Marc's Blog

E132: Unleashing A Referral Explosion With Stacey Brown Randall

April 9, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Stacey Brown Randall is a three-time entrepreneur, certified productivity and time efficiency coach, has a background in sales and marketing, and is an aspiring author. Her online programs and live coaching provide a blueprint to follow to take control of your referrals, your client experience, and your business. She believes that the best way to unleash a referral explosion is to do it without asking for referrals, and she has the results to prove it.

Quotes To Remember:

“If you don’t figure out a way to generate business and bring in new clients, your business can’t actually succeed.”

“You actually have to be worthy of the referrals.”

“Client experience is not customer experience.”

“Don’t focus on referrals. Every business needs three plans.”

“We have to me more than just keeping in touch.”

“If you do nothing, you will receive nothing.”

What You’ll Learn:

How to Create a Brand That’s Getting Referrals Without Asking for it
Learn to Get Those Initial Clients that Will Actually Get Referrals for You
Tips on Building a Referral Plan

Key Links From The Show:

Stacey’s Site

Referrals Without Asking Facebook Group

7 Deadly Sins on Generating Referrals

Referral Ninja Quiz

Recommended Books:

The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber

The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink

Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon

Please consider supporting Breakthrough Success on Patreon. I publish five episodes per week which I carefully prepare for, and I choose to not run ads in my podcast to enhance the listener experience.

I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success.

You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.

Is Creating Free Content Overrated?

April 9, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Free content is an important part of any business. If you create enough free content over a long period of time, you can get a massive boost in traffic.

I’ve written thousands of blog posts spread across various blogs (mostly this one).

Blogging is an industry where most people grind for several years and then hit their breakthrough. It’s possible to hit your breakthrough and reach 6-figures in 6-12 months, but it’s not very likely.

A while ago, I set the goal to write a new blog post every day for the entire year. I’m having second thoughts on my approach. Here’s why…

Opportunity Cost

The time you spend doing one activity can’t be spent doing everything else. Every minute I commit to writing blog posts is another minute I can’t promote my business.

The focus of every business owner needs to be sales. The more time you can commit towards that area, the more successful you will become.

If you create free content every day, that’s time you can’t expand your business. One of the biggest misconceptions you can make is believing that your business expands as your content library expands.

Some people are crushing it with very few blog posts. Others publish free content at a very inconsistent schedule.

More content creators are looking towards their past content than investing additional time towards creating new content.

In Tom Morkes’ $100K Launch School, successful entrepreneur Matt Stone who blogged his way to success said that if he could go back, he wouldn’t have blogged if he could have started over again.

It takes a while to grow with a blog. Some see the time investment as an over-investment. You can spend that same time focusing on your email list and attracting customers and clients.

Content Shock

Content shock is a topic I’ve frequently discussed on this blog and even in my book Content Marketing Secrets. Mark Schaefer first coined the term to describe the increase in content output and the fixed amount of time we have in a day.

We don’t have enough time to go through so much content, and the content output is only increasing.

There is no one who can look me straight in the eye and honestly say they have read all of my blog posts, watched all of my videos, and listened to all of my podcast episodes. Not a soul.

Depending on how much content you’ve produced, chances are most or all of the people in your audience haven’t read most of the content you’ve created. That’s the power of content shock.

Showing Up At The Right Pace

The argument for frequently producing free content is that you show up more often. People know, like, and trust the people who frequently show up.

That’s why we need to treasure weekly content. Free content will always be essential for our businesses.

If you publish a free piece of content every day, opportunity cost prevents you from addressing other areas of your business.

The Rise Of The Binger

You may think that some people in your audience may get overwhelmed by the daily content. Try keeping up with your favorite TV show…except now new episodes come out every single day.

Does that sound overwhelming? I’d be overwhelmed.

But blogs, videos, and podcasts are different. There are people who will discover you today. They wouldn’t have seen any of your previous content.

Guess what they do if they enjoy the first impression? If they have time, they’ll binge.

People watch entire series on Netflix and get through seven years of an old TV series in a few months. Virtual summits are an attractive business model because the deadline before session expirations enforces binge watching.

This is why you can create new content every day. But the gist of this blog post has been all about why it’s overrated to create free content. Why would anyone consider daily content?

Stop Doing It All Yourself

This is where we reach the climax. You yourself need to stop creating content for your brand. At the very least, you should significantly reduce the amount of time you create content.

You need other people to create the content for you. That’s the secret.

I’m experimenting with shooting short videos and having a ghostwriter turn it into a blog post. My ideology still resides in the blog post, but someone else writes the 1,000+ words.

This is my next step to delegation. Soon I’ll create the content from a macro standpoint and have someone else finish all of the details.

I’ll provide an outline that doesn’t exceed 100 words. Someone else takes that 100 word outline and turns it into 1,000+ words.

I also have contributors come on the blog and publish their guest posts on my blog. In those cases, I get valuable content without paying a penny. In return, contributors get exposure and a valuable backlink.

You business can create new content every day. You shouldn’t. Understanding this statement is important for you to achieve next level success with your content brand.

In Conclusion

Free content will always be critical to the success of any brand. The free content sets people up for your products and services.

You can even use your free content to promote your offers and other people’s offers.

However, you need to promote that content for it to make a bigger impact. It’s more difficult to promote your existing content when you’re too busy creating new content. The end result in a library of hidden secrets and a time consuming hobby.

Creating free content yourself is overrated. Just do the big picture stuff and have ghostwriters handle the rest.

What are your thoughts on creating free content? Do you think we should create more free content or that it’s overrated? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

E131: If You Want To Host A Webinar Soon, Listen To This Episode With Corena Bahr

April 6, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Corena Bahr is a Webinar & Virtual Training Consultant who has been developing and delivering webinars and virtual training over the last 15 years for Fortune 500 companies and for several start-ups. As the original webinar presenter, trainer and technical writer for GoToWebinar and GoToTraining, she delivered over 1,000 webinars, reaching 30,000-plus customers. This inspired her to develop highly interactive learning experiences for customers and her colleagues dubbed her “the webinar guru.”

Quotes To Remember:

“Marketing is not selling. It’s building relationships.”

“We really need to look at how to create a really good content and it cannot be just about you, the speaker.”

“First, figure out your content and how you want to engage participants.”

“Start out with the ones that are in the lower-end and free.”

“Star slow. Build your skill sets.”

What You’ll Learn:

How to Provide Educational Atmosphere While Still Driving Sales to Your Product
How to Structure a Webinar
Tips on Hosting a Webinar
Attracting Attendees to a Webinar
Helpful Tools When Starting a Webinar

Key Links From The Show:

Recommended Books:

Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck

Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon

I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success.

You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.

How To Ensure Your Brand Grows Even When You’re Sick

April 6, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Towards the end of February, I got sick. It made me completely unproductive for four days as I battled against dehydration, an abnormally petite appetite, and vomit.

Those four days were not fun. It was painful to say much so most of my conversations with loved ones were in a Pictionary style.

When I got better, I realized how much my brand had changed over the years. Things were still moving even without my involvement.

Podcast episodes were edited and my show notes writer wrote the show notes. My Twitter still grew and my blog posts were scheduled further in advance.

Just two years before that stomach virus, things would have been different. I’d be in total stress mode trying to catch up to all of the work.

I’d have to schedule blog posts, edit episodes, and listen to those episodes as I wrote the show notes. I’d also have to do plenty of things that I’m not mentioning right now.

Throughout the year, you will need to take off from your business. On some days, you’ll be on vacation. You’ll want to completely unwind so you can approach your work with more vigor when you return.

Other days won’t be as charming. You might end up getting sick like I did in late February. You need to start setting up your business so it never takes a day off.

You’ll have to take days off, but your brand must never take an off day. How do you achieve that feat? I’ll reveal how I built my brand this way and how you can too.

Get Far Ahead

I always have enough podcast interviews done for at least one month. That way, if I get sick or go on a two week vacation, I still have a lot of material left.

Find any area where you can grow the buffer between starting time and the deadline. If you have three days of blog posts scheduled in advance, you’ll want to grow that buffer. That means you’ll write more blog posts and get further ahead.

If you need to write seven blog posts every week, strive to write 10 blog posts every week. That gives you three extra blog posts each week. In a month, you’ll have an extra 12 blog posts. In 2.5 months, you’ll have an entire month of blog posts scheduled in advance.

Now you can miss a week without worrying about blog posts getting published.

You can also schedule email broadcasts, social media posts, and podcast episodes in a similar manner. And this doesn’t just apply to scheduling content. Anything that can be scheduled in advance applies to this concept.

Reduce Steps In The Process

With each podcast episode, there are several steps to take it from an idea to a published episode:

Contact a potential guest who agrees to be on the show
Schedule a time and date for the interview
Prepare for the interview
Conduct the interview
Edit the audio
Write the show notes
Schedule the episode for release

I have either delegated or simplified all of the steps within this process. Here’s my approach for each step. Pay careful attention to Steps 5 and 6.

Ask guests to refer guests my way. I also choose one day of the week to contact potential guests. I need at least 10 confirmed guests each week. I use an email rubric to contact potential guests.

I send a confirmed guest a link to my Acuity scheduler. This saves time from back-and-forth emails about timezones and finalizing a time and date.

I write up the guest’s bio, have a few cornerstone questions, and ask most of the other questions on the fly. After doing over 100 episodes, it’s easier for me to ask questions on the fly. If it’s the focus of the interview I read the guest’s book to come up with the questions (and I love reading so this isn’t a problem for me).

Nothing can be done to reduce time here. I could technically make interviews 15-20 minutes instead of 30-45 minutes, but that’s not my style.

I hand off the audio to my audio editor.

The audio editor sends the edited episodes to my show notes writer.

I schedule the episodes.

I want more of Steps 5 and 6 throughout my brand. I’m sure everyone does. The great thing about delegation is that it’s not as expensive as you think. You can use a site like onlinejobs.ph to find some of the top talent at an affordable price (under $10/hr).

Do More With Your Extra Time

There are two steps in the podcasting process that I don’t touch. On Twitter, all I do is interact with my audience. Everything else is handled by my team.

Speaking of a team of employees. That costs money.

Depending on how many employees you have, it can cost you thousands of dollars each month to pay salaries. In exchange for money, you give yourself extra time. You need to do things in your extra time that justify the salary expenses.

With my extra time, I created more training courses, landed more cross promotions to grow my email list, and generated more revenue through my products and affiliate products. If you spend thousands of dollars maintaining your employees’ salaries, you will have a lot more motivation to make a lot more money.

If there’s a part where you feel stuck (i.e. you don’t like creating the pages for your virtual summit), you can delegate that part of the process and commit to making more revenue from your virtual summit with your extra time.

In Conclusion

Just because you take a break doesn’t mean your brand should take a break. Taking breaks allows you to recharge and approach your brand with more vigor. However, if your brand also takes a break during this time, you’re not impacting more people and spreading your message and values.

You should set your business up to work on autopilot. That way, even if you are sick, or much better, on vacation, your brand is still running and growing.

What are your thoughts on this approach to growing your brand on autopilot? Do you have any advice for us? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

E130: Designing Your Lifestyle With John Kim

April 5, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

John Kim is a published writer, speaker, life coach, and a co-founder of SHFT, an online support group which helps build your self-confidence. By combining what he learned in therapy school with life coaching, the Angry Therapist came to be. However, instead of thinking of himself as a therapist, he prefers to think of himself as a lifestyle designer.

Quotes To Remember:

“History alone is not enough to have a friendship.”

“It’s okay to have different tribes.”

“The high performance is the by-product. It’s what happens when you have authentic relationships with people who are going to push you and make you accountable.”

“If you have a growth mindset, challenge becomes education.”

What You’ll Learn:

How rebirth can set you on the right track to success
How to Design the Life that You Want
Finding the Right People
How to Get Back on Track When You Find Yourself Stuck in a Situation

Key Links From The Show:

John’s Site

Recommended Books:

The Angry Therapist by John Kim

The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida

Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon

I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success.

You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.

E129: Creating A High Converting Funnel Has Never Been Simpler With Chanti Zakariasen

April 4, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Chanti Zakariasen is a copywriter and funnel strategist whose content has been featured on places like Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Greatest, Cosmopolitan, and more. She focuses on sales and systems and helps her clients from a funnel’s start to finish. Her past clients include a multi-million dollar spiritual development company, nutritionists, health coaches, online business moguls, biohacking specialists, supplement companies, life coaches and more. She teaches people how to create copy that converts as well as strategies that simplify your business and your life.

Quotes To Remember:

“The holy grail of copywriting and content marketing is establishing a sense of trust.”

“Something that is real, valuable and authentic is so much more powerful than an email.”

“You have to first establish connection before even thinking of getting into a sales pitch.”

“Every business is different and every business has different offers in place.”

“Fear is just false evidence appearing real.”

“Always create multiple streams of income.”

What You’ll Learn:

How to Plan a Funnel
Tips on Optimizing the Copy for your Funnels
How to Promote Products
What Happens at the End of a Funnel
Balancing Time to Your Clients and to Yourself
Why You Should Hire a Coach

Key Links From The Show:

Chanti’s Site

Chanti’s Free Quiz Funnel Course

Recommended Books:

Ask Method by Ryan Levesque

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

Tools of Titans by Timothy Ferris

Tribe of Mentors by Timothy Ferris

Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon

I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success.

You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.