The Thoughtful Entrepreneur

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks to sales keynote speaker, the author of Better Selling Through Storytelling and The Sale Is In the Tale, “The Pitch Whisperer” John Livesay. John and Josh discuss how many entrepreneurs feel like they’re drowning in a ‘sea of sameness’, as John puts it. What he shares is that you have to be an effective storyteller in order to close sales. You have to stand out from your competition and give your prospects a reason to buy from you; facts and figures during a rehearsed sales pitch aren't going to cut it anymore. You have to create real relationships with your prospects and be a great storyteller to earn their business. That’s what John’s newest book, The Sale Is In The Tale, is all about. Stories are what people remember, so tell good ones. But why are stories critical to connecting with your audience, customers, investors, employees, and more? Stories win because they make you magnetic and memorable, John explains. Most prospects ‘interview’ a few options before making the choice of who they will buy from. When they have that next appointment after the sales call, you have to show them you’re different from the crowd. If you don’t stand out from a list of considerations, the prospect will choose the cheapest option. Sell better and stand out through telling captivating stories during your discovery calls. You have to sell yourself and your company in a clear, concise, and compelling way. John’s book Better Selling Through Storytelling is the best book for entrepreneurs just learning about how to pivot into storytelling selling. He explains that this book is a great place to start and learn how this works, whereas The Sale Is In The Tale shows the reader these strategies actually work through a narrative format. These books help you tell a great story through both tactical explanation and, not surprisingly, through storytelling. We all have moments where we feel frustrated, disappointed, or rejected. John shares a tactic called the 555 method. Ask yourself if what you’re stressed or upset about will matter in 5 minutes, 5 hours, or 5 days. Most things won’t matter in those time frames and many of your daily problems and negative experiences can be filtered out using this technique. The key? When you’re ready to let go of something that’s bothering you, you actually have to let it go and not talk about it anymore. Don’t give your energy to the things that don’t matter in the grand scheme of life. Focus on the things that will make a real impact over the course of your business and your life. John shares another nugget – don’t share testimonials, share your clients’ stories. Don’t tell a partial story with your case studies, turn them into narrative opportunities.  Check out John Livesay’s website at https://johnlivesay.com/. Check out Better Business Through Storytelling at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NRTKKZ9/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1. Check out The Sale Is In The Tale at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09R4G61N9/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0. Check out The Sale Is In The Tale on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesuccessfulpitch/. Check out John Livesay on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlivesay/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass. 

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks to the CEO of DealRaise and the Executive Director of Virtual Worker Now, Jonathon Kendall. Virtual Worker Now is a digital marketing agency that offers services in paid ad buying, organic social media, video editing, graphic design, copywriting, funnel building, website development, customer support, virtual assistance, executive assistance, and web development coding. Jonathon shares that he started in copywriting originally, which helped him step into marketing, which then led to him stepping into entrepreneurship. He approaches business with an engineering approach by applying repeatable, high level skill sets. Virtual Worker Now is result-driven and is immediately consultative with their clients. They use data and hard numbers to know where the businesses they work with really sit so that Virtual Worker Now can deliver results at both a high level and at optimum speed. If you know you have a marketing pain point or challenge, don’t just outsource to someone less expensive than an agency – remember, you get what you pay for. If you want immediate, proven marketing results, you have to work with an agency that’s tuned into your data and the challenges you’re facing.Agencies sometimes overcomplicate things to sell more services, Jonathon explains. Moreover, most entrepreneurs can see those tactics from a mile away. Invest in an agency that doesn’t mess around with trying to upsell you on services you really don’t need. You need to trust the agency you’re working with; they need to show you that they’re driven by your data and that they will get you tangible results.Start with smaller services, Jonathon explains, and work your way up. If you aren’t totally ready to commit to an agency or strategy, experiment and dabble with an idea to see where the results land. Agencies should de-risk their offers by offering a ‘sample’ or smaller service for this exact reason; they need to give their prospects a way to do a trial run so they can truly fall in love with the work their agency does. The number one thing to do is to become so trusted by your audience that you are their trusted advisor in your space. Dedicate yourself to deeply solving your clients’ issues. Jonathon explains that some business owners second guess adding new services either because they lack the skill set or because they lack the necessary operational structure within their business. Virtual Worker Now helps tackle these challenges and more.Want to learn more? Check out Virtual Worker Now’s website at https://virtualworkernow.com/. Check out Virtual Worker Now on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/virtualworkernow/. Check out Jonathon Kendall on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathon-kendall/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks to the founder and Managing Director of Bandelli & Associates and the author of What Every Leader Needs and soon to be released, Relational Intelligence, Adam Bandelli. Adam shares that he’s always been fascinated by what great leaders do. He has a doctoral degree in leadership, influence, and relationships and his dissertation is the subject of his new book, Relational Intelligence. He started his firm in 2016 and focuses on three key areas; selection for internal and external placements, leadership development and executive coaching, and training to help leaders grow. Adam shares some insights he’s gathered from his favorite basketball legends over the last couple of decades. For one thing, a good leader knows how to leverage their team to focus on the strengths of the individual team members. Pay attention to every person on your team and figure out where they shine and thrive. Next, don’t just tell your team how to succeed, model what you’re preaching. Be a leader worthy of looking up to by setting the best example. Not only will this encourage others to follow best practices, but it shows how much you’re willing to invest in them by doing the best practices. He also noticed that leadership comes with a ‘brand’. How does your team look at you? What does your reputation or habits say about you? Be mindful of these elements of your leadership practices.You need strong self-awareness to be an effective leader, Adam explains. You have to know, acknowledge, and accept your weaknesses and blindspots and then delegate those tasks to team members who can thrive in those roles. You also need to find a good coach or mentor who will actually have a positive impact on your life and business. The objective view a mentor can offer will help determine your strengths, weaknesses, and goals. Josh and Adam also address those entrepreneurs who think they don’t need a coach, or that it’s a sign of weakness to seek one out. Adam shares that this is a damaging stereotype. A coach isn’t someone who will “fix” you as a person or business leader – they’re a trusted advisor. A coach is there to help make decisions and solve problems with a business owner, not for them. Don’t look at coaching and mentorship as a sign that you’re ‘less than’; look at it as a way to boost the success you’ve already attained. Want to learn more? Check out Bandelli & Associates’ website at http://bandelliandassociates.com/. Check out Bandelli & Associates on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/bandelli-associates/. Check out Adam Bandelli on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambandelli/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks to Certified Fractional CFO and the Chief Profit Officer at The Business Profit Coach, Diana Miret. The Business Profit Consultancy helps small to medium size business owners understand, navigate, and really get a hold on their numbers. The numbers are just the beginning, though. Diana explains that once she has a business’s numbers, she can start to unravel the company so she can find what needs to be fixed. Diana is also an expert at project management, processes, and system execution. She takes a holistic, step by step approach to her work. Growing when you’re not stable isn’t good, Diana shares. Sales are good, but they’re not going to fix your problems. If you don’t address your problems, or you apply Band Aid solutions through just trying to make more revenue, you’ll eventually implode. There are separate drivers to push sales/revenue, profit, cashflow, and more. Diana and her company break it down further to really address the root cause of a company’s individual problems.If you drain your profitability, it doesn’t matter how many sales you make. You need to zero in on every piece of the business and determine where you’re not operating optimally. You need to maximize the money you do have before trying to make more. Don’t make great money if you can’t keep great money!Diana shares some signs that indicate a business needs to talk to a CFO. Diana’s target clients make over 7-figures in annual revenue but might still struggle to make payroll, might struggle to pay the business owner, and/or might struggle to pay vendors during the cash conversion cycle. These entrepreneurs are usually burned out and exhausted – and are finding that more sales aren’t actually fixing their problems. Diana believes very strongly in the profit first model. You have to learn how to measure yourself. Use the envelope method, if needed. Allocate firm, fixed budgets and don’t scramble to pay taxes or payroll. You will be profitable if you’re disciplined and organized. Yes, you can be profitable on day one. But how do you operate under a profit first method? If you take profit first, but don’t have enough to pay the rest of your expenses, don’t just jump straight to the numbers as they are. If you know you don’t have enough money to allocate things the way you want to, you need to restructure and plan for the future. Diana says this reframing might take some time, but if you allocate more to yourself gradually, you’ll see your profit go up over time. It’s not overnight, but it is effective. You’ll get ‘there’ (wherever that goal is for you) – just give it the time, planning, and dedication it deserves. Profitability is stability, so dedicate yourself to aligning your finances with your business foals. Want to learn more? Check out The Business Profit Coach’s website at https://www.dianamiret.com/. Check out Diana Miret on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebusinessprofitcoach/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks with the founder of Certain Change, Stephen Bates. Stephen is in the business of getting the best out of people, he shares. He believes that a business leader can make or break the execution of their amazing idea based on how they live up to their own potential. Certain Change helps entrepreneurs use their skills and time to the best of their ability – and then help them get the best out of their teams, too. Stephen shares that he got his start in the physical therapy industry. He shares that people would come into his office in real physical pain and he’d spend time to coach them on how to change their lifestyle and heal their pain faster. What he noticed was that many of the patients he coached, about 40% in his experience, didn’t do what would help them at home. He realized that if people could endure acute chronic pain and knowingly not help themselves, then everything else in our lives, careers, and relationships can be treated the same way with ease. Josh and Stephen explore the pain points his clients tend to experience. The first major challenge is for the business owner to overcome their own frustration. The reality, Stephen explains, is that many of these business owners know they’re capable of doing more but don’t let themselves. A lot of this is labeled and chalked up to imposter syndrome or anxiety, but in any case, there’s an evident gap between what these entrepreneurs know they can achieve and what they actually allow themselves to achieve. For a business owner, this can manifest as underpriced services and products, under promoted services or offerings, and lower-than-they-should-be prospecting goals. The underlying issue is this gap and the frustration that comes with this cycle of self-limiting behavior. Imposter syndrome is as pervasive as ever. Josh and Stephen discuss how to address it. First of all, see it for what it is – ‘imposter syndrome’ is an exaggeration of doubt. Stephen explains that every worthwhile good decision is going to come with doubt and a loss of confidence with uncertainty. This is the natural process of making a good, important decision. You’re meant to let go of the emotion to make a logical, clear decision. Don’t let a natural part of the process become exaggerated into imposter syndrome. This is simply the fear of the consequences of your decision. Stay out of the self-sabotage loop and let go of your fear. Let your authority, knowledge, and skills guide you.Want to learn more? Check out Certain Change’s website at https://www.certainchange.co.uk/. Check out Certain Change on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/certain-change-ltd/.  Check out Stephen Bates on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenbatesuk/.  Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass. 

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks to the CEO of Unleashing Influence, Dr. Angela Mulrooney.Unleashing Influence helps people to develop their personal brands on LinkedIn by helping them create amazing content, identify and understand their own archetype, and get out of their own way so they can change the world with what they know. The people she works with are high level professionals and entrepreneurs who pursue work with other high level professionals. This is what makes LinkedIn an amazing resource, Dr. Angela explains. LinkedIn is where high level business leaders, professionals, and entrepreneurs congregate and connect. Josh and Dr. Angela explore what people typically look for on LinkedIn. Users are generally looking for snackable tips and strategies to apply to their own job or business and they’re looking for good networking opportunities. LinkedIn is consumed differently than other forms of social media, she shares. Other forms of social media encourage mindless media consumption whereas LinkedIn not only encourages a thoughtful, deliberate approach – it demands it if you want to use it effectively. LinkedIn is designed for sophisticated professionals, so it requires that level of diligence when being utilized efficiently. Most people’s profiles are maybe 20% filled out. Most people only see LinkedIn as a resume rather than a way to share their personal brand. There’s so much color and personality you can and should bring to your profile, Dr. Angela says. People should be able to look at your LinkedIn and have a general sense about who you are truly. Dr. Angela advises telling your story in the About section. Put the technical jargon and information in your Experience section. The About section is where you should tell your story, and if you tell it well, people will read the whole thing and then dig even further into your profile. Dr. Angela and Josh also talk about engagement on LinkedIn. She explains that being active should look like a couple of quality posts every week, consistently. LinkedIn prefers quality content over a large quantity of content. The algorithm will favor you and your content will also be more optimized for engagement and interaction.LinkedIn users want good information in every piece of content they consume, so focus on producing quality over quantity. Dr. Angela also shares some tips on what she forecasts is on the horizon for LinkedIn. She says first of all, do more original thought leadership. To ensure content doesn’t come off as narcissistic, focus on providing tangible, real value to your existing clients and audience. Don’t focus your content on you, what you do, or even your accolades. You can’t come off as ‘you-centric’. Give your audience some of the best tools you have to offer and don’t dangle the carrot. Give tactical takeaways that they can really apply so they can begin to know, like, and trust you based on what you really offer through your content. Want to learn more? Check out Unleashing Influence’s website at https://unleashinginfluence.com/. Check out Unleashing Influence on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/unleashing-influence/. Check out Angela Mulrooney on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelamulrooney/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks to B2B consultant and strategist, Chaz Horn.Chaz and his company help B2B consultants identify, attract, and convert qualified prospects. B2B companies tend to be great at delivering their offering, but they don’t have a predictable way to get referrals. Chaz’s business provides a predictable way to get new qualified prospects on an organic attraction and referral basis. Tactics before strategy is the path of failure and strategy before tactics is a much slower path to success. Chaz explains that you have to have an effective balance of both of these key factors. You have to position yourself with leverage to convert the maximum number of prospects. Know your customers’ desires and position yourself where you have leverage. Chaz shares that when you leverage yourself based on yourself and not your clients, you won’t see the results you’re aiming for. Everything you do needs to be because of what your prospects told you. Leverage yourself based on the needs explicitly laid out by your audience and market. Focus your messaging and efforts on the top few problems in your audience base. Content should be carefully and strategically crafted to reach your audience on an emotional level – this is the best way to drive traffic to your profile on LinkedIn and to your website. You catch someone’s interest with content, but if you don’t speak to their wants and needs and put yourself in a position to welcome the perfect prospect, you won’t see the maximum level of conversions. Your marketing and your sales teams should also always be on the same page, too, which is a major issue Chaz sees. Providing an outstanding customer experience means having a streamlined and holistic corporate team approach. Chaz and Josh explore some of the biggest issues with B2B targeting today. Chaz shares that too many companies aren’t coming from a place of service; if you’re just spamming lead lists with messages, you’re not only not adequately targeting, but you’re damaging the efficacy of your message. If your positioning isn’t on point and isn’t leveraged from the client’s perspective, you simply don’t have leverage. Your messaging should not revolve around you or what you think – you can only reach these prospects by making things about them, their issues, and by connecting with them on an authentic emotional level. Take the time to truly know your prospects and use that in your marketing. Want to learn more? Check out Chaz Horn’s website at https://b2bclientsnow.com/.  Check out Chaz’s company, Mastery of B2b Sales,LLC on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/masteryofb2bsales/. Check out Chaz Horn on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chaz-horn/. Contact Chaz at chazhorn@chazhorn.com.Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with The Unstoppable Woman’s Amira Alvarez. Amira is a business coach and strategist that helps high-achieving women entrepreneurs grow their businesses and their income. Amira works with driven women who want more for their lives, businesses, and communities. Her clients tend to have hit an internal block when it comes to executing on their goals. Amira helps them find the solutions that are right in front of them by resolving the internal blockages and by facilitating breakthroughs. Josh and Amira explore the cultural impact of women entrepreneurs. There aren’t as many systemic barriers than there used to be for women to become successful business owners, but there is still some lingering conditioning that limits some of these female business leaders. This occurs especially when it comes to sales and leadership. Amira shares that over-nurturing or not asking the deeper questions can sometimes occur in cases like this. Women tend to be more aware of when someone becomes uncomfortable during the sales process – which can lead to not pulling the trigger when you should. It’s all about balancing your confidence, eliminating your conditioning, and recognizing the real guidelines in sales and business operations. Josh and Amira also explore her background. She shares that she grew up in a middle class family – she herself says she had a solid upbringing and she had a good childhood. When she started her first business in the health and fitness space, she didn’t know how to do sales or marketing. She needed to learn the tactics. She ultimately relocated and launched into something new – she says that her first year in business, she made around $30K. The next year, she tripled that. She went above and beyond again the third year along – but found she couldn’t work any harder. She started getting lost in her business and she couldn’t work any harder or scale any further; she hit a wall. If your only tool is to “work harder”, there’s a rude awakening ahead, Amira explains. She decided to deeply study success and figure out how to scale without ‘working harder’ (so to speak). The result? She increased her income five times over after taking that step back to realign herself. She back-engineered how she did that, laid out a methodology, and now she teaches other female entrepreneurs how to do what she did. Amira says she was limited by her own beliefs until she transformed herself and how she defined her identity as a business owner to scale, thrive, and achieve business success. Want to learn more? Check out The Unstoppable Woman’s website at https://theunstoppablewoman.com/. Check out The Unstoppable Woman's FREE resources at https://theunstoppablewoman.com/free-stuff/.Check out The Unstoppable Woman on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-unstoppable-woman/. Check out Amira Alvarez on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amiraalvarez/.  Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks to LinkedIn specialist, Daniel Alfon.Daniel joined LinkedIn in early 2004. He explains that there was no handbook, so he had to figure it out and strategize from the bottom up. He shares that he had to write his own rules and forge his way as an expert on the platform, ultimately becoming a niche, authoritative expert on all things LinkedIn. Josh and Daniel explore some ways in which users miss key opportunities on LinkedIn. Daniel explains that many people don’t set or pursue an objective with the platform, which is their first mistake. If a business leader thinks about their next position and then leverages LinkedIn to build a network, they are better prepared to utilize the platform the way it was intended. If you want to grow your business and revenue, your LinkedIn profile should support your real life business objectives. Your messaging and community networking on the platform should align with your business objectives – without going overboard. Josh asks Daniel about how the platform has been misused. Daniel shares that LinkedIn isn’t the place to mass spam people with prospecting messages. Not only will you not get leads this way, but you could lose your profile if you’re not careful. You should leverage posts, articles, groups, and media on LinkedIn along with making good connections regularly. The business you should be pursuing on LinkedIn should be referral based – or, you should be pursuing any leads you find on the platform outside of it. Daniel specializes in organic LinkedIn. You should optimize your content by defining your ideal prospect and answering their real problems and issues. Don’t go off of just what you offer. Make an effort to really understand your prospects and what they really need, regardless of your offering. You need to educate them with your content to become a trusted advisor in your circle, especially when leveraging content on LinkedIn. Don’t produce content just for LinkedIn, though, Daniel says. Reuse and repurpose your general evergreen content and share it in strategic groups on LinkedIn. This means you’re not overspending on your LinkedIn content AND you’re giving that content to truly interested audiences. Daniel and Josh agree that companies should not be sliding into DMs to make uncomfortable pitches. Good business leaders oversee the execution of how messaging and connecting with prospects is done. Tactically, you need to invest in making genuine connections that foster the know, like, and trust process. Fostering trust means building a relationship over time, not abusing LinkedIn’s direct message system. Want to learn more? Check out Daniel Alfon’s website at https://www.danielalfon.com/.  Check out DanielAlfon.com on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/www-danielalfon-com/. Check out Daniel Alfon on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/alfon/.  Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with the author of Unio: The Art of Intentional Community Building, Bess Auer. Bess and Josh explore the power of community and how powerful it can be. Bess has a lot of experience developing and engaging with communities, and Josh and Bess connected in the Central Florida area for that exact reason. 2022 is the year of human connection, Josh says. Now more than ever, community is an extremely important element that business leaders need to focus more on now than ever before. Bess shares that when you find your community, you’ll find your client base. The people who engage with you online are your audience. Organic reach isn’t dead, which is the common misconception. If you actually find out what your community wants and needs from you and you act on that information, you don’t have an issue with organic reach. When you know who your audience is and what their needs are, it’s incredibly easy to stay relevant to them.Listen with empathy and critical thinking, Bess shares. Meet your community members and interview them. Talk to your target demographic and actually determine what they want in a product or service. Don’t assume you know what your community wants – make your community love and trust you by actually asking them. Bess says that sometimes in the hustle and bustle of running a business, it’s easy to forget that your community is your business. If you aren’t fostering and caring for your community, you’re not caring for your client base. You need both the support of your community but also the data they provide. Yes, have those one on one interviews, but also engage with your community online to give everyone an opportunity to connect and exchange more ideas. Facilitating engagement between your community members only strengthens it. In order to bolster and support your community, you need to make your website and online community hubs are “grandma proof”, Bess shares. This means you need to make sure things are as easy and streamlined as possible. You need to simplify your website and make it accessible, regardless of your audience’s age, native language, or location on the globe. Bess has extensive experience when it comes to community building and engagement. According to Unio’s website, Bess has trained over 2,000 community leaders, marketers, and influencers, hosted a nationally syndicated TV show on growing your tribe, and is a seasoned speaker who focuses on turning your audience into a meaningful community.Want to learn more? Check out Unio’s website at https://buildwithunio.com/. Order Unio: The Art of Intentional Community Building at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GCF6YYM. Check out Unio on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildwithunio/. Check out Bess Auer on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bessauer/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.