James Schramko Podcast

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Interview highlights: 01:47 – Did growth just happen? 05:01 – When you hit 20 million… 07:32 – Why not spend more? 08:59 – Knowing how big your business is 11:16 – Triggers and reporting 14:42 – Does segmentation come into play? 17:26 – The impact of current events 21:46 – A CEO’s routine 24:53 – Growing pains to look out for 28:34 – Tool/technique recommendations 30:45 – Sources of business ideas 33:45 – An effect of success Plan the future of your business while relaxing in the Maldives. Click HERE Download the PDF transcription Transcript: James: James Schramko here. Welcome back to SuperFastBusiness.com. I’ve got a guest back for the second time. The last time I interviewed this guest, his business was doing around $5 million a year. We were talking about the comparison between direct response and ecommerce styles of marketing and how you can actually blend the two in what he does with his successful business called Survival Frog, and that was episode 491 in August of 2016. Now, here we are, at the time of recording at the end of May 2017, and our guest has almost doubled the business. So today, I’m going to be speaking with Byron Walker about business growth. Welcome to the call, Byron. Byron: Great. Thanks, James. Glad to be here. James: Now, I’m interested in the story of how you’ve doubled your store in less than a year. Especially because business growth is a hot topic with both SuperFastBusiness and especially SilverCircle. A lot of the things that I focus on are to achieve business growth. And I think the first thing that we should probably address is, was the growth something that you had planned or has it just happened? Can you plan growth? Byron: Yeah. It was definitely planned. In fact, I think a lot of the reason why we’re not only growing but growing in a fairly smooth manner; I mean yes, there’s growing pains and there’s craziness, but overall for the type of growth we’re seeing is fairly well leveled and feels good. And I think the reason behind that is we had already gotten a lot of our basics down, our procedures, documentation, the right people in the right seats. A lot of the things were in place that allowed us to grow. Because I mean growth is great, but sometimes it can cause a lot of damage too. And so we’re growing but we’re also growing where we’re increasing margins. Don’t get me wrong, it is so crazy but it’s pretty well-controlled in our growth. So it was planned and I felt we had a really good strong base before we really started popping the lid off the top. James: So when you sit down and think about where you want the business to go, who’s involved in that process and what is the process that determines what you’re going to plan and what is the plan for Survival Frog? The plan Byron: Again, I’ve got the right people in the right seats. Myself, I’m the CEO, and although I’m out of the day-to-day operations, I’m very heavy into the strategic planning of the company. And so who’s behind that? Certainly, I would take the lead role as the CEO of the company in charting the path to the future and where we’re going.

In the episode: 00:38 – It’s not about you 01:25 – Finding common ground 02:18 – How to treat big shots 03:22 – Beware of THIS 04:24 – When to approach a speaker 05:05 – Are you the person people want to be around? 05:59 – When invited to dinner… 06:53 – A big no-no 07:46 – What you can offer 08:39 – How to be recognized 09:17 – A way to bridge conversation Access the complete presentations from SuperFastBusiness Live 2017 inside SuperFastBusiness membership Download the PDF transcription and A Checklist For Meeting People At Live Events Transcription: James Schramko here. Welcome back to SuperFastBusiness.com. Today, I’m going to be talking about live events. I just ran my live event, SuperFastBusiness Live. All of the presenters there were fantastic. A lot of them I’ve met in person at other events, and quite often, in other countries. So today, I’m going to share with you some top tips on how to network better when you go to a live event. “How to network better at a live event” CLICK TO TWEET Be interested The first tip is be interested rather than trying to be interesting. So a lot of the people at events generally gravitate towards a bar. Wherever there’s food or refreshments served, that’s where people go because they’re away from home. So you’ll find people congregate there. And rather than trying to be very interesting and have everyone notice you, instead, be interested. Be curious. Ask questions. “Rather than trying to be interesting…” CLICK TO TWEET But just be low key as well. You don’t need to be over the top. You don’t need to stand out and be the class clown. What you want to think about is this is a very long-term relationship. And first impressions are important. But you’ll have more than a few bites at the cherry, and I’ll explain why in just a minute. Find things in common One thing that I do when I’m meeting someone is I find things that we have in common because that makes it comfortable to have a continued discussion. Where did they go to school? Where do they live? What things are they interested in? What type of careers have they had? What are their passions or sports? What sort of family situation have they grown up with? So there’s all sorts of common ground you can find. Fairly quickly, you’ll find friends who you have in common. These days, it’s even easier with things like Facebook will actually tell you who you have in common. So if you know the person, and you’re trying to establish contact, have a look and see who you have as mutual friends because they will be common grounds for you. In fact even better is to get an introduction from one of those friends if they happen to be there at the event. It’s way better to get introduced by somebody than for you to have to go up cold.

In the podcast: 03:13 – Our biggest driver 05:35 – Can you be guided? 10:01 – The role of experience 12:33 – The mental side of physical sport 17:37 – That thing called flow 20:30 – Some effective anchors 28:52 – Protecting our emotional horsepower 30:35 – If others can do it… 32:56 – Do you want to be in, or out? 36:45 – Picking your board of directors 41:24 – A quick summary Get strategy and mindset tips to grow your business inside SuperFastBusiness membership Download the PDF Transcription and 12 Insights and Tips for Achieving Better Performance Through Mindset Transcription: James: James Schramko here. Welcome back to SuperFastBusiness.com. Today, I’m speaking with an expert in mindset. His name is Nam Baldwin from Equalize.com.au. Welcome to the call. Nam: Thanks, James. Great to be here. James: Now, we have a mutual friend. Someone who’s been on a previous episode or two on SuperFastBusiness, Brenton Ford. He’s a swim coach, and he introduced us. Nam: Yeah, great guy. I’ve been doing a session with him not so long ago. James: I’ve been working with Brenton for many years. It’s been fun for me to get an insight into his world because as we get to develop products and look at how we package his business and sell training workshops, it’s been interesting just to develop an understanding of things like paddling technique, breathing technique, and as someone who’s taken up surfing in the last few years, I’ve been more and more interested in that. I’ve often wondered how some large, old dude can just paddle straight around me on a tiny, little shortboard when I’m struggling to make it out to the back, especially a year or two ago when I was on those Mini Mals as my training. It seems that there can be quite different results gotten from just changing the way that you do things and especially the way that you think about things. Would you say that’s true? Nam: Oh absolutely. Thoughts create feelings and feelings create the way in which we perform. The better the state, the better the feeling that we have within us, the better we allow ourselves to tap into the potential that we have. James: So let’s talk about the things that you’ve been focusing on. From what I’ve read, you are an emotional and stress-control management specialist. You especially help people with breathing techniques. I noticed you help some big-wave riders and some Olympic kayak gold medalists, some footballers and even a world-surfing champion, Mick Fanning. That piqued my interest tremendously because of course he’s so popular in Australia that even regular people would know who he is. They would have seen him on TV, especially yesterday because he announced he’s going back on tour, and he’s ready to take on another world title campaign. Have you been working with Mick? Working with Mick Fanning

In the episode: 00:50 – Accidental discovery 03:25 – How Wanderer Bracelets came about 04:57 – Fitting the product to a market 06:55 – The SCAMPER method 09:21 – The mindset that makes it work 10:59 – Building the team 13:07 – How important are live events? 16:23 – A couple of essential tools 19:13 – Working the system 21:55 – Some challenges of working remotely 25:35 – The layout of day-to-day 28:32 – A brief call recap 29:19 – Knowing who to hire next 32:19 – SuperFastBusiness Live from Ben’s viewpoint Ben and other world-class business experts will be sharing insights live on stage at SuperFastBusiness Live 2017 – Join  them Download the PDF transcription Transcription: James: James Schramko here. Welcome back to SuperFastBusiness.com. It’s my absolute pleasure to introduce our guest today, Ben Katzaman from WandererBracelets.com. Welcome to the call. Ben: Thanks, James. Excited to be here. James: The reason for our call is in just a few weeks from the time of recording this, you’re heading over to Australia to talk about how to scale an e-commerce business at my SuperFastBusiness Live event, which we’ll also record, in case someone listening to this wants to catch up with that session. The real story behind your introduction to me is that we were sitting beside each other at a dinner in San Diego at Ezra Firestone’s conference afterwards, and you were just sharing with me this incredible journey you’ve been on with your own business. I said to you, “Please come and share this story with our audience.” There are a couple of things there. Firstly, a lot of people are, I think, trying to find out what they should do with their life or what they want to sell is a big, common question. In your case, it just was there. It was surrounding you, and you recognized it. So that was one part of it. The second part is, you’re quite a young man, and you’ve scaled a significant business producing hundreds of thousands of units, selling e-commerce, and you’ve got a large team. You have 40 people in your western team, the United States, and then you’ve got 150 people in your Bali team. So that’s a significant impact that you’re having on the universe in terms of creating stuff. So that’s how this came about. Today, we’re going to talk about what’s involved in growing a business quickly and at scale, but also, and most importantly, remotely. Because you’re not sitting in an office every day, are you Ben? Why work remote? Ben: No, I’m not. I’ve got an office in Florida now as we’ve grown. We just opened a full office a couple of weeks ago. But over the last two years since I started the business, I’ve spent a lot of time in Bali, Florida, Hawaii, Seattle, Oregon, San Diego, San Francisco, LA, Austin, New York, Australia, Bangkok, the Gili Islands. So I’ve spent more time remote than I have been in one place or with one team or the other. And that allows me to spend a lot of time with people I care about and meet people that I would never be able to meet otherwise, tap into new communities and nurture relationships.

In the video: 00:16 – Is this where you’re at? 00:55 – What OLB is 01:30 – The payoff of OLB Learn more about OLB when you join SuperFastBusiness membership Download the PDF Transcription Transcription: Hey, James here. I promised to make some videos this year. So today, I want to talk to you about the OLB strategy, which is going to help you a lot this year. So what does OLB stand for? I’ll get to that in just a minute. What’s your current situation? So the current situation that you may be in this is that you’re handling stuff like your emails, and your email broadcasts and stuff directly. Maybe you’re also editing and creating your content and then syndicating your content directly, maybe even running Facebook ads. Maybe you’re mucking around building your own website and leadpages. Maybe you’re handing customer support via inbox. What is OLB? If you’re doing all of these things, then you’re very, very direct. You’re going to find it hard to scale. These things don’t really scale. What I suggest you do is you go the OLB, which stands for One Layer Back. So now, you transfer all these things to somewhere else. “Transfer the things that don’t scale.” CLICK TO TWEET So for example, emails and support and looking after customers should be done through a support desk. So that’s one layer back from you. You should also be dealing with a team. Your team should be building your website or an outsourced supplier. And your team should be sending email broadcasts, and your team should be editing and syndicating content. So I deal with them in Slack and in GoToMeeting. So I am one layer back. OLB – One Layer Back. “Focus on what you really want to do.” CLICK TO TWEET The benefits So now, I can focus on the stuff that I really want to do, which is make the occasional video, do the occasional podcast, and then I give it to the team and let them do it. What does this mean? It means I can run my business from a mobile phone. I don’t need to have editing software, I don’t need to know how to use my CRM, I don’t need to know how to build a website, because the team is doing all of that stuff. I can outsource the help of a Facebook expert. I don’t need to know that either. I need to actually get rid of all of these tasks. I need to be one layer back from the action so that I can focus on the high-level stuff. So I hope you have more OLB for your year. If you enjoyed this video, let me know, so I might make you a few more. Grow your business faster and smarter with expert help from our community Enjoyed this episode? Be sure to comment on iTunes.

Video highlights: 00:38 – Are you keeping track? 01:34 – Why you should have a project system 01:57 – Make your next year a great one 02:15 – Two programs to look at Train your mind to set and achieve your goals Click HERE Develop a mindset for success CLICK HERE Download the PDF transcription Transcription: Hey, James Schramko here, and we are filming at Manly where I live, and I wanted to show you this. This is my surfboard. This is a tractor, and it’s the brand of JS. It’s not my name, it’s just coincidental. Track your progress In front of the tractor, you’ll see these little bars. This relates to progress. Every time I surf this board, I put a notch on the board. I’m actually creating this progress bar. My goal is to get to the end of this board. Why is that important? It’s important because I need to surf this board a lot to get good on it. I tend to switch boards around a fair bit, and my coach said he’d rather I stay on one board for a while. So as I learn and develop, I’m single-tasking or single-boarding. That progress bar is showing me where I’ve been. So if I’m getting frustrated, I just look at the bar and I think, well I’ve surfed in big waves, I’ve surfed in small waves, I’ve surfed at different beaches, and I can see where I’ve been. So I’m getting a sense of gratitude for all the work I’ve put in, and I also feel more confident, because the more notches I get on this board, like a Westerner in a gunfight, I’m actually going to get really confident on this board. “Be grateful for all the work you’ve put in.” CLICK TO TWEET When I go to big waves or hollow waves over reefs, I want to be confident on this board, and I want to surf well. So if we were to take this as a business metaphor, I do the exact same thing in my business. I actually create a project system. I archive things that I’ve achieved, so I can look back at them and see where I’ve come. I know where I want to be and how far it is. So I’ve got a specific point that I’m measuring to, and then I focus on that task. That’s been really effective for me. “Look back at things that you’ve achieved.” CLICK TO TWEET Two programs to look at Now I’ve been doing some hard work for you lately and reviewing some goal setting and action-oriented type programs because we’re at that time of the year in December where people start releasing these programs so that next year can be great. I just did a webinar about this in my own community. If you want to check out the links, I’ve put two links. There are two programs that are available right now. I’ve looked through the material, and they’re both good. One I would say is high performance and the other one is good for the general sort of introduction to the topic. So enjoy the content. Some of the trainings are really valuable, and they’re free. So if you’ll like that, then you’ll know enough to know if you want to get a course on this.