Smart Business Revolution | Turn Relationships into Revenues | Networking | More Clients | Relationship Advice

Did you know that the average American spends over an hour and 25 minutes on Facebook every day? OK, I just made that up. But it sounds true. As one of the largest websites in the world, Facebook is a behemoth no matter how you slice it. It's also a great source of new traffic and business for many businesses. The only problem is, few people actually know how to use Facebook effectively. Amy Porterfield is one of the few marketing experts who truly understands how to use Facebook. In fact, she wrote the book on it –?Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies (referral link). I invited Amy on the podcast to share how businesses can use tools like Facebook and other online marketing tools to increase their traffic and ultimately, lead to more clients, customers and sales. Amy is one of the sweetest, nicest, most genuine guests I've had on the podcast and it was a pleasure interviewing her. She's really as nice as she sounds. Enjoy!

Do you ever wonder why you can't seem to shake your bad habits? What if you could easily drop all your bad habits and adopt all good habits? Wouldn't that make a huge difference in your life? James Clear is fascinated by the science of habit formation. Throughout his diverse career, he has studied ways to drop bad habits and form better ones, and he came on the podcast to talk about how you can develop your own good habits. He's a very smart and successful guy and has some great advice on the topic. If you've read the popular book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (referral link) (Audible.com) - a book I absolutely loved - then you'll love this interview. Enjoy!

Derek Halpern is a blunt, straight-talking New Yorker who tells it like it is. While still in college, he decided to start a celebrity gossip website, but in typical Halpern fashion, he did not do any part of the project half-way. He did a thorough analysis of the market and found a way to stand out in an already crowded niche. As a result, he created a phenomenally successful site which at one point attracted over 1 million visitors in one 24-hour period. Today, he is most well known as the founder of Social Triggers, a marketing blog where he demonstrates how to use psychology to convert casual browsers of a website or blog into customers and subscribers. In this episode, Derek shares a few of the secrets to his success and some practical, actionable ways you can convert more visitors to your website or blog into raving fans, subscribers and buyers. This episode will be of most value to entrepreneurs and small business owners who have a website or blog they want to attract more clients or customers to visit -- which, after all, is most people today. Enjoy!

A little over a year ago, John Lee Dumas was an unknown podcaster, hustling to get good guests for his new podcast. He barely even knew how to start a podcast, much less run a good one. Today, he has a thriving business based off that same podcast, Entrepreneur on Fire, and he's interviewed an incredible array of guests, from Tim Ferriss to Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran to Seth Godin. He even interviewed my own client, Carl Mattiola, who started a software business on the side that allowed him to quit his job at Tesla within 6 months. Check out that interview. s learned so much, in fact, that he recently launched a new podcaster's training program called Podcaster's Paradise, which walks budding podcasters through how to start a podcast, including everything from what equipment to buy to getting good guests. I know some people who are members of?Podcaster's Paradise and they have said good things about the community. So if you are curious about how to start a podcast, I'd recommend you check it out. (Note: that link is not an affiliate link – I'm just recommending based on others' recommendations and because I've met John and he's a good guy.) Personally, I can say that launching my own podcast was a huge undertaking with a lot of technical hurdles to overcome. So I recommend having a community who can help you through the process. John has some great, practical advice in this interview about entrepreneurship in general, including some tips on how to be productive (spoiler alert: it involves getting up really early). Enjoy!

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful social networks available today. But a lot of people find it very confusing. Many people sign up, set up a profile, and then don't know what to do next. They end up abandoning it or wasting a lot of time because they don't know how to use LinkedIn and to make it work for them. That's where my guests Lori Ruff and Mike O'Neil come in. Lori and Mike are known as the "LinkedIn Rock Stars" and they shown hundreds of people how to use LinkedIn for business. I've been privileged to be a guest on their podcast, Rock the World with LinkedIn, where they combine their passion for music with their passion for LinkedIn (yes, really!). What I love about them is they are willing to express some of their individual personalities, which is so rare in the often-stuffy world of business. So definitely check out their podcast. In this episode, Lori and Mike share some great tips on how to maximize your LinkedIn profile, how to use LinkedIn effectively, and how to develop and nurture relationships using LinkedIn. Enjoy!

Imagine starting a new professional sports team... from scratch. That's what my latest guest did. Mike Shapiro is the founding partner and current managing partner of the San Rafael Pacifics, an independent league professional baseball team in San Rafael, California. Many years ago, Mike had the idea for starting a professional baseball team to play at a local ballpark where his kids played baseball. Only unlike most people who come up with a crazy, hare-brained idea like that, he followed through. Mike shares how his new team ran into every barrier you can think of as they tried to get the new endeavor off the ground: raising the money to fund the initial startup costs (about $1 million) legal challenges - neighbors who filed a lawsuit to challenge required environmental impact reports prepared by the team a local community that had never heard of the new baseball team before the challenge of getting attention for an unknown, untested baseball team right in the backyard of the World Champion San Francisco Giants (who had won the World Series the year before the Pacifics began playing) Mike has a fascinating story to tell, and I think it illustrates the importance of nurturing strong relationships in business. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to start up a professional sports team, you're going to love this interview!

When I first went to work for myself a couple of years ago, one of the first books I read was Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. I don't think I could have picked a better book to read upon embarking on the journey of entrepreneurship. Out of all the various business books presenting different coaching models available on the market today, Michael's book was perfect. It covers how service professionals can develop their own personal brand, talk about what it is they do in the right way, build trust and credibility, price their services, and promote themselves without sounding like Donald Trump. It's one of the few books that I have read where I felt like I had to read it at the kitchen table with a notepad next to me, because I was taking so many notes. I didn't think Michael could improve on that book, but it happened. Enter Book Yourself Solid Illustrated.? Working with my guest in this episode of the podcast, Jocelyn Wallace, the pair tore up the original version and distilled it to its essence. I loved the new version as much, if not more, than the original version.

Like so many in his generation, Srinivas "Srini" Rao graduated into a horrible job market. Except unlike many, he did it twice. The first time was after college. Rao graduated from UC Berkeley, finishing up school in 2000 just as the dot-com-fueled Bay Area economy was crumbling. The second time Rao graduated into a recession was after business school, which he graduated from in 2009. Not surprisingly, he suffered his way through a few years of working for various dot-com and startups that either failed or were acquired, leaving him out of a job. Rao's experiences led him to believe — quite understandably — that the corporate world would never be as secure and reliable as being an entrepreneur and finding a way to support himself based on his own skills and resources. Today, Rao is the founder of BlogcastFM, a podcast and site which started out focused on blogging, and branched out into focusing on other areas such as entrepreneurship, personal development, public speaking, surfing (Rao's personal passion) and writing. This side project quickly turned into a major source of business for Rao and it has allowed him to avoid working any of the dreaded "corporate jobs" he vowed to avoid. I've been listening to BlogcastFM since the early days (around 2010), and so when I saw Srini Rao was coming out with a new book (The Small Army Strategy), I thought it was a great opportunity to engage him in a longer discussion on the podcast.

Five years ago, Sean Malarkey was working in real estate in Columbus, Ohio. Today, he presides over a 7-figure online marketing training company and spends his days playing with his kids, surfing, and hanging out around Santa Barbara, California. Not a bad life, eh? In between was a lot of hard work, some ups and some downs, and a lot of success. In this interview, Sean shares it all: what he learned from surviving the real estate market meltdown (including how he saw the handwriting on the wall), the "lightbulb moment" of discovering Twitter, and why he believes in pricing his company's products much lower than their competition. Sean is currently the President of Inspired Marketing, a company he started with former professional athlete and LinkedIn guru Lewis Howes. Together, they provide online trainings for small business owners and professionals on how to use various social media tools. Sean is also the host of a relatively new podcast, The Money Pillow, which you can check out on iTunes. Enjoy!