David J. Soler is the host of the Relationship Marketing and Sales podcast. A former firefighter and mortgage broker, David coaches and trains others on how to improve their relationship marketing.
Jeff Goins is a writer, but he's also an entrepreneur – and a savvy one at that. The author of the new book The In-Between, and Wrecked, Goins built a rabid following online of fellow writers who are highly engaged through his website, GoinsWriter.com, through his podcast, and other activities.
Pam Slim is a former corporate consultant and employee, Pam has built a reputation over the past 10 years as a coach and consultant to "corporate refugees," based off her blog Escape from Cubicle Nation and the book by the same name.
In this episode, I talk with Dr. Ivan Misner, the founder of the world's largest business networking organization,? BNI (Business Network International). I know a lot of people who have participated in local BNI chapters, and many of them swear by it.? BNI has chapters which only take 1 or 2 professionals from a particular vocation (i.e. 1 masseuse, 1 realtor, 1 accountant, etc.) and then the group meets weekly, gets to know one another, and refers business around. BNI boasts that it generated 5...
Have you ever seen a master mingler work a room? Someone who is really good at diving into a roomful of strangers, making friends and having a blast at the same time? My guest on episode 43 of the Smart Business Revolution podcast is a true master mingler. (I worked for another .) 25 years ago, Susan RoAne broke ground with her book, How to Work a Room ( referral link ). At the time, people were just beginning to become savvy to the importance of socializing in a business context. Today, there a...
Did you know that the average American spends over an hour and 25 minutes on Facebook every day ? OK, I just made that up. But it sounds true. As one of the largest websites in the world, Facebook is a behemoth no matter how you slice it. It's also a great source of new traffic and business for many businesses. The only problem is, few people actually know how to use Facebook effectively. Amy Porterfield is one of the few marketing experts who truly understands how to use Facebook. In fact, she ...
Do you ever wonder why you can't seem to shake your bad habits? What if you could easily drop all your bad habits and adopt all good habits? Wouldn't that make a huge difference in your life? James Clear is fascinated by the science of habit formation. Throughout his diverse career, he has studied ways to drop bad habits and form better ones, and he came on the podcast to talk about how you can develop your own good habits. He's a very smart and successful guy and has some great advice on the to...
Derek Halpern is a blunt, straight-talking New Yorker who tells it like it is. While still in college, he decided to start a celebrity gossip website, but in typical Halpern fashion, he did not do any part of the project half-way. He did a thorough analysis of the market and found a way to stand out in an already crowded niche. As a result, he created a phenomenally successful site which at one point attracted over 1 million visitors in one 24-hour period. Today, he is most well known as the fou...
A little over a year ago, John Lee Dumas was an unknown podcaster, hustling to get good guests for his new podcast. He barely even knew how to start a podcast, much less run a good one. Today, he has a thriving business based off that same podcast, Entrepreneur on Fire , and he's interviewed an incredible array of guests, from Tim Ferriss to Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran to Seth Godin. He even interviewed my own client, Carl Mattiola , who started a software business on the side that allowed him...
LinkedIn is one of the most powerful social networks available today. But a lot of people find it very confusing. Many people sign up, set up a profile, and then don't know what to do next. They end up abandoning it or wasting a lot of time because they don't know how to use LinkedIn and to make it work for them. That's where my guests Lori Ruff and Mike O'Neil come in. Lori and Mike are known as the "LinkedIn Rock Stars" and they shown hundreds of people how to use LinkedIn for business. I've b...
Imagine starting a new professional sports team... from scratch. That's what my latest guest did. Mike Shapiro is the founding partner and current managing partner of the San Rafael Pacifics , an independent league professional baseball team in San Rafael, California. Many years ago, Mike had the idea for starting a professional baseball team to play at a local ballpark where his kids played baseball. Only unlike most people who come up with a crazy, hare-brained idea like that, he followed thro...
When I first went to work for myself a couple of years ago, one of the first books I read was Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. I don't think I could have picked a better book to read upon embarking on the journey of entrepreneurship. Out of all the various business books presenting different coaching models available on the market today, Michael's book was perfect. It covers how service professionals can develop their own personal brand, talk about what it is they do in the right way, build ...
Like so many in his generation, Srinivas "Srini" Rao graduated into a horrible job market. Except unlike many, he did it twice. The first time was after college. Rao graduated from UC Berkeley, finishing up school in 2000 just as the dot-com-fueled Bay Area economy was crumbling. The second time Rao graduated into a recession was after business school, which he graduated from in 2009. Not surprisingly, he suffered his way through a few years of working for various dot-com and startups that eithe...
Five years ago, Sean Malarkey was working in real estate in Columbus, Ohio. Today, he presides over a 7-figure online marketing training company and spends his days playing with his kids, surfing, and hanging out around Santa Barbara, California. Not a bad life, eh? In between was a lot of hard work, some ups and some downs, and a lot of success. In this interview, Sean shares it all: what he learned from surviving the real estate market meltdown (including how he saw the handwriting on the wall...
When you look up the word "innovation" in the dictionary, there should be a picture of this week's guest. Brian Goodell went from a career in commercial real estate to founding a very successful invention business. That's right - he was an inventor. How often do you meet someone who's business card says "inventor"? And I thought my career history had a lot of variety. Brian actually invented numerous different types of products, many of which ended up on the stores of some of the nation's larges...
Caleb Wojcik is one of the three co-founders of Fizzle (along with Corbett Barr and Chase Reeves), an online business training program that I've participated in and talked about a little bit on this blog and on Twitter . Before working on Fizzle and embracing a life of entrepreneurship, Caleb lived amongst the cubicles… working for a large aerospace company. During that time, he actually had the difficult job of creating spreadsheets with names of people to be laid off. (Now he actually helps te...
If you have a services-based business, you probably know the challenges of running a small business. On the one hand, you have to bring in business. At the same time, you need to serve those existing clients or customers. And while you're doing that, you have to be thinking about bringing in new business. It's a difficult juggling act. Darlene Hildebrandt is a working photographer, teacher and trainer, based out of Edmonton, Canada and I asked her to come on the podcast because she has done a tr...
Andy Drish had his dream job in his early 20s, working for a Fortune 250 company in marketing. Then a midlife crisis hit, and he threw it all away. He quit his job, broke up with his girlfriend... and even abandoned his puppy (don't worry; the girlfriend took the puppy). Andy then embarked on an entrepreneurial journey, eventually founding Referral Squirrel, a website designed to help Realtors get more referrals. In the process, he became passionate about writing copy that is effective and grows...
How do you create customers who will rave about your business -- and tell all their friends to check you out? Most small business owners will say it's easier said than done. While there's no secret formula, Marie Forleo comes as close as any entrepreneur to having a magic recipe for creating passionate and engaged fans. Seriously, if she could bottle and sell a potion that creates raving customers who will buy up anything you do, she'd make a mint. The creator of the massive popular B-School , a...
How do you create customers who will rave about your business -- and tell all their friends to check you out? Most small business owners will say it's easier said than done. While there's no secret formula, Marie Forleo comes as close as any entrepreneur to having a magic recipe for creating passionate and engaged fans. Seriously, if she could bottle and sell a potion that creates raving customers who will buy up anything you do, she'd make a mint. The creator of the massive popular B-School , a...
