Marc's Blog

E48: Open The Door To Happiness And Szen With Gary Szenderski

July 26, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Gary Szenderski is an author, speaker, teacher, and branding specialist. He specializes in helping people and organizations to navigate change, and frequently speaks and writes on the topic of emerging brands, personal branding, and companies in transition. Gary is an award-winning writer, author of the Book of Szen, often quoted marketing expert, and recipient of the Distinguished Instructor Award from the University of California in Irvine where he teaches branding.

Quotes To Remember:

“We should always start our songs on a positive note.”

“If you can’t change it, embrace it.”

“We have to deal with [past issues] head on.”

What You’ll Learn:

—How to discover what you want

—How to live in the moment and become more aware of what’s going on

—How to stay positive

—How to avoid hinging your happiness on expectations

—How to avoid distractions

—How to open the intake valve to your happiness

Key Links From The Show:

Gary’s Site

Gary’s email address: gary@bookofszen.com

Recommended Books:

The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor

Start With Why by Simon Sinek

Beauty: The Invisible Embrace by John O’Donohue

Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy Using the Buyer’s Journey

July 25, 2017 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

This is a guest contribution from Nicole Stelmar

A consumer goes through three different stages before making a purchase: awareness, consideration, and decision. These three stages make up the buyer’s journey.

Why does this matter to content marketers? Each stage of the buyer’s journey presents an opportunity to reach potential customers and lead them down the path to making a purchase.

Unfortunately, many marketers overlook the first two stages and focus only on content for buyers in the decision phase.

In order to reach prospects in each stage of the buyer journey, it is important to understand what content resonates most with consumers in that stage. Here are some tips and examples on how to create effective content for each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Awareness Stage

The awareness stage is the first stage of the buyer’s journey—also known as the top of the funnel. In the awareness stage, the buyer encounters a problem that they need solved. The prospect is seeking information about a product or service without the intent of buying. They desire to find free, high quality educational content that will lead them to a conclusion.

Prospects will browse a wealth of information before they find what they need. At this point, their value as a lead is low because they may not notice you. However, if they find that your content is helpful and interesting, they are one step closer to buying.

Unfortunately, many businesses tend to overlook this part of the process. They don’t see it as a worthwhile investment because it may not guarantee a lead. However, neglecting the awareness stage is a mistake.

This is an opportunity to gain a connection and trust with your audience through quality content. Think of this stage as a first impression. A prospect will quickly sift through information to solve their problem as quickly as possible. You want your content to be intriguing and helpful so that you stand out among the crowd.

The types of content that interests prospects at this stage are blog posts, social content, and ebooks. Diversify your content with research reports, editorial content, whitepapers, and statistical reports that educate the buyer.

Let’s look at some examples of content for your customers in the awareness stage. First up is a research report from TransUnion’s SmartMove division. By providing its potential customer base with its own research, SmartMove is establishing itself as a trustworthy and authoritative figure within their industry. This will attract customers in the awareness phase as they are looking for more information on their newly identified problem.

The second example comes from right here at MarcGuberti.com. By offering potential customers free access to 27 Ways to Get More Retweets on Twitter, Marc is giving users in depth knowledge of Twitter best practices. He is also establishing himself as an expert in digital marketing and entrepreneurship.

Consideration Stage

Once your prospect is informed, you must convince them that your product solves their problem. This is known as the consideration stage.

The goal in this stage is to help the buyer identify exactly what they need to solve the problem that first brought them to the awareness stage. The second goal is to convince the buyer that your product or service fits their particular needs. In addition, you need to show them why your product or service is superior to that of the competition.

As the funnel narrows in the consideration phase, so too must your focus. Buyers in the middle of your sales funnel begin to trust you as an authority in your subject. Your goal is to show them that you are an expert in your field or industry.

And you can optimize for this advantage through the use of expert guides, webinars, live interactions, and white papers that compare your features and benefits with those of your competitors.

Odoo, a provider of management software, published this white paper, which compares its services to three competitor services. This allows Odoo to clearly demonstrate why its software is superior to competitors’, making a potential customer’s consideration phase much easier.

Another example comes from Source Capital Funding, Inc., a finance company and money lender. Source Capital Funding, Inc. provides its customers with a how-to guide for securing a hard money loan.

After their customers have identified their need (the awareness stage), they want more information on how to solve their problem (the consideration stage), which is exactly what this guide addresses.

Decision Stage

The decision stage is the most critical point of the buying process. Thus far, you have presented yourself as an expert and intrigued consumers with relevant information. You have also persuaded them that your product fits their needs and solves their problems.

In the final phase, you have brought the prospect to the tipping point where they are making their purchase decision. If you have done your job in the previous two phases, all you need to do now is close the deal.

At this point, they know they want to buy the product, but you need to convince them to buy the product from you. This decision requires content that will connect with them and help them to make their final decision.

The content you provide to close the deal will greatly depend on your industry or field. Many companies flood the market with flashy calls to action, newsletter sign-ups, and other attention-grabbing features.

However, these are services that are meant to benefit you, instead of the buyer. The strongest content that reins buyers in is that which that gives them real incentive. Features like trials, webinars, free downloads, demos, and case studies will compel your audience.

For example, Community Tax, an accounting firm, offers its potential customers a free consultation. This is a great way to attract customers in the decision phase who are just about to make their purchase decision by giving them one more reason to try out Community Tax. Free trials and consultations help make the purchase decision that much easier for the buyer.

This example from DotMailer, an email marketing platform, not only gives potential customers a two week trial, but customers can also choose to sign up for a free demo as well. The hope with this type of trial is that customers will like the service so much that they will be quick to purchase after the two week trial period.

Post-Purchase

You have successfully led your buyer through each stage of the buyer’s journey, and he has purchased your product. Now what? It’s time to nurture the relationship you have developed with your buyer. Don’t make the mistake of only focusing your content on customers who haven’t purchased yet. In that case, you would be missing out on a large group of potential repeat customers.

As with the three stages in the buyer’s journey, there are certain types of content that work best for customers post-purchase. Content in this stage can have various purposes: to engage with the customer, to make them feel heard, to gather feedback, to turn them into a repeat buyer, and/or to encourage them to be advocates for your product/brand.

So post-purchase content should also serve as a way of:

Reducing returns
Reducing customer service questions
Minimizing service costs
Diminishing potential bad word of mouth (or bad online reviews)
Retaining future sales

In order to achieve each of these, it’s important that you vary your post-purchase content as no piece of content will cover all of those goals. Focus on post-purchase follow-up emails, feedback surveys, extensive user guides, and suggestions of similar products specific to that buyer. This allows you to engage with your buyer in ways that make them feel appreciated and more likely to purchase again.

For example, check out Nordstrom’s post-purchase email. In this example, Nordstrom nurtures the relationship with the customer by giving them three opportunities to share their thoughts on the product and speak with customer service (“Write a review”, “order satisfaction survey”, and “Live Chat”). By making the customer feel like their voice is heard, he or she is more likely to purchase again after receiving such excellent customer service.

This final example from theSkimm could fall under the post-purchase email category (as it is an email sent post-purchase), but instead of looking for feedback, theSkimm is hoping to convert users into brand ambassadors. This tactic goes beyond encouraging repeat buyers and instead focuses on creating advocates who acquire new customers for you.

In Conclusion

The process of creating content that resonates with consumers is an art. And each stage of the buyer’s journey requires unique content in order to effectively move your potential customer along to the point of purchase. By tailoring your content to customers within a particular stage, you will succeed in converting more leads into customers. Just let the buyer’s journey be your guide!

About The Author

Nicole Stelmar is a Managing Editor at 365 Business Tips, a website focused on providing business owners all the information they need to successfully start and run their business. Nicole specializes in helping clients improve their digital presence through SEO and content marketing.

How To Freelance Without Losing Control Of Your Blog

July 22, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Freelancing presents a golden opportunity to make money to finance your blogging efforts. After all, blogging itself is a big investment of both time and money — you have to invest in various tools, platforms, and even freelancers.

Still, many people who try to juggle freelancing and blogging end up losing control over one or the other. Balance is the key to keeping both moving forward in tandem, and this post offer tips to help you get there.

Hire Freelancers

When you start earning money as a freelancer, it’s perfectly acceptable to use some of those earnings to hire a freelancer.

Do the math:

Let’s assume it takes you an hour to schedule your daily social media posts. And as a freelancer, you’re hired to write content at $20/hr.

If you hire a freelancer to schedule your social media posts at $10/hr, and both of you work the same amount of hours each week, you’ll have a net gain of $10/hr.

Sure, $10/hr may not sound life altering, but this example gives you an idea of how you can freelance to lighten your workload and make a profit. And the principle can be applied to higher amounts of money.

If you’re paid $50/hr as a freelancer, for example, you’ll have a bit more wiggle room and more money to spend on outsourcing content creation, outreach efforts, or any other business activity that’s important to you.

For content creation specifically, you can hire writers that can imitate your style and complete your projects. For instance, if you’re paid $100 to write an article, you can pay a ghostwriter $50 to write it for you in your voice.

If you work with a good writer, you’ll only need to proofread the article and/or make minor adjustments before submitting it.

Using these simple calculations, it’s easy to see how you can make extra income without making additional time commitments. You are simply shifting attention from one task to another (i.e. from scheduling social media posts to writing content for someone else).

Stick to a Schedule

Part of making the freelancer-blogger journey work for you is sticking to a schedule. You need to delegate certain times of day in which you focus on your freelance work or blog.

That means time stamping when you’ll begin a task, and when you’ll finish it. My own schedule includes running, content creation, summit preparation, showering, eating, and a wide range of other activities – all of which are written into my daily schedule.

Schedule your day down to the minute, but be sure to give yourself some free time because you’ll need short recovery periods to remain energized and motivated.

Connect the Dots

The best freelancing opportunities are high paying jobs that perfectly align with the work you’re already doing for your blog. If you like to write about social media, for example, look for freelancing opportunities that require knowledge of social media.

When your blogging and freelancing efforts work in synergy, you’ll naturally be more efficient since there isn’t as much of a learning curve.

Simply managing a social media account connects with blogging about social media. You can write content based on what you’ve learned (just make sure not to mention a client by name unless you have permission).

Efficiency is Everything

And everything you do should be done as efficiently as possible.

We are either efficient or inefficient at any given moment. Inefficient time represents failure, while efficient time represents success. Strive to become as efficient as possible in carrying out your freelancing and blogging tasks.

And don’t forget to carry it over into every other thing you do. Rather than write emails of several paragraphs, for example, write a few sentences that get your point across. And when appropriate, copy and paste responses that you’ve written ahead of time.

Every second you save adds up. Get into the habit of saving a few seconds here and there, and soon those seconds will turn into minutes and hours.

Identify the tasks that take up the majority of your time. If you’re not sure, simply begin tracking your daily activity over the next month. Once you have these tasks in mind, ask yourself how you can cut 20% of the time needed to complete them and still get the same results.

Here are two critical ways to boost your efficiency:

Have a strong desire to boost your efficiency.
Create systems that allow you to become more efficient.

Your desire will increase as you work towards becoming more efficient each day.

The winning system is dependent on the task and how you work. We all have different philosophies; the key to building better systems is understanding the methods that work best for you, not others.

Some people prefer to spend 2-3 days a month on their content creation efforts; others work on their content a little each day. Some people spend time outlining their blog posts; others let the writing itself guide direction.

I happen to think that if you aren’t using outlines, you’re making an efficiency blunder. But again, the trick is understanding what works for you.

Concentrate on Long-Term Clients

Freelancers spend a lot of their time looking for work and writing proposals.

While there’s nothing wrong with a one-time job, once it’s finished the freelancer must seek out another job, and write another proposal.

If you’re serious about pursuing freelancing, always be on the look out for long-term work and spend time writing winning proposals for those clients.

Not only will you work more efficiently, you’ll have a steady income and won’t always be stressed out about finding the next job.

In Conclusion

Freelancing provides a certain sense of security (you can’t fire yourself) and independence (like working in pajamas?).

Not only that, many jobs have a payout ceiling; more effort and results don’t necessarily translate to more pay. But other jobs pay by performance, and the idea of being paid for what you’re truly worth makes the entrepreneurial journey very appealing.

As a freelancer, you set your own rates. Start small, and as you work your way up, raise them! Use the money to pay for some of your business expenses now with the goal of being completely free to run your business in the long-term.

While it’s harder to get out of the gate initially as a teen (you have to do a lot more to demonstrate your credibility), a huge benefit of starting early is experience.

Freelancing will help you with expenses as you charge forward on your blogging journey. I was able to completely offset my living expenses!

What are your thoughts on freelancing and blogging? Have any tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

Update

I joined together with some other experts on a project with the Tommy John team. venThere’s e more tactics in this infographic for freelancing without losing control of your blog or any of your other big projects.

Marc_Freelancers

E47: Creating A Positive Impact On The World Through Our Businesses With Hamilton Perkins

July 19, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Hamilton Perkins is the founder and CEO of Hamilton Perkins Collection, a brand that focuses on creating affordable designer bags that look good, perform well, and make a difference. With a sea of options, HPC sets itself apart with the level of care it puts into each product. Hamilton sees philanthropy and giving as an essential part of running a business today.

Quotes To Remember:

“We started because we couldn’t find what we were looking for from other brands, so we decided to do it ourselves.”

“It’s taking a personal need or a pain point and turning that into a solution.”

“A lot of the time it comes down to just getting started earlier.”

What You’ll Learn:

—How to attract employees that share your vision

—How to leverage crowdfunding

—How to get your products to spread through word of mouth

Key Links from The Show:

Hamilton’s website

Recommended Books from The Show:

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk

Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard

E46: Penniless Immigrant Now Living The American Dream With Nitin Chhoda

July 12, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Nitin Chhoda is an immigrant who arrived in the U.S. penniless in 2002. He started by delivering pizza, sleeping in his car, and not having enough money to afford winter clothing. However, his hustling mentality allowed him to transcend the grip of poverty to become a licensed physical therapist, entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. Now he owns and runs several multi-million dollar companies with over 30 employees worldwide.

Quotes To Remember:

“Going for zero to $100,000 is all about hustle”

“As an entrepreneur, be prepared to deal with crazy stuff”

“I view money as a vehicle”

“Resilience is a direct function of how much struggle you have been through”

“The right people, hiring the right people is crucial for going from point A to point B….Find and hire the right people, and your professional stature, your emotional capability and your long-term potential as an entrepreneur will significantly increase if you’re around the right people”

What You’ll Learn

—How to develop resilience

—How to get the right people on your team

—Creating proper systems that will help your business grow massively

—The habits of successful entrepreneurs

Key Links from The Show:

Total Activation –– Nitin’s Site.

Recommended Books from the Show:

Total Activation by Nitin Chhoda

Influence by Robert Cialdini

No Man’s Land by Doug Tatum

Outrageous Advertising by Bill Glazer

5 Hacks For Writing Blog Posts Faster

July 7, 2017 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Writing blog posts takes time, effort and commitment.

You need to think up an engaging topic and headline, write an outline and the actual post, proofread and edit, then publish and promote your post before starting the entire process again.

But there are unconventional ways to hack the writing process and speed things up. Here are five ways to write your blog posts faster:

#1: Write On Your Smartphone

Just to clarify, I always prefer to write blog posts using a computer, but that isn’t always an option.

In fact, I’m writing this post in TJ Maxx. Why? Well, it’s not because I enjoy shopping (I find what I need and get out as quickly as possible), but today I am in the company of people who like to browse.

So instead of idly slouching against a wall, I decided to slouch against a wall and write the post you’re reading now. This way, the time I spend inside the store is actually productive.

Now I’m not saying to go shopping just so you can write blog posts. However, you can use moments of waiting as opportunities to begin, add to, or edit a post.

Certainly I could write much faster on my computer, but if I finish the post here in the store I won’t have to write again later today.

I could go on and on about this method because it’s the one I’m using now, and use often when I’m waiting, but let’s move on to the next hack.

#2: Get Your Videos Transcribed

Some people may be natural talkers but not natural writers. It takes more brain power for them to write than to talk. Just talking about your topic will help it flow out quicker and easier.

Not only that, but you can spend a few minutes dictating content that would take 30 minutes or more to write.

Talk about a time saver! And you’ve also got a YouTube video to boot. You can even turn it into a podcast episode using the MP3 file.

#3: Hire A Ghostwriter

Sometimes the fastest way to get your blog posts written is by not writing them at all! You can have one writer, or a team of ghostwriters, write your content for you.

I still haven’t hired ghostwriters for content creation, but I learned a lot about how it works after hosting the Content Marketing Success Summit.

Bascially, you can give a ghostwriter an outline of your blog post’s topic and he or she will write it up (you can also ask that they make suggestions for topic ideas).

Keep in mind it’s important that ghostwriters are familiar with your blog and writing style so they can write in a similar voice.

This ensures your content is consistent (without having to write it yourself). Why not focus more of your time on other areas of your business?

#4: Accept Guest Contributions To Your Blog

When you are first starting out, you may not have a budget for ghostwriters. To remedy this problem, you can invite people to contribute your blog.

You basically get free content. All you have to do is give credit and let the contributor link to his/her site and other essentials at the beginning or end of the blog post (whichever you prefer).

The best way to find contributors for your blog is by looking at blogs in your niche that accept contributors. Then ask the same contributors to contribute to your blog.

The people who contribute to your blog will naturally share their posts, so you’ll get more exposure for your blog.

Also, as more people contribute to your blog, other contributors will contact you and ask if they can contribute content for your blog.

In the beginning, getting contributors to your blog will involve sending many emails to bloggers. But as you get more contributors, the snowball effect will eventually kick in and new contributors will contact you with their ideas.

#5: Memorize The Keyboard

Do you know where the “q” key is on your keyboard. Did you have to look down to find it?

Looking down at the keyboard takes time. Although it may only take a second to look down and look up, that action makes you type slower and temporarily removes your focus from writing the blog post.

The seconds you spend looking down at the keyboard as you write each sentence and each blog post quickly add up to minutes and hours.

To make up that time, you must memorize the keyboard. Your WPM (words per minute) will skyrocket and you will be less susceptible to distraction.

Any moment that your fingers aren’t moving quickly on the keyboard, you are susceptible to distraction.

So now that I’ve sold you on the benefits (or, at least, I’m hoping), here’s how you master the skill.

Start by memorizing all of the key placements for a single 4-5 letter word. If you can type the word “blog” with your eyes closed, you have memorized the locations of 4 of the 26 letters on the keyboard.

If you then memorize the word “each,” you have memorized 8 of the 26 letters on the keyboard.

Now typing a word like “beach” comes second nature as you’ve memorized the placements of those letters.

This is a simple exercise that will allow you to write blog posts faster. This one method has saved me countless hours of time.

In Conclusion

I’m wrapping up this blog post in yet another store. I didn’t bother looking for a table or taking out my computer. I simply wrote all of it on my iPhone.

Since the keys are located in the same places, I had no problem effortlessly typing words by memory.

Think about how many blog posts you can write while waiting for something or someone.

Think about how much time you can save with ghostwriters and contributors.

Think of how cool it is to not write them at all!

What are your thoughts on these hacks to writing blog posts faster?

Have any hacks for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

Until next time,

-Marc