribe.

Build Your Network the RIGHT Way

How can you build your network? Give as much, if not more, than you get. Justin makes 10-20 high quality introductions a day for other people and gets 5-6 high quality introductions a day.

Be intentional about who you want to work with AND who you DON’T want to work with. Find people with an abundance mindset, that’s important. You become a product of the people that you hang out with. Justin says that if he speaks to 20 entrepreneurs about an abundance mindset 17 or 18 of them will look at him like he’s crazy and that’s ok. The two or three that “get it” are the people he wants to associate with.

Justin’s introductions via email are short and to the point and get a great response. Sometimes it’s as simple as cc’ing people and saying “You two should know each other.

LinkedIn Advice and More

Use LinkedIn like a commercial for other people. Tag people on LinkedIn and interact with them. Make the post about what other people are doing and they’ll appreciate you more and will be more likely to reciprocate.

Justin goes on to talk about:

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About the Guest!

Justin Breen is CEO of the PR firm BrEpic Communications. Justin is hard-wired to seek out and create viral, thought-provoking stories that the media craves. And he finds the best stories when he networks with visionary entrepreneurs and executives who understand the value of investing in themselves and their businesses. Justin believes strongly in the power of introductions and creates important relationships through those introductions.

Storytelling in the business world is a popular subject these days.  How do you do it the right way? That’s what I recently discussed with New York Times bestselling author Chris Brogan.

Distraction has become the norm, not the exception. People have countless media outlets vying for their attention. How can you grab their attention? You have to package your first message, or story, so small that people will opt to go to that second step and be interested in your longer story. Not everything can be sold in that small bite, but you must at least grab attention in that small window of time. Movie trailers are a great example of this. The short story (trailer) grabs your attention and gets you interested in watching the full movie.

The Three Types of Business Stories

Every story has an internal story to tell and an external story to tell. External is marketing and PR. Internal is the boss talking to the employees. There are three buckets in the business storytelling world:

What NOT to Do When Telling a Business Story

Don’t try to tell a story that appeals to everyone. Pick a niche and share stories with them that appeal specifically to them. When you do this, you’re going to upset someone because you can never please everyone. And that’s okay.

It’s not necessarily excluding people as it is picking a niche and including people that fall into that niche.

Listen In!

Chris goes on to share…

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ABOUT THE GUEST

Chris Brogan is president of Chris Brogan Media, offering business storytelling and marketing advisory help for mid to larger sized companies. Chris is a sought after keynote speaker and the New York Times bestselling author of nine books and counting. He’s working on his tenth.

Chris has spoken for or consulted with the biggest brands you know, including Disney, Coke, Google, GM, Microsoft, Coldwell Banker, Titleist, Scotts, Humana Health, Cisco, Sony USA, and many more. He’s appeared on the Dr. Phil Show, interviewed Richard Branson for a cover story for Success magazine, and once even presented to a Princess. People like Paulo Coelho, Harvey Mackay, and Steven Pressfield enjoy sharing their projects and best ideas with Chris, because they know he’ll share them with you. Tony Robbins had Chris on his Internet Money Masters series. Forbes listed Chris as one of the Must Follow Marketing Minds of 2014, plus listed his website as one of the 100 best websites for entrepreneurs. Statsocial rated Chris the #3 power influencer online.

Why are mastermind groups important for startups and entrepreneurs and what do they look like? Each one is a community of like-minded entrepreneurs that are coming together, helping each other out and by the end of the session coming up with an action plan for each person in the room to help them solve a problem.

Recently I spoke with serial entrepreneur and mastermind group creator Waldon Fenster about how to create successful mastermind groups. First, everyone needs to be vulnerable. It’s about having uncomfortable conversations. It’s uncomfortable because you’re sharing your faults and problems with everyone in the room. The purpose is to get uncomfortable enough to grow.

One strategy is to have “hot seats”. In the hot seat the person focuses on ONE big problem or obstacle that is currently in their way. They then open the conversation for solutions from the other people in the room. That could be advice about avoiding some hurdles, growth advice, connections that they have for you and more.

Small group masterminds are ideal to keep it to a one-day event. Each person needs time to share with the group and that could take 30 minutes for people to share and 30-45 minutes for feedback. If everyone needs an hour it would be best to keep the number of people at eight. If people share for less time than an hour then the most that is manageable it 10-12.

The Key Components of Mastermind Groups

If you’re interested in mastermind groups, what do you need to include? You’ll need to include the four key components of mastermind groups to be successful.

First, you must be open about sharing problems that you are facing. If you’re not willing to be open and share your problems, then the people in the room can’t help you solve them.

Second, you need a diverse group of people in the room. If you all have the same experiences then there aren’t new, outside viewpoints and solutions to share.

Third, you need an action plan. People need to walk away with specific strategies to overcome problems, not just  a bunch of random suggestions or ideas. An action plan needs to include dates, goals and deadlines. Without an action plan it’s just wasted time, effort and money.

Finally, you need accountability. This is where most people fail when it comes to masterminds.  You need someone to hold you to your promise to take action.

Listen In!

Waldon goes on to share:

ABOUT WALDON FENSTER – VENTURE STUDIO

Small Business/Startup Expert, Corporate Consultant

https://venturestudio.com/

Serial business builder, Waldon Fenster is a small business expert and corporate acquisition consultant with an expertise in facilitating brand growth for businesses and startups that want to present their company to the marketplace. As Founder and President of Venture Studio, Waldon has worked with thousands of companies and Fortune 100 brands to expand their business models and amplify their portfolios for immediate financial benefit.

Waldon’s expertise ranges from business development, entrepreneurship, corporate growth tactics and brand strategy. Through his savvy and top-level work, Waldon is able to build small businesses and emerging startups from the ground up, to make them attractive to outside investments and acquisitions on a global scale. It is his commitment to the entrepreneurial landscape and desire to educate business owners on the growth potential of their brands, that continue to motivate this innovative corporate leader.

Waldon is also the creator of the popular business podcast, “Messes To Successes”, where he explores the strategies, tools, and wisdom entrepreneurs use every day to avoid the pitfalls of business and grow a successful enterprise that defies the odds.

If you’re actively looking for a mentor but don’t know how to find and approach one, you should first congratulate yourself. You’re ahead of the curve when you take stock of your life and are willing to ask for help. While that’s a great start, how should you approach potential mentors?

The answer to that question is what I recently spoke about with bestselling author of The Go-Giver series and professional speaker Bob Burg.

According to Bob the first quality that you need to look for is to find someone that’s done what you want to do. It doesn’t have to be something EXACTLY like you do, just along the lines of what you want to do works great. They don’t have to be in the same field that you’re in either. It could be someone that’s had success in the business world solving similar problems to the ones that you are facing.

Two Different Ways to Reach Out to Potential Mentors

I believe there are two schools of thought when it comes to approaching potential mentors. 1) When you find one you directly ask them to be your mentor and 2) Have conversations with people and let the relationship organically develop over time.

Bob believes there is one way to do it that is more effective than the other one. If you’ve just met someone or you are reaching out with a cold call asking someone to be your mentor is like asking “Would you share 30 years of your life experiences with me even though you don’t know me from a hole in the wall?”. When you do that you run the risk of coming off entitled or that you don’t really respect the mentoring process. A mentor/protégé relationship is just that – it’s a RELATIONSHIP that needs to be nurtured and developed. Asking someone to be your mentor too soon is like asking someone to marry you before the first date.

On the other hand, here’s what you can do when you reach out to someone even when you don’t know them well: Say “I know that you are very, very busy and if this is something that isn’t appropriate I understand. I’d like to ask you one or two very specific questions…” When you approach it that way you let them know that it’s not entitlement, it’s not something that they owe you. You’re giving them an out and letting them know that you respect their time. Most people will say yes to answering a couple of questions. From there you set up a brief call. You ask if you can follow up with them and sometimes a relationship will organically grow over time on those phone calls.

Listen In!

That’s just the tip of the iceberg! Bob shares his experiences and advice about successfully growing mentoring relationships after that first phone call with easy, actionable items that will have a great impact on the relationship opportunity at hand. We also discuss more about what NOT to do, what MENTORS should do in this case and how to create value for your mentors among other valuable nuggets of advice.

Enjoy!

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About The Guest

Bob Burg is a sought-after speaker at company leadership and sales conferences sharing the platform with everyone from today’s business leaders and broadcast personalities to even a former U.S. President.

Bob is the author of a number of books on sales, marketing and influence, with total book sales of well over a million copies. His book, The Go-Giver, coauthored with John David Mann, itself has sold over 925,000 copies and it has been translated into 28 languages.

His and John’s newest parable in the Go-Giver Series is The Go-Giver Influencer.

Bob is an advocate, supporter and defender of the Free Enterprise system, believing that the amount of money one makes is directly proportional to how many people they serve. He is also an unapologetic animal fanatic and is a past member of the Board of Directors of Furry Friends Adoption, Clinic & Ranch in his town of Jupiter, Florida.

Michael Drew went from being homeless and selling drugs to becoming a publisher and an esteemed and in demand business book marketer. He’s helped 99 books become bestsellers – 90 of those are now New York Times bestsellers. Over a 21-year career he’s got the process down to a very successful science which he shares in this interview.

The Numbers

Michael dispels some myths about becoming a bestseller and sheds light on the process. One of the first things he shares is that not every book that is sold is counted towards becoming a bestseller – which means you have to sell a LOT of books to make up for the ones that aren’t counted. Each retailer, online and offline, has stringent standards that need to be met if you want to make the bestseller lists. You need to understand those standards and work within them when you launch your book. Michael describes the standards and numbers you need to hit in detail during our interview.

Your Marketing Strategy

We then go on to discuss why you need to start implementing your marketing strategy while you’re writing your book; don’t wait until you get a publishing date to start marketing initiatives. First you must define your objective. Is it to get higher speaking fees? Is it to generate new business leads? Is it to differentiate yourself from your competitors? A clear objective goes beyond “I want to sell a lot of books”. You then need to tie that objective into the content of the book while you’re writing it. You need to be sure that your book supports the outcome that you desire.

Of course, you must write a really, really good book. Michael disagrees with the advice to “use your book as a business card”. Use it to create an outcome that fulfills your objective. If you sell widgets you need to write a book that argues the need for widgets, not just a general topic like leadership.

Once you’ve found your objective you can start building a marketing strategy by using the four pillars of marketing:

Listen In!

Michael shares a LOT more wisdom and actionable ideas that can help you create a bestseller. We discuss how to reach out to your audience to move the needle with book sales. It’s all about relationships and we discuss how to avoid “douchebag marketing” and instead use relational selling. We also discuss at length the 12-step marketing process to map out your customer journey that culminates in greater book sales and financial growth in other areas of your business.

Enjoy!

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About The Guest

Michael R. Drew is a leading book marketer in the publishing industry, propelling 99 consecutive books onto national bestseller lists, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The New York Times, and garnering over 1,000 #1 rankings for books on Amazon.com through his Profluent services.

Through Michael’s skills in website creation, his strengths as a speaker, his career coaching, and in his innovative use of personas to intensify the effectiveness of all sorts of writing, Michael has been a force in the creation of a new generation of thought leaders. He has helped them to become even more effective entrepreneurs who nourish today’s idea-hungry audiences.

As a professional speaker, developing new business can be a challenge sometimes. It’s easy to get stuck. I recently spoke with Lynne Franklin, a 10+ year professional speaking veteran with over three million views of her TEDx talk, about how you can get unstuck, move forward and successfully develop new business.

Getting Unstuck While Developing New Business

When things get tough and you’re developing business fast enough you need to take action, not just think about taking action.

A lot of times changing things is as simple as picking up the phone and calling someone to say “I’m not having a good day; I could use a little inspiration. What have you done that’s worked well or what has helped you turn the corner during tough times?” Hearing their story and sharing yours changes your energy level which is a great start to changing your situation. Changing your energy level makes it easier to pick up the phone and make that next sales call.

Leveraging Networking Events To Build Your Business

Lynne doesn’t go to networking events with the goal of finding new business. The goal that she sets for herself in advance is having three interesting conversations and the contact information of one person that she’d like to meet again. How does this help your sales process? People do business with people that they know, like and trust. Build a relationship FIRST and then ask for business LATER. You’ll get a much better response that way.

Listen In!

In this interview Lynne goes into more detail about getting unstuck, building relationships and building your business as a professional speaker.

About The Guest

After a boy threatened to kill her with a machete, Lynne Franklin started learning all she could about persuasion. She’s a neuroscience nerd: translating how the brain works into practical, easy-to-use communication tools. Leaders and teams work with Lynne to advance their careers by building more rapport, creating more trust, and attracting more opportunities. Her TEDx Talk, on how to be a mind reader, went viral with over 3 million views (http://bit.ly/2C9CE3G).

Lynne is a consultant, speaker and trainer, and past president of the National Speakers Association Illinois Chapter. She wrote Getting Others To Do What You Want and is working on her next book—Leaders on Rapport: Secrets to Creating Successful Connections.

10 years ago, Andy Kaufman stumbled into podcasting. At first, he thought it might be a good way to increase his marketing outreach. It did help with that over time, but there was a bigger lesson learned that he shares here.

10 years later the biggest benefit of the podcast Andy realized was the learning experience. By inviting people that he admired to be interviewed for his podcast he got to meet people and learn from people that he otherwise wouldn’t have met. His podcast became a calling card to authors, thought leaders and more.

His podcast also created what Andy calls a “forcing function” for learning. At first, he didn’t read the entire book of the author that he would be interviewing, he would skim it at best. Then he started reading the entire book of each guest before the interview and his energy changed. He and the guest were more engaged and shared more ideas.

Learning lead to business results too. Some of the best materials for Andy’s trainings and keynotes come from ideas shared during his podcasts. He regularly gets unsolicited offers for speaking engagements from listeners of his podcast. Through the podcast people can “get to know Andy”, his personality and his expertise enough that they reach out to hire him.

How to Reach Out to Potential Guests

Andy makes it look easy to get guests on his show. It is and it isn’t, especially when you’re getting started.  One tip for getting authors, especially the bigger names? Search Amazon for books that are going to be released in the next quarter and reach out to the authors BEFORE their book launches. That’s when they’re most interested in marketing themselves and their book. Publishers tend not to help much, if at all, with marketing so you’re adding value to the authors’ lives when you share their ideas in your podcast.

How do you know what guests to reach out to? Pick a niche to go after and stick with it. Andy’s sweet spot is the intersection between project management and leadership. Decide what you’re most passionate about and find guests in that niche.

Another benefit of the interview style of podcasting is that you’re not giving YOUR content away for free. Showcase the genius of your guests. This will bring you listeners in your niche and get you “introduced” to them. When they learn about you and what problems you solve, they might decide to hire you. In Andy’s case he gets paid to teach within the intersection of project management and leadership.

Listen In!

Andy gets into a lot more detail about how to find and engage with guests, how to asks questions that get them to tell stories and how to have a much more meaningful and successful podcast overall whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been at it for years. You’ll also learn more ways to leverage podcasting to grow your business faster than you could without it.

About the Guest

Andy Kaufman is a recognized expert on leadership and project management, helping organizations around the world improve their ability to lead and deliver. Andy works with leaders at the United Nations and other global clients to improve their ability to deliver on their initiatives. Before becoming an internationally sought-after speaker, Andy started as a software developer and was promoted into management for all the wrong reasons! He is the author of three books and host of the acclaimed People and Projects Podcast (https://PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com or any podcast app), which provides free PDUs through interviews and insights for his global listeners. To learn more about Andy’s keynotes and workshops, check out https://i-leadonline.com/keynotes.

In this episode of the Idea Climbing™ podcast I interview founder and managing partner of a venture capital firm, Jason Jacobsohn. You’ll learn why mentoring is a two-way street and how both parties can benefit from one another.

Key point: It’s not an “age issue”, an older person can learn from a younger person and vice-versa. There should be a learning experience going on for both sides. Successful mentoring relationships grow into long term relationships when both sides get value from the relationship.

How Can Mentees Give Back?

First, mentees should show a genuine interest in the mentor. They should be seeking ways to help the mentor with feedback and possible connections. Sometimes just being a mentee is enough – the mentor wants to give back because someone helped THEM at some point in their career and now, they want to help someone else with THEIR career.

To make that happen the mentee has to take ACTION with what the advice that their mentor gives them and then report back with the new results that they’ve achieved and bring more questions to the table to continue the mentoring conversation. This lets the mentor know that their mentee is serious about the relationship.

There’s No Quick Fix

A mentoring relationship can’t be forced for quick results. It gradually happens over time as trust is built. In the case of Founder Institute, as time goes on mentors become more actively engaged with the companies and continue to provide invaluable guidance as the startups grow. As the mentees continue to take action with their mentors’ guidance, they get to know each other personally, and trust is formed. That’s when mentoring relationships start to thrive.

Getting Started

If you want to create successful mentoring relationships, you need to reach out to people and ASK for help. The worst thing that can happen is that you hear “no”. The best thing that can happen is that the trajectory of your professional life is changed for the better.

Listen In!

Listen to the podcast to learn more strategies that you can put into place to create successful mentoring experiences and relationships!

About The Interviewee

Jason Jacobsohn is well known in the Chicago area as a “connector” and go-to person for entrepreneurs who want to grow and maintain their success.  Currently, Jason is the Founder and Managing Partner of Propellant Ventures, which is an early-stage venture capital firm that boldly invests in a broad range of innovative companies in underserved and undervalued regions across the U.S.

Prior to launching Propellant Ventures, he was a Principal at Bascom Ventures, which is a private, for-profit venture capital fund for Wisconsin alumni that invests in seed, growth, and later stage companies with a Wisconsin alumni connection.  In addition, Jason launched and currently runs the Chicago chapter of Founder Institute, which is the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, with chapters across 180+ cities around the world.

For most of his career, he has provided venture development services to align emerging businesses with resources for growth.  Jason is looking to meet like-minded people who share his passion and interest in the entrepreneurship and investment communities.

In this  episode I speak with Hassan Akmal from Columbia University in New York. This 7 minute interview debunks mentoring myths and gives you tools to create amazing mentorship experiences.

“Mentoring” can be confusing, it’s MUCH more than just “having coffee and sharing stories”. When done right it can change lives. Hassan was fortunate enough to start experiencing mentoring at a very young age, but some people aren’t as fortunate. We discuss how to remedy not having a mentor in your life.

Hassan shares how tough love plays a role in mentoring and should be embraced so that you can learn faster than you ever could on your own. We also discuss the need for MULTIPLE mentors because each one will share different advice and give you a deeper well of knowledge to draw from.

Hassan shares some experiences from his previous role as Director of Career Services at Loyola University’s Quinlan School of Business and lessons that you can learn from his tenure there including the role that leadership plays in mentorship.

A fun fact? You can have a mentor and not even realize that they are a mentor (and vice-versa) because the both of you are just looking at the conversations as getting and receiving help and not as a formal mentoring relationship. Whatever the relationship great mentors are great listeners. They listen, probe BUT they make YOU make the decision and take action.

A key message? Everyone needs a mentor!

About the guest:

Hassan Akmal, MBA, MPH, is the Inaugural Executive Director of Industry Relations and Career Strategies and Founder of the Career esign Lab at Columbia University. An alumnus of Columbia University, Akmal blazed a successful path as a visionary, Career Thought Leader, Chair of Career Education, and Director of Career Services at several universities in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. He is a former professional tennis player and International Athlete Ambassador to the United States, and serves on the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) “Future of We” — Think Tank Committee. Additionally, he spearheaded Columbia’s “Career Week” —a five-day premier conference on the future of meaningful work, one of the largest career center events in the nation culminating with a Future of Career Services symposium.

With over 10 years’ experience leading career and professional development, Akmal teaches individuals the importance of capturing their career and life vision, elevating personal brand in multi-layered social media, leveraging self-awareness, and purpose alignment—he believes these elements are both the keys to maximizing career and the means of self-fulfillment. He is the Author of the Amazon Best-Selling Book—How to be a How to be a Career Mastermind™: Discover 7 “YOU Matter” Lenses for a Life of Purpose, Impact, and Meaningful Work. Akmal hosts exclusive global Career Mastermind™ Groups 3x/year that historically sell-out.