Turning a Passion for Minimalism into an Impact Business (interview)

Interview with Samantha Kristoferson and Emilio Jose Gracia

Samantha and Emilio are full of energy and have a certain zest for life that is contagious.

After their interview, I got a copy of their new book, A Recipe For an Extraordinary Life.” It’s an easy read that offers a lot of great insights and inspiration.  They don’t just help you declutter your space but also your mind.

In this interview we talk about how they turned that passion into a business.

They are the Co-Founders of KW Professional Organizers, providing speaking, 1-on-1 help, and online courses for individuals who are ready for a change.

Decluttering is their genius. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. They want to help you remove the things you don’t need to be doing and focus on what really matters to you.

They have been fortunate to be the catalyst for positive change in hundreds of individual’s lives and influenced thousands through their blog, videos, books, courses, media appearances and speaking.

>> You can grab a copy of their book here.<<

Why People Buy: How to Take Advantage of Buying Triggers

Why do people buy something?

Ever wonder why people buy anything?

What is the trigger? What makes them say to themselves “I must have this NOW”?

If they have been wanting it for a while, what made them finally add it to their cart?

If they just learned about it for the first time, what is it that made them act impulsively rather than research more alternatives?

You might think it is because the product is so good, and your pitch is so tight, that they are persuaded to buy.

That’s the kind of control we wished our product had in our customers, but it rarely works that way.

Need. Opportunity. Urgency. Scarcity.

The key to someone buying right then and there lies in the intersection of these 4 concepts: need, opportunity, urgency, and scarcity.

If you are in front of the deodorants section at the store, and you remember you’re about to run out and won’t be coming back to the store for another week, you’ll pick it up.

The Need: you are the kind of person who wears deodorant every day.

The Opportunity: you are at the store right now.

Urgency: the day when you wake up and have no deodorant is fast approaching

Scarcity: you don’t have new deodorants piled up in your closet. This is a scarce product in that you cannot obtain it with extreme ease.

This equation applies to anything you are selling.

Many of us focus so much time and money on making a great looking product and trying to convince people that they should buy it, that we forget that our customers make those decisions all on their own.

To better illustrate how this formula may apply to your business, let’s consider another example.

Suppose you are selling a fitness coaching program for working mothers.

Why should they sign up?

Sure, you are probably the best coach in the universe and you have the most revolutionary coaching program; but how does that translate into your ideal customer’s needs? And how are you creating the opportunity, urgency, and scarcity?

The way you would do this is by conducting a launch.

A launch is a marketing campaign designed around selling a particular product, and it is not restricted to only releasing a product for the first time. You can have a launch for the same product over and over again.

Here are some ways to take advantage of these triggers and get people to buy:

Tap into an existing need.

You are not trying to convince working mothers that they must work out (I don’t know about you, but nobody has ever been able to successfully convince me to do that); instead, you are looking for working mothers who have followed exercise regimens in the past, but somehow fell off the wagon, or mothers who know they should be working out and are waiting for a sign they should take action.

A need is very hard to fabricate. The need must already exist.

Put the opportunity in front of them.

Through advertising and social media posting, your offer must make it in front of your target audience’s eyes.

Your launch provides the opportunity for your customer to bump into your offer, creating the “I’m at the store right now” feeling.

You control the scarcity factor.

Your launch is a project: it starts on one day and ends on a specific date and time.

By making sure that your product is not available to everyone at any time; you have full control over the feeling that this product is not abundant. It’s only here right now. Take it or leave it.

There is an easy way and a hard way to create urgency.

The easy way is by simply stressing that your cart will close promptly in 2 days, which will get potential customers to feel the fire under their tail.

The hard way is to present your product as an imperative they cannot afford not to take on.

The latter method requires expert copywriting and a deep understanding of your customer’s journey and immediate needs. If done right, the results can be overwhelmingly positive.

The next time you are getting ready to launch your product, consider the 4 axes and make sure to provide an irresistible offer for your ideal customer.

Was this article helpful? Leave us a comment with your thoughts!

SEMRush vs. SE Ranking: Which SEO Tool is Best?

Today, ranking on top of Google and other search engines is no easy job. From optimizing your website to amassing a healthy amount of backlinks, there’s no end to what an SEO expert has to do to take a website to the #1 spot on Google. That’s why I wanted to compare two tools that I’ve heard a lot about amongst my fellow SEO enthusiasts: SEMRush vs. SE Ranking. Which reins supreme?

That being said, there’s no shortage of SEO tools which can help you achieve this task.

Today, we’re going to talk about – and compare – two extremely well known and excellent SEO tools on the market, SEMRush and SE Ranking. These aren’t just tools, but rather a collection of multiple tools bundled in one awesome piece of software.

Which of these is better suited for your needs? What features does one have which the other doesn’t? How much does each cost?

Let’s find out…

SEMRush and SE Ranking: An Introduction To Two Powerful SEO Tools

The advantage of both these tools is they house all the SEO specific SEO tools you might need. They both offer flexible pricing and both tools can be accessed via the internet on any phone or tablet thanks to the cloud.

We’ll dive into more detail as to what specific tools they both offer, but right now, let’s discuss what makes each of these tools unique.

SEMRush

In the case of SEMRush, they seem to be focused on providing their users with extremely detailed reports on their SEO efforts. Whether it’s a report on backlinks, a keyword or a domain analysis, SEMRush provides a wealth of data in both a visual and numerical format.

Another area where SEMRush shines is that they offer a wealth of information through their blog. In addition, they also have a knowledge academy where you can pass a SEO examination and get a certification.

And most importantly, SEMRush has every kind of SEO tool imaginable for your marketing needs. From finding competitor keywords to giving you a full SEO audit of your website, SEMRush does nearly everything.

SE Ranking

SE Ranking is more focused on providing their services to agencies (or so it seems). That’s because they strongly emphasize their custom reporting tools and even have a cool widget agencies can use for lead generation – but more on that later.

This isn’t to say SE Ranking isn’t fit for freelancers, startups and companies. On the contrary, their interface is one of the easiest to use among the two. You can see the information laid out on SEMRush much more clearly.

With that being said, the easy-to-use UI comes with its own sacrifices. The data provided by SE Ranking is nowhere as complete and comprehensive as SEMRush. But nevertheless, the data provided by SE Ranking is enough to give you a solid idea in what direction you have to go.

Feature Rundown: SEMRush Vs. SE Ranking

Both SEMRush and SE Ranking provide powerful and essential features that will help you implement your SEO strategy. But while 90% of the features are similar, there are one or two features that are unique to each specific tool.

In this section, let’s first have a run down of what features both SEMRush and SE Ranking provide.

SEMRush Feature List

We’ve divided the tools which SEMRush provides into 7 categories. In each section, we’ll break down what you can accomplish with the many features SEMRush provides. Let’s get started.

Organic Research & Organic Traffic Insights:

Today, the formulation of every SEO strategy starts with analyzing your competitors and your own website. For that, SEMRush provides two tools:

1. Organic Research

2. Organic Traffic Insights

The organic research tool lets you do three main things. a) You can use it to discover your competitors’ best performing keywords, b) find out your top organic competitors fighting for your spot in SERPs and c) analyze changes in ranking of your competitors’ and your own domains.

With these three features, you’ll be able to find out which keywords you should focus on, who you have to beat and where you stand on search engines.

The organic traffic insights tool does something even better.

It helps you find out ‘hidden’ keywords you are ranking for that Google Analytics doesn’t show you.

In addition, this tool provides data from both Google Analytics and Google Search Console. This means you get a deeper understanding about the value of a keyword.

And finally, organic traffic insights will also show you the potential of each keyword buy sorting them based on how much competition each keyword has. This way, you can focus on ranking for low competition keywords, hence, moving faster to thee top of search results.

Advertising Research & Display Advertising

These tools let you see the advertising strategy of your competitors. You can use this tool to find what keywords your competitors are bidding on, what kind of ads they’re creating and how much they’re spending on their campaigns.

Both these tools will help you immensely in discovering what you need to do to outperform your competitors in paid campaigns.

Backlinks & Backlink Audit Tool

Backlinks is the backbone of a well performing SEO strategy. Good quality backlinks can boost your ranking in SERPS while bad backlinks can take you down.

The Backlink and Backlink Audit tools help make sure your website is linked to good quality domains. It will help you identify both high authority and toxic backlinks. This will make it easier for you to associate your website with good domains while simultaneously break off with bad domains.

Keyword Research, Keyword Difficulty, Keyword Magic Tool & PPC Keyword Tool

Because of these four tools, you will be able to discover, collect and analyze the very best keywords possible for your website.

These tools will help you discover long tail, less competitive keywords and also give you suggestions for other keywords. You can then sort, analyze and group these keywords right within the tool and use in in your SEO and PPC campaigns.

Product Listing Ads

This is a unique tool on SEMRush. You can use this tool to analyze your competitors’ PLA ads and find out which keywords trigger their ads to show up and how much are they spending on each ad

Domain vs. Domain, Position Tracking, Charts & My Reports

These three tools let you accomplish three main tasks:

1. Compare various SEO stats for two domains. It can be either you vs your competitor or between two of your competitors.

2. See the position of your or any other domains for a specific keyword.

3. Analyze your competition and your performance visually through charts and create custom reports either for yourself or your clients.

Site Audit, On Page SEO Checker & Content Analyzer

With these three tools, you can scan your website for any SEO errors, discover opportunities to further optimize your website for SEO and create SEO optimized content such as articles, landing page copy and blog posts.

Social Media Tracker, Social Media Poster & Brand Monitoring

The most important among these three tools is the brand monitoring tool. This tool scrapes the web and finds mentions of your brand on the internet.

Why is this important?

Because when someone mentions you on the internet, it’s either to say something positive or negative. The brand monitoring tool allows you to see at once what kind of information is being said about you so you can capitalize on good press and damage control on negative press.

The social media tracking and management tools on the other hand allow you to control how you spread information about your company on the internet.

You can use these tools to find out which posts people engage with the most, which posts are getting the most likes and comments and which posts are bringing you the lowest amount of traffic.

In addition, you can use these tools to manage and automate your social media campaigns on both Facebook and Twitter.

SE Ranking

SE Ranking also provides tools similar to SEMRush but are less robust. But nevertheless, they get the job done and SE Ranking allows you to show all the results by customizing the reports to your branding. That being said, let’s take a deeper look at SE Ranking’s features:

Keyword Rank Tracking, Keyword Suggestion Tool & Keyword Grouper

These three extremely important tools SE Ranking provides are similar to the keyword research tools provided by SEMRush. You can use this tool to discover new keywords, both through suggestions and by analyzing your competitors. In addition, you can use this tool to group keywords based on different metrics, view how valuable each keyword is and how well you and your competitors are ranking for a specific keyword.

Website Audit & On-page SEO Audit

Again, similar to SEMRush, these features will scan your website and show you where you can make improvements to the technical SEO on your website. And similar to SEMRush, not only will SE Ranking check your website, domain and links, but it will also check the content within your website to find SEO errors.

Backlink checker & Backlinks Monitoring

These tools will help you check which backlinks are boosting your website ranks and which backlinks are hurting your website rank, allowing you to block and allow the appropriate backlinks to link back to your domain.

Page Changes Monitoring

Now, this is a feature that’s unique to SE Ranking. As we’ve said before, SE Ranking emphasises heavily towards agencies, and for them, this tool is a blessing.

What this feature will do is that it will alert you if there are any changes made to the content, metadata and links on your website. You’ll receive frequent reminders presented in a clean dashboard so you can quickly become aware of any changes on your website.

Marketing Plan

We’ve already mentioned how SE Ranking has an easy to use interface making it ideal to beginners. In addition, the Marketing Plan feature of SE Ranking will give you a solid checklist which you can use to understand how you have to get started with SEO.

This marketing plan checklist will benefit both newbies and experienced SEO players as both have to go through similar steps when optimizing websites for search engines.

The marketing plan will serve as a guideline you can follow to make sure you’re on the right track.

White Label & SEO Reporting Tools

These two features, similar to SEMRush, allow you to create custom reports of your SEO efforts. You can measure the results and put them into a custom-branded report to present it to your client or your team.

Lead Generator

Now, this is the unique tool we were talking about that’s exclusively available for SE Ranking users.

The lead generator is not a tool, but a widget you can place on your website. What this widget does is that when a visitor on your website enters their domain, it presents them with a free SEO audit report in exchange for their email.

This is a win-win situation both for you and your visitors. Your visitors get a ready-made SEO report which shows all the problems on their website. You, in return, get to collect leads and establish your authority. Because as far as your visitors are concerned, the report is from you, not SE Ranking.

Pricing: Which Offers The Best Value?

SE Ranking has more flexible pricing than SEMRush. You can decide which plan you want based on how many users will be using the app, how frequently you’ll check rankings, how long you’ll be subscribed to your plan and how many keywords you’ll track. This combination makes it easy for you to choose a plan that suits your needs.

SEMRush on the other hand, offers three simple plans: Pro, Guru and Business. The plans are also generally more expensive and the Pro plan, which is the most basic plan, has significantly less features when compared to SE Ranking’s basic plans.

Which One Should You Choose?

That’s why, if you’re just getting started with SEO, we recommend you use SE Ranking. Their clean UI, flexible plans and additional unique features like the lead gen tool and marketing plan will be great for those starting out, especially if you’re a freelancer or a one-man marketing team.

But, if you’re a big company who needs a wealth of information and more SEO-centric features, SEMRush is a better choice. Because as an expert, you’ll need more powerful tools, better data and more diverse results, and among the two, only SEMRush can give you that.

SEMRush Vs. SE Ranking Comparison Chart

Pricing/ Month

 Total SEO Tools Marketing Plan Checklist Historical Data Lead Generation Tool Custom Reports Social Media Management

Flexible Pricing
SEMRush Starts @ $99.95 28 No Yes No Yes Yes No
SE Ranking Starts @ $7.00 15 Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes

Once you start getting all the traffic (because of your newfound SEO skills of course), you are going to want to convert these people into paying customers.

While there are many tools that can help you generate leads, not all of them are the same. Here are some other articles you may be interested in:

The 5 Best Sales Funnel Software Programs to Get You Started Making Money Online

The Best SEMRush Alternatives You’ll Love

Clickfunnels vs.Website: Do I Need Both to Build Leads?

Let us know how your SEO game is going! Reach out if you need any tips. Around here, we love SEO (and the traffic that comes with it.)

How to Make Money in Ecommerce: 7 Tips from the Pros That Really Work

Online markets are still booming with opportunities. There are still billions of dollars to be made in ecommerce, so there’s no surprise that new companies are popping up every day.

If you are struggling to make a go of your ecommerce biz, or really want to see some massive growth this year, here are 7 proven strategies to make more money online.

1. Create a blog that drives traffic.

“One of the hardest parts of growing an ecommerce business is getting enough traffic to your website. Most ecommerce businesses rely on paid ads to generate sales, but this is expensive and cuts into your profit margins. I recommend focusing on an inbound marketing strategy so you can improve your store’s rankings in organic search results. It takes more time than buying ads but the payoff is greater.

An effective inbound marketing campaign starts with an active blog. Every content marketing plan should include an overview of the customer research journey. Defining the customer’s research journey involves thinking about what your prospective customers are looking for, the questions and problems they have, and tailoring your blog content to address their pain points.” Earl Choate, Concrete Camouflage, www.concretecamouflage.com

2. Invest in a good PIM software solution.

Being able to get your products online quickly and efficiently is a vital component to the long-term success of your ecommerce company, especially if you want to play with the big boys. Google loves ecommerce companies that continually share products, as well as offer an easily accessible user interface. PIM (Product Information Management) systems can help with all of that.

“With a PIM system, we can bulk update content, images, meta-data and attributes from our suppliers. Now customers see exactly the right information, and we can use the enhanced data to improve meta titles and descriptions, which are an on-page ranking signal.

Aside from the SEO factors, PIM systems allow internal teams to collaborate easier, translate content if required, change image formats and sizes, and provide an easily accessible user interface.” — Aman Brar | Product Owner -eCommerce, www.printkick.com

3. Use shopping ads from the start.

Getting sales from the get-go is vital to your long-term growth as an ecommerce company. One of the best ways to get sales right away is to set up ads that target your customers from the start.

“I’ve worked with dozens of ecommerce companies, and the #1 thing that has helped them explode in terms of growth is using product-specific paid ads. By this, I mean using Google shopping ads specifically, as well as product-specific remarketing ads.” — Stacy Caprio, www.acceleratedgrowthmarketing.com

4. Get your products on as many channels as possible.

Being in more than one location online is a must if you want to propel your growth.

“Growing an eCommerce company starts with a diversification strategy, backed with clear channels of distribution and legal enforcement.

It may not sound sexy, but it’s absolutely one of the biggest challenges most companies face they begin to grow and expand. Companies first need to focus on optimizing and listing their products on multiple channels (Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Rakuten, etc.)

In addition, they need to have registered trademarks and a good warranty when products are sold through an authorized reseller.

Lastly, they need to have clear distribution agreements with any distributors or retailers specifying where they can and cannot sell their products including anti-diversion language and quality control. This is the best strategy for growing an eCommerce brand!” — Shannon Roddy, Amazon Specialist

5. The more you automate your processes, the faster you’ll grow.

The more you can automate your ecommerce processes, the faster and easier you’ll grow. Setting up systems takes time, but it’s time well spent.

“My best tip to grow an ecommerce business: Automation. Automation. Automation. I can’t say it enough. From accounting to order fulfillment to marketing it’s best to automate everything you can.

For example, automate the sales data from your eCommerce cart to your accounting software. Automate email follow-ups based on customer behavior and profiles. The more you can automate the more you can do with less and free up yourself for high-value business growth activities.” Kelly, Block Island Organics | https://www.blockislandorganics.com

One great way to automate your process is to use a landing page builder tool, such as Shogun or Pagefly — which allows you to quickly create new storefronts, expand your markets quickly and automate the page creation process. 

6. Invest in the right software from the start.

Choosing the right platform for your ecommerce business is a serious decision. Take the time to do your homework first before you commit. Don’t just think about the company you have now, the sales you’ll have during your first few years, but the growth and sales you will have as you grow. Here is a great lesson on choosing the right platform from Brandon Chopp, Digital Manager for iHeartRaves:

“Our Shopify stores are grossing $20M annually and we’ve been featured in the Inc. 5000 four years in a row, but growth wasn’t that easy.

Before we launched our e-commerce stores, I wish someone would have told us how important our shopping platform would end up being.

We were originally using Magento and that proved to be a near fatal error. A few years ago, our founder and CEO, Brian Lim, appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank, where he received offers from all five sharks and ended up accepting deals from Mark Cuban and Daymond John. As you can imagine, being featured on a highly viewed television show can attract quite a bit of website traffic.

In the year leading up to the episode’s air date, we purchased thirty servers, simulated load tests, and invested over $200,000 to make sure the site could handle the massive influx of traffic that would be coming our way.

But when the episode aired, the site went down. In the world of e-commerce, uptime means everything! A lot of money was lost that day, and it made what should have been one of the happiest days, one of the worst.

Since we’ve switched over to Shopify, our lives have been made immeasurably easier. We likely would never have had this issue if we had been with Shopify from the beginning.

The moral of the story is to take your time and research every possible option before choosing your shopping platform. It can make or break your company.”

7. Invest in search marketing.

Our final tip to accelerating your ecommerce store growth is to invest in search marketing. We started off this blog talking about creating a blog that drives organic traffic and yes, that is one way to invest in organic, but there are others. Learn all you can about SEO and keyword-specific industry topics that you are in before you launch your shop.

If you are going to be using a platform such as Amazon, you’re going to have to learn how Amazon ranks their products as well, which means you’ll have to do some digging into keywords specific to your industry on Amazon. If you don’t know the first thing about search marketing, don’t panic. There are many industry experts who can provide a comprehensive search marketing strategy specific to your store and industry keywords.

If you are looking to hire an SEO or search marketing expert, here are a few quick tips:

  • Ask about the software tools they use and why (great SEO experts have a variety of tools that can cost thousands of dollars per month)
  • Ask for some case studies and reports
  • Don’t believe the hype! Nobody can guarantee a #1 ranking on Amazon or Google. If someone tells you that, run.
  • Don’t hire anyone that uses black hat strategies — gone are the days of keywords stuffing, and fake backlinking!
  • Get them to discuss metrics and data. What do they track? What will they track for you?

Hiring an SEO expert can be a big win for your ecommerce store if you find the right person or agency. Don’t be fooled into a high retainer monthly with little data, no metrics and fake promises! There are a lot of SEO experts out there that do the hard work of getting your store ranked, and know that although organic traffic might take some time (even a year or more) to generate, the ROI is far higher than continually paying for AdWords.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions: Ecommerce

How much do ecommerce websites make?

It really depends on your product, marketing and niche but on average a new ecommerce company can make around $39,000 in their first month of business and can grow that income from there.

How can I get rich from ecommerce?

1. Create a blog that drives traffic. …
2. Invest in a good PIM software solution. …
3. Use shopping ads from the start. …
4. Get your products on as many channels as possible. …
5. The more you automate your processes, the faster you’ll grow. …
6. Invest in the right software from the start. …
7. Invest in search marketing.
8. Invest in a good landing page builder with analytics to track what’s working, what’s not.

Is ecommerce still profitable today?

Yes, ecommerce is still very profitable if you know what to do right from the start and implement that plan. There is still a lot of growth in these markets as buyers are still shifting from offline purchasers to digital buyers.

How do I start an ecommerce business with little to no money?

1. Find a product you want to sell. Often niche products work best.
2. Build a business plan and model.
3. Build an ecommerce store and website to ‘sell’ your product (minimal cost).
4. Upload your products and start selling.
5. Invest any profits you get right back into the business to start marketing, investing in ads, optimizing your landing pages.

Some Final Thoughts on Ecommerce

There are many ways you can grow your online store, it just takes time, energy and money. There are no shortcuts, but the payouts can be worth it. The market opportunities are still huge, so don’t despair. If you have a killer product and are willing to put some serious effort into your store, the possibilities are endless.

If you want more insights on how to grow a massive ecommerce company, listen to Change Creator’s exclusive interview with Nathan Hirsch who grew his ecommerce business without any outside investment:

You might also enjoy:

Unlock Your Professional and Personal Growth with Expert Rick Miller

Interview with Rick Miller

Subscribe to this show on iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud

In this refreshing and inspiring talk business expert Rick Miller shares his strategies for unlocking your personal and professional growth.

Rick Miller is an author, and speaker who has spent over 30 years as a business leader and go-to Chief, serving as President and/or CEO in Fortune 10, Fortune 30, non-profit, and startup companies.

Today, he works with Chiefs across industries and speaks regularly about a simple, unconventional, research-based strategy and tool that enables all Chiefs to drive sustainable growth.

He calls it the Power Compass.

[vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpYrkVTUEgE”]

Rick is a Chief not because of his many high-ranking titles, but because of his ability to bring out the best in others—and in himself—using the choices he developed in his Power Compass, a road-tested sustainable growth model he created over the course of his successful career, and which he

shares in this book and continues to use with his clients.

Rick has been in demand for the past ten years as a confidential adviser to many of today’s most senior executives and is extensively connected within the global business and leadership communities. Rick continues to serve senior executives by offering broad business experience in six specific areas: customers, competitors, costs, capital, communities, and culture. Rick helps senior leaders ask the right questions.

Check out Rick’s latest book!

How to Make More Money Online: Do This One Thing

How to Make More Money By Simply Updating Your Website

We’ve all seen them: the websites that look like they were made in 1999 and never updated, or the ones that started by having a blog, but no new posts have been made since 2013.

We may think that that vendor is either doing so well they don’t have time to focus on their online presence, or they are doing too poorly to spend any money on it.

Rather than finding out the hard way, we decide to go with the professional-looking service. Their website has all the information we need, a sample of their work and even a contact form.

You just lost a customer without even knowing it. It happens all the time.

What needs to happen on your website…

Now, suppose we did not move on so quickly. We found your website first, so we will call you first. You think you won? Think again.

Your website has set the expectations of the pricing for your service. We are calling you because we don’t want to go with the fancy “expensive” one.

See how quickly a negative online experience can turn into you making less money?

Where did you go wrong? You are sure you are charging market value and you actually provide a really good service. Why are people turning you away? Why are THEY so cheap?

Little did you know, your website was attracting the cheapskates all on its own.

If your website and online presence are not top notch, then neither are your prices expected to be.

How do you charge what you’re worth?

Here are eight ways to prop up your brand so you can charge what you are worth:

  1. Have a professionally designed website that follows all usability standards: your work portfolio, testimonials from past customers, and a responsive design (make sure it looks good on mobile)
  2. All email addresses (if listed at all) should be @yourdomain.com. Let go of those @hotmail.com accounts.
  3. Have a company logo and matching color scheme that is used consistently across the site
  4. Have all your social media links on the footer or header of your website, and make sure you are updating them regularly with fresh relevant content.
  5. Have a contact form and reply to requests immediately.
  6. Do your research: ask your customers about their experience on your site, and look at competitors’ websites to identify what they are doing that you are not and vice versa
  7. Request testimonials from your raving fans, and have them post them to your Facebook page or other review sites relevant to your industry
  8. Never lash out at bad reviews. Respond with grace and offer a discount if they are willing to give you a second chance. Make sure your offer can be seen by anyone reading the review. You will come off as the big person, offsetting the now seemingly unreasonable former client.

Your professionalism is what sets you up for success before you even come in touch with your potential customers.

If you feel your online presence is playing against you, it’s time to start calling some designers.

How to Develop Communication Skills that Drive Your Business: Tips from Ryan Foland

We get asked a lot about how to improve communication skills for social impact. Last year, we got to meet the incomparable Ryan Foland, Master Communicator who taught us his simple 3-1-3 method. If you want to grow your impact + your business, here is: How to Develop Communication Skills that Drive Your Business. (Full article originally appeared in Change Creator Magazine). 

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Have you ever experienced standing in front of people, their eager faces staring at you, waiting for you to start saying something? You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. You stood there sweating profusely, searching for the right words to say, but your mind was completely blank. What happened to the calm, confident person you saw in the mirror this morning? Apparently, he was nowhere to be found. All that’s left was this unrecognizable person rooted to the ground, frozen with fear.

That, folks, is a case of stage fright.

Meet Master Communicator, Ryan Foland

Most likely, you experienced this at one point in your life and you probably vowed to yourself that never again will you be humiliated in front of everyone. While it’s easy to make a conclusion that public speaking is not for everyone, it does come naturally for some people. Such is the case for master communicator, Ryan Foland.

Not only is he one of the most sought-after host for TedX, he’s also a regular presenter in huge startup events all over the world. You might think he’s one of the guys who has it all– smart, confident, and gifted. Truth was, growing up, Ryan wasn’t necessarily the teacher’s pet. In fact, he was this kid at school who was bullied for being smart. He had it hard until he learned to protect himself by learning martial arts. Little did he know that his experience with bullying would help forge the path to where he was now.

Of course, he didn’t know it then. Life had to happen before he figured out that being bullied and being taken advantage of in business were the same thing. He realized that both stemmed out because of a failure in communication, which could eventually lead to a misunderstanding.

How do you get your message across?

His positive and never-say-die attitude got him the spotlight and for the past 2-3 years his focus was using communication effectively to help people develop their own personal brand. He developed his own process to help individuals and organizations express themselves clearly and get their message across in the fewest words possible.

Curious to know more about Ryan’s method? Read on.

Self-Awareness is Key

For some, communicating effectively is a struggle. This is made obvious by the myriad of online courses, workshops, and books about different strategies and techniques on how to become an effective communicator. Sure, it’s easy to pick-up a book or watch a YouTube video on conquering your fear on let’s say, public speaking. But it’s the moment you realize that you are always communicating verbally or non-verbally that you can begin to really communicate.

According to Ryan, the first foundational step of communication is self-awareness. This means that you are consciously aware that your body language and even the clothes you wear speak so much about you. Once you have identified that you are constantly communicating, you can move on to the next fundamental step.

Less Is More

In this day and age where everyone is competing to grab your attention, there is a need to bring your message across in a concise and clear manner. If not, you risk not being heard and seen by your target market.

For start-ups vying for capital, how do you make sure your pitch will resonate with the judges and willing investors?

For bloggers and online personalities finding an audience, how do you come up with an engaging personal brand that will attract the right people?

Ryan mentioned that in his years of working with startups, he noticed that there’s an inability to communicate an idea in the shortest amount of words possible. There’s a tendency to go on and on about a certain topic and never getting to the point. One reason is you’re not clear on what your message is. Another is the fear of awkward silences and long, pregnant, pauses. The tendency is to talk more even if you no longer make sense.

We all love to talk, don’t we? But talking less can generate more conversation and questions if you have engaged your audience enough that they want to know more.

So, how do you communicate your idea to others in the most concise and impactful way?

Enter the 3-1-3 Method

The 3-1-3 Method is Ryan’s way of solving a problem most people have– how to express ideas clearly in the shortest amount of time. He developed this system where a description using a maximum of three sentences is reduced to one sentence and eventually to only three words.

3 Sentences

↓

1 Sentence

↓

3 Words

Short, sweet and simple, but without sacrificing the essence of the message.

This is for anyone who wants to articulate an idea and gaining confidence in the process. What’s great about this system is it’s applicable to anyone who has a hard time condensing paragraphs to sentences and sentences to words. It teaches you that the most important thing people really care about is how you can solve their problems. The challenge, however, is stating the problem, solution and the target market in one sentence. After figuring out everything in one sentence, you can proceed to reduce it to three words. The beauty of the method is once you get the hang of it, it gets easier.

Make Room for Questions

Using the 3-1-3 Method also allows the audience to ask questions thereby engaging them with your idea. You don’t have to offer all the details in a silver platter. Give the audience room to process and get intrigued by your message. Your goal is to plant a seed in their minds and trigger curiosity.

You will know if they’re interested with the number of questions they have for you. Through that, you can elaborate about your idea and give them the specifics.

With so much distraction and external stimuli around us, it’s no surprise that there’s a need for a shorter, more effective way to get your idea across.

In fact, in a study done by Microsoft, Inc. in 2015, our attention span is now shorter than that of a goldfish. The study says our concentration only lasts eight seconds. No wonder the pressure is on to come up with the most witty, attention-grabbing pitch you can think of.

Ryan Foland found a quick and painless way to help you present your idea. His years of experience working with startups, entrepreneurs and the academe allowed him to understand the importance of being a good communicator. Mastery comes with practice and his methods and strategies in communication can help get you where you want to be.

Know more about Ryan’s work at https://www.ryanfoland.com.

You can also follow him in Twitter @ryanfoland.

Key Takeaways on Effective Communication from Master Communicator Ryan Foland

1. Be aware that you are already starting to communicate before you even speak. Your clothes and body language already speak much about you.

2. The less you say, the more profound you are. Deliver the message in a short, concise way.

3. Leave room for questions. Allow your audience to get intrigued by your idea and welcome their questions.

4. Listening is a speaking skill. To be a good speaker, you also need to be an effective listener. Engage people to talk by also asking them the right questions.

5. When validating an idea, ask what problem you are trying to solve. People only care about how you’re going to solve their problems. Focus on that when selling your idea.

Organizational and Financial Structures for Non-Profit and For-Profit Enterprises

Finances have to be sustainable, and able to support the core work of the organization. This basic principle applies equally to for-profit and non-profit enterprises. Funding sources and financial structures, however, are quite variable.

Non-profits are typically funded by a number of vehicles. The majority of funding comes from fee-for-service or product. They also can access donations and gifts, corporate and foundation grants and gifts, government grants, and some interest income from estate gifts and investments. It is typical to have less than 50% of the annual operating budget from sources that are grant or gift based, as these funding sources are time-limited.

When working for or starting a non-profit, it is worthwhile to think carefully about how one feels about money and fundraising. Many people involved in the work of non-profits find themselves working at fundraising activities on a regular basis. Successful fundraisers consider money as a tool, one that has no intrinsic power or worth other than what it can be used for. This is not the typical view of money in the modern world.

We give money the power to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to our dreams. We let money tell us who we are, and our identity is formed, in part, by our access to money. In its most basic form, however, money is a tool. Just like a good shovel, how effectively it works depends entirely on the person wielding the shovel.

Related: Social Enterprise vs Non-Profit – Dispelling the Myths that Still Exist

For fundraisers, allowing foundations and corporations and individuals the ability to participate in the grand adventure of your non-profit is a way they can use their money for something that will give them great joy and pride.

So non-profits spend more time dealing openly and directly with money, and how to get enough to do the core work of the enterprise. Resources are spent for grant writers and those who need to complete the extensive reporting that accompanies government grants. Recently, the FASB, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, updated required accounting practices for non-profits, so the paperwork burden remains significant for both types of organizations.

A non-profit is not constrained from making a profit. For many organizations, making a profit for fees for service or product means less time spent fundraising or writing grant proposals. The difference is that non-profits turn the profits back to the organization– to employee salaries, to new services, to emergency funds. For-profit enterprises are not constrained by how they manage their profits. They can turn the profit toward a social enterprise, or into building the business, or however, they choose.

Non-profits have governing boards, with requirements for regular meetings, voting on decision making, and other cooperative management practices. For different types of organizations, the corporate governance structure is different. For example, a large state university system will have a different organizational and decision-making structure than a small community food bank. But they all need a group of people who serve to make decisions in concert.

Non-profits can be community service organizations, such as hospitals, universities, or large foundations and trusts; they can be smaller as well, but the requirements for governance and record keeping has meant that small charities and service organizations tend to group together under an umbrella organization that can provide the structure needed to meet tax and regulatory requirements.

A for-profit enterprise can be started and managed by one person, and that person can use the work of the enterprise, and profits, in any way. Businesses can be sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, or other business legal models.

A business structures their finances so the core work of the business is supported by revenue, and profit can be allocated for business growth or a social enterprise. The lack of constraints on a for-profit business structure means an enterprise is agile and can respond quickly to opportunities and change.

Many businesses with social enterprise at heart are for-profit businesses, and they support their particular cause with a vigorous and sound business model.

Related: Social Enterprise vs Non-Profit – Dispelling the Myths that Still Exist

Seth Godin Exclusive: Why Traditional Marketing Doesn’t Work Today

Exclusive Interview with Seth Godin

It was an honor and a lot of fun to talk with the legend, Seth Godin.

He’s a no bullshit kinda guy who’s sharp as a nail. We dig into the idea of leadership to help uncover what really makes a great leader and how has it changed over time.

Seth Godin is an author, entrepreneur and most of all, a teacher. He’s the guy that taught us storytelling IS marketing!

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, it’s about the stories you tell.” ~Seth Godin

Not only is he the founder of altMBA – a one-month online leadership and management workshop with a hands-on curriculum. He’s also launched one of the most popular blogs in the world and wrote 18 best-selling books, including The Dip, Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes, and What To Do When It’s Your Turn (And It’s Always Your Turn).

Though renowned for his writing and speaking, Seth also founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyne (acquired by Yahoo!).

By focusing on everything from effective marketing and leadership, to the spread of ideas and changing everything, Seth has been able to motivate and inspire countless people around the world.

In 2013, Seth was one of just three professionals inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. In an astonishing turn of events, in May 2018, he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame as well. He might be the only person in both.

We also talk about how entrepreneurship is the least risky venture you can take in your life, what do you think he said?

Other areas covered…

  • What’s the difference between leadership and management?
  • Is there old leadership habits that we are breaking?
  • What drives and motivates people nowadays?
  • What is imposter syndrome? Is it possible to escape it? 
  • How you can make a difference through leadership
  • What’s altMBA doing differently?
  • What’s the best way to learn?
  • How do I enroll people in my ideas?

And much more…

“No matter what you do, your job is to tell your story.” ~Gary Vaynerchuck

What if you could start to truly sharpen your storytelling skills to grow your business to that next level?

What if it meant 2 more clients a month or a few dozen more sales (likely way more)?

Our team knows how important this part of ANY business is, so we partnered up with several experts and created a program to help. Not only is it a great community, but there is a full signature course called, Captivate, which is designed to help impact entrepreneurs learn the science of storytelling to attract the RIGHT audience and grow their businesses.

3 Impact Business Storytelling Tips Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know

Suddenly, I noticed it was everywhere. I’m not just talking about the ads that creepily follow us all around the internet. It’s one of those situations where you talk about something and it becomes the focus of your intention. Maybe you have a small epiphany or revelation about the idea which really puts it front of mind. Next thing you know, you just start noticing people talking about it or articles written about it. Then you say to yourself, “I never noticed how popular this is.”

In my case, I’m talking about the art of storytelling. We all know that a good story can captivate and motivate people. They connect more with it emotionally. But depending on where you are in your life you can hear that and say, ‘yeah cool, makes sense,” and that’s it, you think nothing of it. Or, you might say, “actually, this is really interesting. Let me dig into that more.”

Sometimes you think nothing of it and then a few years later you have a fresh perspective and it hits you much differently and you have a small revelation (Usually triggered by a life experience) about the idea and say, “oh shit, now I really get it.”  The information was just as profound before but you just didn’t connect with it. Many times the insight sounds basic and logical so you overlook it a bit. But what seems simple on the surface does not mean there isn’t complexity when you dig a litter deeper.

Our job as Change Creators who want to help others, by teaching what we know, is to help you save time and get to important conclusions faster.

As a media company with a digital magazine app, we are always telling stories. We use information to inform people, educate and make a difference in the world. But these insights are relevant and important to all people, especially in today’s evolving digital landscape.

Since my small revelation, I have personally interviewed several incredible people to help us all better understand this art of communication and storytelling, so we can all learn how to master it faster.

To avoid information overload, I’ll start with 3 important insights you should think deeply about, especially if you want your business to succeed.

1 – Be Intentional and Don’t Get High on Your Own Supply

Here’s a quick clip where I mention how stories and personal experience made Salvador Dali great. This ties into my comment about seeing story everywhere now and it’s a segway into the next video segment from Jay Shetty.

[vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uXyDLROqbY&feature=youtu.be”]

 

Jay Shetty is on a mission to make wisdom go viral and so far he has been very successful with over 2 billion views of his videos. What makes them so impactful? In our discussion, we explored that very topic and got a better understanding of how he thinks about storytelling.

[vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xJBXG-6dpo&feature=youtu.be”]

Video Transcript

I have to give the credit for the art to my art teacher from when I was like, I guess in my teens, 11 to 18, I had one art teacher at school and always on my favorite subjects are in design. And whenever we do a piece of art, he does it like whether it was a painter I was terrible at painting was pretty good at graphics, I was terrible at fine too. But anytime we would draw something or put a collage together, or do something graphically, the number one question you need to go to me is, why did you do that? Like, why is that color next to that color? Why is that item on top of that item? Why is that juxtapose next to that? Like his question will be like, why did you do that?

And if I didn’t have an answer, I get a low grade and he had an answer, even though it didn’t look visually as good I get a good grade because his whole point was a mountain, meaning it was always about

Are you meaningfully connecting our colors and designs and objects and the and visions? Or are you just doing it because it looks good?

And I think that’s a beautiful way of looking at storytelling. Are you trying to tell a story so that it looks good? Or are you trying to tell a story because it’s going to be meaningful to the viewer.

So the way I explained this is that there are two types of storytellers. There are two types of creators. Imagine a spectrum. Imagine one end of the spectrum and the other end and one of the one of the spectrum you have selfish creators, what I like to call selfish created. These are people who create simply for themselves, it’s the people who get high off their own supply, right?

It’s like you made a video or you wrote a book just because you thought your idea was amazing, right? You think what you have to say, is so amazing that you make a video that you enjoy, and maybe a few of your friends tell you, it’s good. And maybe there’s a niche for you that you can grow into your selfish creator. You’re only making videos because you feel like making them for yourself.

That’s one end of the spectrum. Nothing wrong with that. No judgment. Just sharing how it works.

The other end of the scale, you have what I call sellout creators. So sellout creators only tell stories that they think people are going to love. They only tell stories that they think are going to go viral. They only focus on stuff that they think is going to get likes and what happens very, you may even get likes, but you won’t feel fulfilled inside you may even get followers and views you might not you probably will. But even if you did you still want to feel like you’ve made an impact or anything right? And that’s why when I talk about is being the best storytellers are selflessly self-aware, self-aware, self-less self-aware and selfless.

So what I mean by that is, the best storyteller has the deepest understanding of people’s pain and problems, because they’ve either lived through them themselves, or they have lived through them with others. And then their focus is on saying, how is the best way of communicating this and it may not be a video, it may be a written piece, it may be a whole book, it may be a speech, it doesn’t have to be the same format and then really figuring out how does this connect with people.

So I always say to people that I, I spent the last 12 years of my life sitting with people listening to their problems. When I was a monk, I used to coach people for free for no money for more hours in a day than that I could possibly do. And I would sit them and just-just discuss their problems and help them out of it. And that gave me a much stronger understanding of human behavior. So for me, storytelling is a deep understanding of human pain, human behavior, and then the most, most ideal format for communicating that

2 – How You Tell Your Story Can Make Or Break Your Business

What do you really need to consider when you think about your branding for an impact business? Mona Amodeo is a branding expert in the impact space and we had a chance to connect with her to discuss. Not only does she emphasize the importance of story for branding but she breaks it down in a way that helps us all understand how the moving parts come together.

This all comes together to prove out that story is the foundation of successful marketing. We call it StoryMarketing!

Is your brand attracting the right audience? Do people want to get behind your cause? What do people think about your brand? what’s your reputation?

[vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqp-Vw1iJP0&feature=youtu.be”]

Video Transcript

Adam G. Force
What’s the first step in understanding…well is my brand…Like…Is it saying the right thing to people? Is it attracting the right people? What are the like, I guess, preliminary or early stepping stones and thoughts around branding that needs to be considered for somebody?

Mona Amodeo
Well, I think if we think in terms of this, if we just kind of put if you can imagine three circles, interconnected circles and circles being first your business plan, what is it you’re trying to do? What are your goals? What are your dreams? What are your hopes?

The second circle, in that that’s kind of your intentions, right? The second circle comes to this idea of the brand, which really defines why you matter. I mean, every organization has to answer this question, Who are you and watch it, I care. And ultimately, your success or failure will depend on your ability to do that branding helps you shape that story. That sense of this is who we are, this is what we do. This is what we believe. And most importantly, this is what we can do for you in a way that’s different unique than other people.

So that second piece branding is that middle piece between your intentions of your business plan and your actual building the tribe I call it of people who really want to be connected.

You know, ultimately, though, Adam, what we’re really trying to do here is we’re trying to use branding as a vehicle for creating a reputation.

3 – Stories Create Chemical Reactions in the Brain

I personally made this video to stress a really important point. As a human behavior nerd, I loved learning about the chemical reactions in the brain because what it revealed is that external conditions (story) create a reaction that shapes someone’s behavior, how they respond. This is the most important part of marketing which makes this lesson 100% essential to master.

[vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8BeaVkNb70″]

Video Transcript

I recently came across a fascinating experiment. And it has two parts. One they wanted to understand does telling a story over video has the same impact on people as telling a story in person. The answer is yes. Two, they wanted to understand people’s reactions to the video. So they created two stories on video. One was about a little boy and his father, the little boy has cancer. The father is very emotional about it.

The second story was about the same little boy and the father. And they’re just walking through the zoo. Okay, so in the first video, people had a massive neurological change. And this is really important to understand because that neurological change is a reaction to the story. And when that neurological change happens, the human behavior changes, for example, you might be more willing to donate to a charity, the second video, people a dream halfway through, they were not hooked, they were not engaged. There was no emotional factor that pulled them in. And it’s that emotional factor that they find that creates a chemical in the brain called oxytocin. And that drives empathy. It drives people to be more cooperative.

So when you’re struggling as an entrepreneur, and you’re not being heard, especially by the most important people, the one percenters of your audience, I would highly, highly recommend starting to take more notice about human behavior.

Because whether you’re telling a story to get people to love your brand, or you’re trying to sell a product or get somebody on your team, or even get your wife to go out to a certain restaurant, you’re always selling and you can sell better when you know how to communicate because you understand human behavior. When you understand that human behavior. You could shape your story to be more effective.