David McKnight is the founder of McKnight Image Lab and the author of The Zen Executive Presence. He is an image consultant and professional coach who specializes in helping ambitious and busy professionals craft and leverage their personal image and brand to generate wealth, success and confidence.
In today’s broadcast, David and I discuss where style and leadership intersect and how to leverage your appearance and presence to get promotions, grow your business, and be more confident in social settings.
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Podcast audio editing and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.
Daniel Scrivner is the CEO of Flow, project management software that brings together your tasks, projects, timelines, and conversations, and integrates with your favorite tools, to help you achieve more. Previously, Daniel was the Head of Design at Digit and Square. He's worked for some of the most respected brands in the world including Apple, Nike, Disney, and Target.
In today’s broadcast, Daniel and I discuss how someone who worked at Apple and Square was able to take his accrued knowledge into different spaces, including leadership and C level roles. We dive into many topics ranging from design to creative thinking in general.
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Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.
Podcast audio editing and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.
Nathan Hirsch is a serial entrepreneur and expert in remote hiring and e-commerce. He is the founder and CEO of FreeeUp.com and the co-founder and COO of Portlight. Nathan is an expert at building efficient systems and processes, sales strategies, and business management.
In today’s broadcast, Nathan Hirsch takes us behind-the-scenes of his acquisition and investment journey and he shares his bootstrap strategies to grow his business into a multimillion-dollar business in a little less than 4 years.
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Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.
Podcast audio editing and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.
Jovana Miljanovic was born and raised in Serbia. She built a brick and mortar style business where she ran in-person workshops from scratch and then pivoted to helping people around the world through her virtual education platform. Now Jovana helps women start and scale their businesses online, and she hosts her own podcast, the Jovana Miljanovic Podcast on YouTube.
In this broadcast, Jovana Miljanovic walks us through how to build your business in 2020 from scratch, regardless of the constantly shifting economic and social landscape that we’re all in. She also shares why you need to prioritize doing things that make you uncomfortable (in business and life) and how to stick to your goals for an extended period of time.
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Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.
Podcast audio editing and show note production by Nives Kurjak. Click here to get 10% off your podcast production for life.
Well, there's no escaping it; Coronavirus is here and people are scared.
And because of the decrees, both de facto and de jure, for "social distancing" (aka how I live my life), small business owners everywhere are getting pummeled.
(especially brick and mortar small businesses)
Unfortunately, a lot of these businesses are going to be wiped out.
Before anyone freaks out, this isn't fear mongering. It's a reality.
The businesses that are forced to close right now, some for upwards of 60+ days, still have expenses to pay.
They still have overhead. They still have rent…
If these small business have no consistent, predictable, online revenue stream - or they can't establish one ASAP - they're screwed.
But fear not.
I've been to war in real life and in business (metaphorically speaking).
And today, I'm going to show you a way through the uncertainty.
Below, you'll find 5 ways to generate predictable income online in the next 21 days. Consider this the Coronavirus 2020 edition; stuff that's working now and should work well for you.
If you have any questions, thoughts, or recommendations for what I can add to the list, leave a comment below!
Ready?
Strap on your helmet and let's get to it...
This is for my brick and mortar entrepreneurs who are getting kicked around by all this the worst:
Given that you have a business and you have a databaset of customers, the absolute fastest, simplest, and best way to serve your customers and clients, while generating a profit online, quickly, is through the right affiliate offer.
Affiliate marketing is basically performance-based or commission-based marketing; e.g. you get paid for every sale you refer / generate.
So the question is, if you have customers OFFLINE, how could they be served ONLINE?
For example, maybe you run a yoga studio. People come to your classes in person. You've recently had to shut your doors for an indefinite period of time.
You could, of course, try to stream and sell your "in person" classes online.
But then you might realize your customers don't want to pay full price for a virtual streaming service, so you'll probably have to cut the price…
Unfortunately, cutting the price of your new streaming or online offer WILL NOT HELP, because you can find a million and a half yoga practices streamed online, basically every day.
If you're a guru, you can maybe get away with selling on the premise of your name alone.
For just about everyone else, why fight an uphill battle?
A better solution:
Your customers win because if the platform is established, it's a better user experience than you trying to hack something ridiculous together right now.
You win, because you have to deliver absolutely ZERO, while you have the chance to make a profit, in perpetuity.
#winnerwinnerchickendinner
Here's a screenshot from one of my affiliates who earned more than $50,000 from sharing a simple, proven, high quality digital product, over a 1 week period of time:
Yup, it works.
You just gotta find the right fit. And then put it out there the right way.
(Need help on this? Book a lightning session with me right now and in less than an hour we can figure out the optimal affiliate offer for your list, and maybe even start to line up your promotion)
Most people do the above and stop there.
That's profitable enough, in most cases, if done correctly.
Here's a simple way to ramp things up:
Put together a *30 day challenge* (or for however long your doors are closed for - why not?!) and join along with the customers you referred.
A simple way to do this:
Have anyone who signs up with your link send you the confirmation receipt (confirm inside your affiliate program that the sale was attributed to you), and add them to a private group where you can throw in extra stuff, whether bonuses or perks, providing feedback or support, and much more.
Who knows, this group might take off in such a way that you could charge money for it (but then we'd be getting ahead of ourselves, that's Strategy #4 below).
I know that might sound like a lot to accomplish in 21 days, but hear me out.
Here's the deal:
Amazon is one of the biggest search engines in the world. It's also the #1 digital retailer in the world.
If you're not tapping into this audience, you're missing out.
Insurgent Publishing makes 100% of its income online. We still sell print books, we just have no brick and mortar book store (nor do we try to get our books into stores).
I built Insurgent Publishing to be antifragile, and it seems to be working.
Here's the secret to success on Amazon:
That's it.
The best part about a book; it can be a genuine, passive income generator for you and your business.
I still receive sales of some of my books on my website that I haven't promoted or shared in…literally, years.
That's the power of books, of writing, and of becoming a published author.
If writing and publishing sounds like a lot of work, it doesn't have to be.
Today, you can find fantastic transcription software that makes audio dictation a real possibility (for those who hate sitting down to write). I use Rev.
Design and formatting used to be a pain. It's not anymore.
Now you can get professional cover design and professional formatting of your book (both digital and for print) for next to nothing, thanks to the amazing 100 Covers and FormattedBooks.
100 Covers and Formatted Books helped me put this bestseller together.
Bottom line: creating a professional-looking book costs much less than it's ever cost, and it's much more lucrative than it's ever been.
If you are rearing to go, but don't know where to start, here's a completely free course on how to launch a book to bestseller (based on the strategies and techniques we used to launch bestsellers like: "The 7 Day Startup," "The Art of Work," and many others).
And of course, if you have any questions, book a 1 on 1 Lightning Session with me here and I can answer any and all your questions (like how to get a book produced for under $3k, or how to take advantage of Amazon SEO to create consistent sales every day, or how to turn one book into multiple streams of revenue, and much more).
A virtual summit is like an in person conference, but hosted online.
Even better than an in person conference, you have no barrier to entry (geographically, speaking - optimal in these times of social distancing), can grow your email list, and you can make a killing on the backend with proper upsells and downsells.
Virtual summits can be very profitable.
I've coached and/or strategized, organized, managed, and run more than a dozen 5 to 6-figure virtual summits.
The reason they work so well is because they require little overhead, they don't have to be complicated, and you can drive results relatively quickly by leveraging partnerships.
(side note: here's the best system in the world for finding, connecting, and leveraging influential people to market and promote your products for you, including virtual summits)
Virtual summits are one of the best ways to position yourself as an authority in your space, niche, or industry, while simultaneously growing your reach (and most importantly: email list), as well as being a great way to get started selling digital products online (because the product, in this case, basically builds itself).
I used a virtual summit to drum up new coaching and consulting clients.
I called it: $100k Launch School.
The premise of my virtual summit was that you can make a years worth of income in a single month with a good launch.
The reason I bring that up is that my virtual summit helped me not only grow my email list by over 5,000 subscribers (in less than 3 weeks time…something that took me 3 years to do the first time I did it), and make over $20k from ticket sales alone, it also allowed me to book myself solid with clients (virtual / exclusively online) for the last two years.
(hence why I haven't felt the need to run one since, but also why I'm such a big fan)
Crazy, but true.
Here's a short video to help you make up your mind if you SHOULD host a virtual summit
Lastly, if you are going to run one, remember: they aren't necessarily complicated, but there are a lot of moving pieces.
You can figure out the list of things you need to do very easily. Executing in a timeline manner to drive real results…well that takes a little bit more planning.
So if you're thinking, yeah, that's something I want to get into: here's an insanely comprehensive, step-by-step blog post on how to create, host, and launch a virtual summit from scratch.
And if you need more help, of course you can schedule a 1 on 1 call with me here.
A membership site is platform that has a private, members only area. A "premium membership site" then is one where someone has to pay to get access. Simple.
The key here is paying members.
You can get on something like FB, YouTube, or IG right now and start posting free content…but we want to monetize that content.
That's where the premium membership site comes in.
With a premium membership, you get paid to produce and upload content. Remember the yoga studio example I gave earlier? If you were to create your own, that might include daily yoga workout, maybe some weekly meditations or bonus posture clinics…maybe you bring in a guest instructor to interview that person, or include an online community element.
There are a thousand ways to create and run a membership site, hence why it's not my first recommendation…
…but because so many small businesses are built on a business model of selling time for money, typically in person, and often 1-to-1, or 1-to-many…well, a membership site can be a no brainer solution.
For more on running a membership site, listen to this in-depth interview with membership site expert Jen Lehner.
Clarity.fm is a website that connects experts with people with questions.
They have a very simple system that allows your clients to book calls with you. Your clients are charged by the minute.
That might sound strange, but it works out really well, in particular (for me at least) with initial consultation calls.
First and foremost, it helps me avoid tire-kickers. After all, if someone is serious about growing a 6 to 7-figure online business, they won't be turned off by a $5 / minute call. If you're not used to charging so much, start with something lower…but don't diminish your value!
Second, it's painless. You can hook up your own system with a hodgpodge of widgets, which I do have, and still use (mostly for blocks of consulting people can book via my Accelerator Coaching), but it's kinda nice to have a system that works well, and is simple.
So had to give it a shout out here.
Clarity.fm takes a few minutes to setup, and you can be sharing your page and book paid consulting calls in minutes flat.
This isn't quite like the other strategies I've shared, per se. More like a "feel free to overlay this on top of any of the above" type of strategy (or "create your own riff on it and go" type of thing).
Listen, right now, we're in a "crisis" (or at least "crisis-lite").
The fear you've probably felt is that it may get worse.
Everyone is aware of that.
You don't need to aggravate it, but you can be honest about where you're at, what you're doing, and why you're making your services PAY WHAT YOU WANT…
Because if you can make a compelling case for:
All of a sudden, pay what you want pricing starts to not just work, but make a lot of financial sense.
There's really too much to cover with this one, so best if I direct you to my completely FREE Pay What You Want ecourse:
And that wraps up 5 ways you can start making a predictable profit online in the next 21 days (with a bonus 6th strategy, because I couldn't help myself...you could implement PWYW pricing so easily right now, if you mean what you say and know what you're doing...so look into it!).
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions on things I missed but that are legit ways to make predictable income online, share below. Let's use this a space to share and support one another (you can even plug your own stuff, just don't be grabbler).
Stay frosty.
Tom "social distancing before it was cool" Morkes
p.s. if you liked this blog post, you'll love my book "The Art of Instigating" - the paperback costs less than a meal out that you can't have right now anyway. Click here to pick up your copy (and one for a friend) today!
Started, finished, and shipped on a mountain homestead, deep in the heart of the Rockies | Writing time: 12 hours | Soundtrack: silence (a trend!)
Kyle Gray is an entrepreneur, the founder of ConversionCake, and a bestselling author who helps startups and small businesses grow their businesses with content marketing. He has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs create scalable content marketing strategies while also creating step-by-step processes and templates to automate and delegate tasks. Kyle’s book The Story Engine outlines his process for making content marketing and brand storytelling easy and effective.
In today’s conversation with Kyle, we’re talking about how to use storytelling to become an authority in your niche while boosting sales and winning the hearts and minds of your audience. In other words, we’re exploring how you can start selling with story. My biggest takeaway from this conversation is that using story in your marketing really does sell and it is what cuts through the noise and nonstop interruption based marketing techniques that you see all over social media.
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Anne Janzer is an award-winning author on a mission to help writers communicate more effectively. She has worked with over a hundred technology businesses, from industry giants to innovative start-ups, helping them articulate positioning and messaging in crowded markets. Anne also coaches business leaders on communicating their ideas with impact, clarity and marketing teams on telling brand stories that strengthen customer relationships.
During this podcast, I explore why so many businesses are moving to subscription based business models with Anne. We also dive into the how’s and why’s behind whether or not you should consider integrating a subscription model into your business.
Subscribe to In The Trenches on iTunes
Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.
Adam Anderson is CEO of Hook-Security. He is also a long-time small business owner who happens to be one of the leading authorities on small business cybersecurity. This serial entrepreneur is an author, who has written several books on cyber security and cyber crime to help other business owners understand and navigate the digital world. Adam is on a mission to help fellow business owners find the answer to the question, “Should I even care about cybersecurity?”
I brought Adam onto the podcast today to talk about what small business owners and online entrepreneurs can do to stay safe online as we leverage online portals and platforms. We’re also going to be discussing what we can do to protect our online assets, websites, and our products from intellectual theft in the online space. My biggest takeaway from this chat is that security and protecting our online businesses from the start is one of the most important and crucial elements of what we do online.
Subscribe to In The Trenches on iTunes
Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.
Roland Frasier is co-founder and principal of three current Inc. Magazine fastest growing companies. He has founded, scaled or sold 24 different 7 to 9 figure businesses ranging from consumer products to industrial machine manufacturing companies with adjusted sales ranging from $3 million to $337 million. He is currently growing DigitalMarketer, RivalBrands, and Plattr while advising over 150 other companies on digitally-centric customer acquisition, activation, referral, retention, and revenue strategies and plan implementation.
I brought Roland onto the show today to talk about strategy and thought process; specifically, how he thinks about business and the problem he's had to solve, at various levels of resolution. My big takeaway from this call is that each of us probably has all the information, facts, and "data" we need to make big things happen. We just have to get out there and get our hands dirty. Stop searching for the latest "hack" and instead implement (and really get after it when you do).
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Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.
Michele Moreno is a camera coach who works with entrepreneurs, creators and anyone who wants to get in front of the camera. She helps them show up, present and crush their video presentations. As an actress, singer, business writer, confidence expert, Michele helps people become a better versions of themselves, and turn their viewers into clients.
My big takeaway from today's call is that the 20% of effort that creates the 80% of your results from video presentations is all stuff that's under your control. It has nothing to do with big budget editing, expensive cameras, snazzy lighting, or anything like that. The critical pieces are the things that you do when you're on camera and how you show up, speak, look, and engage. That is what we cover in today's conversation.
Subscribe to In The Trenches on iTunes
Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.