Social Media Business Hour with Nile Nickel

Marketing is all about making a connection. If you want to be successful in business, you need to create a “Genuine Handshake” between you and your prospect.

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs, start by building an online platform where like-minded people can get-together, share and engage with one another.
Check Out This Jam-Packed Podcast And Learn:
- Which FREE Tool Tracy recommends that helped her build her list and boost her connections
- 3 Essential Tips For Growing Your List Right NOW!
- Marketing's Biggest Problem And How To Overcome It
- Top 4 “Eye-Opening” Marketing Mistakes That You’ve Probably Already Made
- How To “Ace” Marketing Using Social Media

Tracy Moore is an accomplished marketing expert and business owner with 20 years of experience developing client relationships through marketing and sales. She has experience with firms from start-up, to mid-market, to Fortune 100 firms. A business owner of seven years, Tracy understands the challenges small businesses face. She grew her franchise territory to the second highest grossing location out of 100 territories using her strong marketing, sales, and networking skills.

As a Marketing Business Partner in the Hewlett Packard Strategic Sales Center, Tracy designed and implemented strategic marketing plans that helped HP win multi-million dollar pursuits with companies such as American Express, International Paper, Cardinal Health, and AlleganyEnergy.

Now combining her strong marketing expertise and understanding of growing a small business, Tracy is leading Marketing Eye Dallas. She is helping small to mid-sized business owners develop solid marketing strategies and initiatives and ultimately grow their business.

Tracy The Woman With A “Marketing Eye”

How did Tracy start leading the “Marketing Eye Dallas” Marketing Agency,  to it’s known success?  Marketing Eye originally started in Australia and founded by Melissa Smith, who grew the business so large making her irresistible, that even international clients wanted to partner with her. The same time that Melissa decided to bring her business in the United States, that is the exact time also that Tracy is getting ready to sell her business which she owns for seven years. Selling her business will ultimately make her passion for marketing a living and owning a marketing firm a reality.  Marketing Eye is a perfect fit for her. After many conversations with Melissa, Tracy became the first licensed franchised owner of Marketing Eye in the US.

Marketing Agency Owner Uses This One "Free Tool" To Build Her List And Boost Her Connections - And It’s Available To Almost Everyone

Tracy highlighted that marketing is all about making a connection.

It is a human to human interaction. If you want to be successful in this business, have a Genuine Handshake. Build an online platform where like-minded people can get together and engage with one another. Cultivate your community by being involved. Being involved offers you wonders, as it will lead to you having connections with people who you never thought were out there.  Tracy continues by saying, “If you want to connect and build a great list of connections, LinkedIn is a great starting point.”

Tracy’s Top 3 Essential Tips For Growing Your List That You Need To Start Using In Your Business Right NOW!

  • Make a Genuine Connection.

    Spend time in finding people who may be good alliance partners for you, people who have the a business that’s complementary to yours.  Create a solid connection with them in a way where leads can be shared. Just imagine having a TON of qualified leads and how they can help you grow your business.

  • Do not isolate yourself.

    Are you one of the many entrepreneurs who isolate themselves while running their business? You need to stop isolating yourself right now. Again, marketing is all about making a connection. You need to learn how to Interact with a wide variety of people. Consider changing the way you interact even with your employees-- you may be surprised that they can provide you with great and valuable ideas that will positively affect your business growth and help overcome huge challenges.

  • Maximize the use of social media

    Do you have your own social or community group, like LinkedIn or Facebook groups/pages?

Are you involved in or part of an online social media community page/group? If you don’t have one, start one or at least get involved starting today. Social media nowadays, offers the greatest platform for you to make a connection. It’s especially valuable for finding other entrepreneurs that you can share your ideas with and talk about your situation. You may learn how other successful entrepreneurs balance things in their life, grow past their challenges or even find a secret formula they’re using to grow their business.  

Being part of a community or group where you can learn, share and bounce your ideas off one another will make you realize, you’re not alone and will help keep you motivated and energized.

What Is Marketing’s Biggest Problem And How To Overcome It?


Being part of the marketing industry is difficult. In this interview, Tracy points out the biggest problem in this industry. What is that problem? Not all entrepreneurs are born marketers. Some are born “Sales People” who most of the time, perceive “Sales” as "Marketing".

In reality, sales is NOT the same thing as marketing.

Tracy says, “Before sales and marketing problems can be solved, you as an entrepreneur must face this fact first.”  Once you conquered this problem, only then that you can make the right decisions for your businesses.

4 Eye-Opening Marketing Challenges That You Didn't Know

Aside from the “biggest problem” in business previously mentioned, Tracy provides below, the top 4 challenges that marketers are facing right now.

  1. No Cash Generating Clients

    No one can run a business and have employees without great clients that makes cash flow possible. Choosing, attracting and keeping the right clients is an essential part of the business that every entrepreneur should not ignore.

  2. Marketing Know-Hows

     While running a small to medium sized business, sometimes, managing cash flow is also the responsibility of the business owner. If an entrepreneur doesn’t have a rock solid understanding of what marketing is, especially the constant shifting of client goals, then the company will suffer.  

  3. Don’t want to face the reality

     Face the reality that your business needs some marketing structure and flow. Meet with marketing agencies or marketing coaches who have proven successes and let them take a look at your business. They will make sure that you are on track and working within your budget. They can also help you stay in line with what you want to do or achieve in your business.

  4. Keep Yourself Positive

     Tracy considers this the biggest challenge of them all. Every entrepreneur needs to accept the fact that there will always be ups and downs. Sad to say, some failed with their business mainly because of losing their positive outlook, they just can’t keep up with the pressure.

How To Ace Your Marketing Strategy In Social Media

Do you want people to follow you? Do you want your business to be successful? Then follow Tracy’s Time Tested, Marketing Strategies...

  1. Consistency and Transparency

     You need to ask yourself, How often do I post on my social media pages? If the answer is not so often, It’s time to check your social media strategy. Tracy highlighted that as an entrepreneur may want things to always be updated and always connected. Sending out consistent and transparent messages across all of your social media profiles, all the time, is very important.  We have to focus on building a platform where top of the mind awareness is being practiced and people can respond genuinely, engage with you by sharing insights...and where most importantly, they can make a connection with you. Try to get your followers to not just share or like your post, but also really connect with you. It’s important for them to leave valuable comments or great insights on your posts. Consistency and building your audience might take some serious time and effort, but once people are engaged and responding to you, then it’s all worth it.

  2. Love to hate Spamming

    Always have an awareness. Make sure that what you’re sending out is not spam. Tracy explains, if you’re making connections, we have to learn how to connect the right way and not just the “spam” way.

Social Media Tip (Tracy highly recommends LinkedIn, which is a great way to connect with people and make alliances for networking, sales and finding new clients, etc)

How To Have The Same Marketing Eye Like Tracy

If you want to have the same marketing eye as Tracy’s, start connecting and be engage with her now. What sort of services she offers? Tracy can help you mostly with everything about Marketing and PR. From branding to websites, to content development, creating blogs, checking your existing marketing strategy and improving it and a lot more. Everything that falls under the marketing umbrella, she can help you. 

Tracy can be contacted via her website at marketingeyedallas.com.

specialoffer

Tracy’s Irresistible Special Offer That You Have To Grab Now

She is offering a two hours, no obligation marketing discussion, where you can sit down with her and she will look at your marketing strategy. If you’re not in the Dallas area, get her special offer and you can discuss everything through Skype. If you’re in the Dallas area, good news, she can meet you. She will take a look at your social media, your web, branding, logo and we’ll also do a little bit of analysis on how that compares your other competitors in the industry, the people that you’re competing against and Tracy will let you know your business holes and gaps, including the areas that you can revisit and strengthen to improve your marketing.

 

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Tracy:              Hi. This is Tracy Moore with Marketing eye Dallas. This is social media hour with Nile and Jordan and we’re going to be talking about growing your business through social media today.

Woman:          In business and know the way forward most include social media. Perhaps you find it a bit confusing. Even frustrating. Well, you have no idea how to make it work for your business. Fear not. We interview some of the best social media experts in business who will share their experiences, ideas and knowledge. Plus offer tips and tricks to make using social media a breeze. Leverage the power of social media and grow your business now. Welcome to social media business hour with your host Nile Nickel.

Jordan:            Hello and thank you again for joining us. This is Nile’s trusty sidekick and co-host Jordan and I’d like to take a moment to share with you how you can benefit from Nile’s incredible experience using social media for real business success. If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking about starting your own business then using social media might be the most cost effective and time effective way to get your business real results. That’s not to mention much of what you can do to get those terrific results on social media is even free. Take Linked In for example. Nile always says it’s the best social media platform for business today. And that’s why I recommend you go to linkedinfocus.com and start your social media education today. Sign up for Nile’s free tips, tricks and strategies. Once again, it’s free and it only takes a few seconds. Go to linkedinfocus.com today. You’ll be glad you did.

Nile:                 Jordan, I always enjoy our different news, different views segments. I still haven’t got used to the label that my wife has given it and I know we officially renamed it but --

Jordan:            Yeah. What’s wrong -- what do you not like about weird ass news?

Nile:                 I just have trouble with that ass part in it even though I’ve got an ass hat. Don’t know. I’ll work on it. Okay?

Jordan:            You’ve got to get over that.

Nile:                 I know. I know. I so much do. Well, we have a great guest tonight. You heard from the tease at the beginning. We’ve got Tracy Moore with us and Tracy is a marketing expert and business owner extraordinaire. She’s got over 20 years of experience developing client relationships through marketing and sales. I have to say something Jordan. I hear this all the time and Tracy knows that I like to make fun of bios.

Jordan:            Okay.

Nile:                 People can make fun of mine all over the place. But I hear this developing client relationships. You know what I think of? I think of that big piece of apparatus that they used to have in the -- like pharmacy CVS, Walgreens, whatever that developed photographs. We dump our clients in and they come out all developed. Don’t you wish it was that easy Tracy?

Tracy:              Oh, I do. I wish it was that easy. Yeah. Not all of them develop so well.

Nile:                 Exactly. Well, she has experience with firms from startups to mid market to fortune 100 firms. That’s a lot of ground to cover. And as a business owner of seven years Tracy understands the challenges that small businesses like so many of our listeners face every day. She grew her franchise territory to the second highest grossing location out of 100 territories using her strong marketing skills, sales and networking skills. We like to talk about networking skills because we like to talk about Linked In and I know when we were talking before we started the interview today you talked a little bit about Linked In Tracy so I know that we’ll be talking about that today.

Tracy:              Good. I love Linked In.

Nile:                 So as a marketing business partner in the Hewlett and Packard strategic sales center -- I know. It’ll get better before the end of the show.

Tracy:              Tongue twister.

Nile:                 That’s right. Tracy designed and implemented strategic marketing plans that helped HP win multimillion dollar pursuits with companies such as American Express, International paper, Cardinal health and Allegheny energy. So now combining her strong marketing expertise and the understanding of growing a small business Tracy is leading Marketing eye Dallas. Okay Tracy, so Marketing eye Dallas. Where did that name come from?

Tracy:              So it’s not mine. Though I think it’s actually a good name. Marketing eye actually started in Australia so it’s basically targeted small and medium size businesses. The founder Melisa Smith started the business about eight to nine years ago. She grew it very large in Australia. She had some international clients. Came -- she had a couple of clients in New York and decided to start and bring the business here to the US and Atlanta about two and a half years ago. I knew that I was getting ready to sell the business that I had been running for seven years and that I always wanted to go ahead and start my own marketing firm. I started doing some research to see exactly -- I sort of knew what format I was wanting to do and what type of marketing firm but I just wanted to see -- do my research, figure out what’s out there, what models I liked. I came across Marketing eye. I really liked it. I thought it was a good fit for where my experience was, where my knowledge was and the kind of clients I like to work with and there is a little piece on the Marketing eye site that said they were looking for licensees so after many Skype conversations across the pond Melisa and I talked and I am licensee number one in the United States.

Nile:                 Oh, that’s pretty cool.

Tracy:              Yeah. so that’s how I got started and I had been a franchisee for years with a company that has lots of franchisees and I said this will be good because I kind of know a little bit about how the structure will go and she has a great model so that’s how we started working together.

Nile:                 Sounds great. well, I know right now you’re helping a number of small to medium size business owners develop solid marketing strategies and initiatives to help them grow their business and I think that’s a great thing especially with the experience you have. But when I look at your experience, you’re the mother of two, you’ve got a 13 year old and you’ve got a 10 year old.

Tracy:              Yes.

Nile:                 So you’re a mother, a wife and a small business owner. What? Are you crazy? I mean, do you still have hair left?

Tracy:              Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It’s really crazy and then going into the teenage years kind of makes it even a little bit more scary. So yeah. That’s a lot to handle. It always seems really good on paper but then when you live it sometimes some days are more challenging than others.

Nile:                 Well, I have a nine year old daughter and she was talking to me this weekend and she looked into my eyes very seriously -- in fact Jordan, I haven’t told you this story yet. She looked at me and she said dad, you know what? And her -- we call her Liberty. I said no. what Liberty? And she goes you know, puberty really sucks. So with a 13 year old and a 10 year old guess what I -- I understand where you’re at and I agree with her. Puberty sucks.

Jordan:            From the mouths of babes.

Tracy:              Yes, yes.

Nile:                 I figured that was her bit of wisdom that comes into the podcast this week. But let me ask you a question just before we really get started and we get heavy into things. What’s the one thing do you think that most people don’t know about you but that’s sort of fascinating and interesting at least to you? That’s a hard question, isn't it?

Tracy:              Yeah. It is a very hard question. I’m trying to think what would be most interesting. Obviously I was going to say I get bored easily because I keep starting businesses and I don’t generally jump to new companies a lot but I do start new ideas which is kind of why it’s fun to work with other businesses because I can just pretend I’m their marketing person and I get a lot of them and it keeps me very active. I mean, I just -- I guess I never really intended for this to be my journey I guess. I always thought that I was going to end up to be a college professor and it just -- that’s not the -- I -- that was my intent all along was to be a professor and now I’m a business owner so kind of a different trail that I went down but I kind of like it.

Nile:                 Well, we could call you a professor of practical business applications now.

Tracy:              Yeah. I’ll take that.

Nile:                 There we go. I haven’t answered that question for most people Jordan but I’ve been thinking about it.

Jordan:            Okay.

Nile:                 Because I talked to you about it a little bit today but the thing that I think most people would find surprising about me because I think in today’s world it’s unusual and that is that I always have two silver dollars in my pocket.

Jordan:            Yes. Yes, you do.

Nile:                 How many people carry silver dollars anymore?

Jordan:            Just weird ones.

Nile:                 Just weird -- well, I have one that’s a money clip but i have one that’s the same year as my oldest son’s birth.

Jordan:            Okay.

Nile:                 And so I just find that fascinating. It’s just sort of a neat thing. So we talk about some weird things that people would find interesting and they’d never know but I’ve never asked you Jordan.

Jordan:            Why I carry silver dollars around?

Nile:                 We’ll leave you alone for now. We’ll get to the interesting part. Tracy’s far more interesting than you.

Jordan:            And cuter.

Nile:                 Much cuter.

Jordan:            Yes.

Nile:                 Much cuter.

Jordan:            Yeah.

Nile:                 I can look at her picture and smile. I’ll leave that alone with you. So you use social media a lot in your businesses and we talked about that just a bit. What do you use and why?

Tracy:              So I had an art business. I still actually have it but -- going into the hand off stages. But with that business I used Facebook and anytime that you’re doing a B to C it’s a really great way to communicate to people and I used it as a communication tool. Letting people know when we were going to have art classes, what children were drawing, things that they may be interested in from a family standpoint so if there was an art festival that was going on I’d add in a little bit of information if I knew about something and I thought it was a really great thing that they might be interested in doing because they had children and I had children. And I think it was -- and I’ll come back to this several times. It’s always about making a connection with people. They want to see a human side, they want to -- they don’t want to look at something that seems static or is boring. That isn't a way to engage people, it’s not a way for people to want to share anything that you have and it’s also not a way for them to respond back. When people did respond back so that they love the pitcher that a child drew or grandma wrote oh, good job Johnny. We would chime in and a lot of times we would really encourage the teacher because I don’t -- I run the business but not teach the classes. The teacher to say we had so much fun in that class. It’s just a nice way to connect. Working now in a marketing business where we do so much from a B to B standpoint Linked In is terrific because once again you make those connections, you can talk back and forth, you can comment on people’s posts, they can comment on yours. And once again you are basically making a handshake to people, having a conversation with them and engaging them. when people just post really boring stuff or they just keep reposting other people’s stuff but they don’t make any comments that’s really boring and not very engaging and no one will want to engage with them so really what you’re doing is -- like we’re doing here is you want to have a conversation. Twitter works both from a B to B and a B to C standpoint so those are the three primary ones. I should probably get myself a little more on Instagram. My kids go at me all the time because they love Instagram but -- which -- but if you have a visual business Instagram is terrific for that.

Jordan:            Well, let’s talk about those. But first let’s go back -- I want to talk about the art classes that you were talking about earlier. What kind of art was it by the way?

Tracy:              It was drawing so visual drawing skills for children three and a half to 12.

Jordan:            Oh, that’s cool. Okay. And did you build a website for that?

Tracy:              So the website -- it’s a franchise organization. There is a franchise or -- and then you have what they call mini sites and that’s a great way for you to be able to optimize your site so when people were looking for locations in the North Dallas area they could find me. So I manipulated it a little bit but I didn’t necessarily create it.

Jordan:            Okay. Good, good. So I guess the point that I was driving to is that you didn’t spend a whole bunch of time trying to cultivate your list? I mean, that’s really what we’re talking about is getting a list of people who are likeminded, who have similar interests. You went to social media to really cultivate that list. I mean, it sounds like you had a micro site but it was really kind of just to use it because it was there and why not, right. But you didn’t spend thousands of dollars building up a site to build your community and your list. You went to social media and you cultivated it there first.

Tracy:              Exactly. And then on every communication I would send out I would have the Facebook link and then you want to go ahead and when you get people in -- and once you get involve you want them to share it with other people and that’s kind of how you can cultivate that.

Jordan:            Yeah. I absolutely love it. and by the way Nile, I mean, how many entrepreneurs do we run into where it never occurs to them that all they really have to do is build a Facebook page or a Facebook group or maybe a Linked In group and then just go and get those hot prospects or those people who are part of their community and just get them to engage with them there instead of spending all the money getting a website built and business cards and whatever else. You could start a lot easier.

Nile:                 You absolutely can and I so much like what Tracy said here because what she’s talked about is engagement and we know how critical it is to engage with people. It’s just -- it’s one of the most overlooked things that happen today so when we look at the engagement we know it’s critical but she talked about building her list through it, she talked about communication so I know all of those things absolutely were critical and part of what Tracy was doing to build her business. And so I can't wait to hear how she built her business and what her challenges were in our very next segment.

Jordan:            Hello and thank you again for joining us. This is Nile’s trusty sidekick and co-host Jordan and I’d like to take a moment to share with you how you can benefit from Nile’s incredible experience using social media for real business success. If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking about starting your own business then using social media might be the most cost effective and time effective way to get your business real results. That’s not to mention much of what you can do to get those terrific results on social media is even free. Take Linked In for example. Nile always says it’s the best social media platform for business today. And that’s why I recommend you go to linkedinfocus.com and start your social media education today. Sign up for Nile’s free tips, tricks and strategies. Once again, it’s free and it only takes a few seconds. Go to linkedinfocus.com today. You’ll be glad you did.

Nile:                 Hey Jordan.

Jordan:            Nile.

Nile:                 Our first segment was so great I can't wait to hear more from Tracy and what she’s done to build her business but Tracy one of the things that I’m really curious about is I know that every time that somebody starts off and you’d mentioned in the first segment for that matter; you’d mentioned how you really always thought you’d be a college professor. Obviously there were a number of things that happened along the way that changed your path. You’ve had some challenge. What have been the most difficult lessons you’ve learned in this process and challenges in building the business you’ve been building?

Tracy:              Well, I mean, with any business I think there’s a lot of challenges. I went to a school that was all about entrepreneurship and undergrad and I remember the one thing that they told us which always will come back to me and it’s so true is cash flow is king. I mean, you must have cash flow client. You can't run a business and have employees without some clients and cash flow coming in. so that was -- that’s always been a big issue with every business that I’d had. I’d try to make sure that I’ve always kind of padded the amount that I need because I worked in the corporate environment for years so I would go to work, they would pay me, that’s how it worked out. Now, working for myself I work really, really hard. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer to get paid than other times. And then there’s always also trying to always find that balance so you -- work starts coming in, you’re like great, this is terrific, I’ve got lots of work coming in, I have to hire someone new but you don’t want to hire someone that’s really great but maybe the work goes away because you have to make sure that there’s always that balance. So I think with any business owner that’s always one of the biggest challenges and I think the other big challenge is just staying really positive because the business has ups and downs. Sometimes you take it a little bit personal but it’s always business and so I kind of try to come back to -- okay. What would I do if I was running someone else’s business? How would I respond to the things that go on? But at the end of the day I pretty much put my heart and soul into the businesses that I run.

Nile:                 Well, no. I could also see how cash flow is so critical in that process too. But you mentioned something in that explanation balance and clearly you have a lot to balance. You’re a business owner, you’re a mother, you’re a husband -- you’re a husband. You’re a wife. You’ve got a lot to balance there. Do you really think that there’s such a thing as balance in being a business owner or for that matter in life today?

Tracy:              I think as soon as you achieve it it kind of slips and everything changes. Kind of like raising children, right. So as soon as you get used to pre puberty, clean years, then they go into your teen years. Same thing about -- as soon as you get them to sleep at night then they start walking all day. So it’s -- I mean, I think the same thing with business. I mean, as soon as you get everything balanced then you’re like oh, gosh. What’s -- and now I need more clients and then that’s more clients come in and everything gets a little bit more hectic and you’re like oh. And then you get that all under control. So no. I mean, I think it’s an ongoing struggle. there’s a couple of things though that I do that just sort of help me and one of those things is I kind of structure my business so that there’s certain times that I spend with my family and those are family times so it doesn’t seep in too much into all of my personal life and then also I exercise. I run, I do pilates, I do yoga. It’s not that I’m exercise clean. It’s just that it’s nice just to have a little bit of time that is mine and it’s away from the phone and it’s away from the computer and it’s away from anyone asking me a question so that’s always nice.

Nile:                 That makes perfect, perfect sense and I think those are absolutely great tips for trying to get some of the balance that you’ve got to achieve. So let’s jump back into the business side and the social media part of the business that you do. Clearly you help a lot of businesses with their marketing so and you’re talking about what to do with social media so how about we talk about the do’s and dont’s but let’s talk about the do’s first. If you were to give a client sort of the high level advice. Maybe 10000 foot advice on what they should be doing with social media as a sales tool what would your advice be?

Tracy:              Well, you want to have some consistency, you want things to link together, you want to have a consistent message, you want to have consistency in how often you put information out on social media so something people tell me they use social media and then I ask how many blogs they’ve written and then they’re like one. Six months ago. And how many times have you tweeted or how many times have you posted something on Linked In? Well, I did once and no one responded or liked it. So it really has to -- there has to be a consistency because what you’re doing is you’re basically showing up. you want to build that top of mind awareness but you also want people to get to know you and people don’t get to know you if they’ve only seen you one time so definitely be consistent and then make connections and connections go two ways so if you want people to comment on the things that you post you need to be able to be engaging other people as well and the things that they’re posting.

Nile:                 Yeah. I think that’s great advice. The consistency thing is so big. And I see so many people that say hey, I’m a blogger. And you’re right. They’ve published one blog. I guess that’s sort of like a virgin. You’re only a virgin once. I don’t know. That’s sort of my whacky mind. Maybe a way to remember. You’ve to have consistency in doing this. Just because you’ve done it once doesn't change your title. Well, that’s the do’s. What about the dont’s?

Tracy:              Okay. So the dont’s are -- yeah. Don’t be annoying I guess is one of the things. I mean, and when I say that I mean make sure that you don’t over tweet, over share information so Linked In is a very -- is a great place to share great business advice and it’s nice to be human, show a little personal side but you don’t want to expose yourself to everyone because no one is interested in that and even on Facebook. So Facebook is a place where a lot of times people are very exposed but if you’re handing a business _____33:48 a little bit. Also make sure that what you’re sending out is not just really spamming so if you’re making connections on Linked In which is a great way to connect with -- making alliances, networking, sales, finding new clients, sending messages. That’s a terrific way to do it but when you make those connections you need to have read their profile, looked at their website and make a personal comment to them that connects you and shows that you actually took a little bit of time and you’re not sending the same email to them that you sent to a 100 other people.

Nile:                 Such a good piece of advice. I have a friend that will remain nameless now. I actually have more than one friend but this particular friend -- well, it goes back to that annoying part. I might press some buttons there. Who knows? But this particular friend is just getting ready to release a book and it will be out just a little bit later in the fall and I saw his post about it earlier today and I commented on it and he liked the comment and he immediately sent a comment back and then I went to look at his feed and he had probably at the time I looked at it maybe 30 comments in his feed and he had responded to every single one of them.

Jordan:            Oh, good for him. Good for him.

Nile:                 That goes with the engagement. It really goes with the connection, carrying on the conversation and all of that. so I like your advice there but one of the things that everybody talks about today is being transparent and so how do we manage this transparency especially on a site like Linked In that’s sort of a stiff business professional site? And I love Linked In but Linked In is a little bit more that way. How do we manage the transparency without crossing the boundaries?

Tracy:              Well, I mean, I think there -- yeah. There’s always those rules of what -- politics and religion shouldn’t be there. Things that you would say when you go to a networking event -- sometimes there’s a great story that you can tell but it’s not so insanely personal. I think that there’s other places to be really personal. Oh, and I’m going to add this one thing because it just drives me nuts. But it is a very professional place so that your photo should be this -- should be professional and then on your personal Facebook page you can have a picture of yourself at a party and that’s totally fine because everybody will say oh, yeah. I was there too. But that shouldn’t be your Linked In photo. That’s also being a little bit overly open. But I do think it’s a gray line and I’ve talked to a lot of bloggers who write blogs and there’s this gray line that you kind of need to walk because nobody wants to read a blog that reads like something a professor would’ve -- going back to the being a professor. That sounds like something that you would read in a classroom. You want it to be engaging, you want it to be fun, you want there to be a story and you want someone to seem kind of human but you also don’t want to know all the skeletons that are in the closet.

Nile:                 No. That makes perfect sense and I think I could go with that. one of the things that I found that’s interesting -- I’m a real analytical guy and I like to look at the analytics on social media and clearly politics just don’t play in social media at all. They have a very strong negative taint that they bring to your post as analytics show. But the one thing that surprised me is because sometimes you could put religious post up there and I know I look at them and I may not highly of them one way or another but the religious posts as far as the analytics go don’t seem to affect the way people interact or view you.

Tracy:              Yeah. That might be true.

Nile:                 Yeah. So politics, bad spelling, bad grammar -- I’m dead already. And cursing. Those are the things that really tend to pull somebody’s social media post down. So I find that interesting and your comments are great on that. I want to ask you a quick question. We’ve only got a couple of minutes left in this segment but -- and we may have to carry from this segment to the next segment with the answer and that’s okay but you talk about growing your business through networking on social media. What’s sort of the big tip that you could give our listeners as a takeaway from that?

Tracy:              Well, I think it’s just good to go find other people who may be a good alliance for you so who do a business that’s complementary to yours, one where you can share leads. Also as an entrepreneur a lot of times you feel a little isolated so you’re running a business, you may have employees but you don’t have anyone who you can share ideas on growth or challenges so I’ve also used social media to find other entrepreneurs that I can talk to and say well, how do you handle this situation or how do you balance these things and it’s just as nice because then you feel like you have some -- a group that you can learn from, bounce ideas off of and not feel so alone on the entrepreneurial journey.

Nile:                 This segment Jordan has been power packed. We’ve talked about cash flow, balance, consistency, one of the do’s that you want to do, making connections and connections are sort of a two way street. Man, just so many things and it’s always neat when we get that heavy into something like that and it’s just so power packed. So this is definitely a segment that people want to go back to and listen to over and over again. Hey listen, we’ll be right back. Join us on our next segment.

Jordan:            Hello and thank you again for joining us. This is Nile’s trusty sidekick and co-host Jordan and I’d like to take a moment to share with you how you can benefit from Nile’s incredible experience using social media for real business success. If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking about starting your own business then using social media might be the most cost effective and time effective way to get your business real results. That’s not to mention much of what you can do to get those terrific results on social media is even free. Take Linked In for example. Nile always says it’s the best social media platform for business today. And that’s why I recommend you go to linkedinfocus.com and start your social media education today. Sign up for Nile’s free tips, tricks and strategies. Once again, it’s free and it only takes a few seconds. Go to linkedinfocus.com today. You’ll be glad you did.

Nile:                 Wow Jordan, we’re already into segment three of our interview on the social media business hour with Tracy.

Jordan:            Time flies while you’re having fun.

Nile:                 Tracy you are such an awesome guest. You’ve given such great information. I’m blown away quite personally so thank you.

Tracy:              Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Nile:                 Well, it’s great to be here. but I think you’ve got so much more to share and one of the things that we want to know -- I know you’ve got a special offer for some of our listeners as well so we’ll talk about that when we get to the end of the segment here but we talked about how you could grow your business through networking on social media. You gave us some great tips in the last segment. One of the things I loved was you talked about finding complementary businesses that you could share leads with or anything. I’m curious. Can you expand that just a bit and maybe give us some examples that you’ve used?

Tracy:              Yeah. So I’m always looking for people that i can help solve of issue that they may have, right. A gap in their business, something that they’re needing. So there’s a couple I’ve reached out and been working with some venture capitalists so what they do a lot of times is they decide whether or not they’re going to invest in a company and they’re usually great financial and ops people so they go in and they can run all the numbers and look at where a business should be but one of the areas that they generally aren’t as strong in is in the marketing and the market analysis. So I’ll go in and be able to do an analysis of where the market sits, where the market’s going, growing, where that particular businesses in comparison to others in the industry. We break it down with all the different marketing elements and then we can relay that information back. Another thing that we do for venture capitalists is when they do decide that they’re going to invest in a company most generally they need an infusion of marketing so they need either rebranding. A lot of them need new websites because their websites are old. They need to be optimized, social media, all of those things. What we’ve found is a lot of these businesses are actually -- have -- were very strong, did very well for years, the owners are older as they transfer to more millenials or a younger generation. Some of those things that you need now. Social media, really great website for inbound marketing. They just don’t currently exist. So that’s where we can jump in. I’ve also found people who do the same thing that I do. They outsource HR services so if someone needs HR services a lot of times they’ll also need marketing services so we work with the same types of businesses and the same types of people who say hey, I don’t really want to bring in a full staff. I would really like to have you either come in and supplement the staff that I have or be my entire department. So that’s been really helpful because you can share those leads and you do a similar type of business or you fill a need that someone needs.

Nile:                 Well, I like the idea of looking at synergistic businesses too. I heard you say that and it makes sense. If somebody’s got to outsource marketing and they’re looking at branding and new websites and all of that type stuff it’s sort of -- it makes sense that they might need to outsource some other things like HR services for example. A perfect, perfect idea. I really appreciate that illustration as well. So now we’ve got through the do’s and dont’s of social media, we’ve got through some of the ways to grow your business through networking on social media. How do you best target these specific groups that you’re talking about using social media? And I’m curious if Linked In is your golden tool or if you use other things as well.

Tracy:              Well, Linked In is my favorite so -- and Linked In is great because you can actually go through -- I think sometimes you have to purchase a little bit higher package but once you do you can go in and sort exactly what you’re looking for so you can find the size of business, the industry and then you can look at the different individuals. A lot of times what I’ll do is I’ll look through, I’ll go check out their website, I can read their profile so I know a little bit more about them and then I can determine whether or not I might be able to help them. So that’s a great way from an outbound standpoint that you can find people and -- so I like Linked In in that way. Twitter, you can always go -- there’s always following other followers so you can look and say there is a business that may be complementary to yours, maybe your competitors but you can always go and follow those followers and then start making connections in that regard. With Linked In it’s a little bit more direct and you can definitely kind of stick out your hand to do a handshake so that’s a little bit faster than Twitter but I know that Twitter can be very successful just for making those communications. Most generally, when I start making the communications on Twitter I jump over and also connect with those people on Linked In.

Nile:                 I use Linked In the same way and I think it’s great for everybody to use it. It surprises me how many people don’t. So great advice there and --

Tracy:              And like with any other marketing you have to connect with multiple people so a lot of times I meet with people and I ask them if they’ve used it in that manner and they say well, I did and I contacted two people and they didn’t respond back and -- like well, that’s because you only contacted two people. You have to contact -- sometimes it takes quite a few people to find people who are wanting your services or who are engaged on Linked In. so just because they’re out there doesn’t mean that they’re engaged even though it should ping over to their email. But it’s also like going to a networking event. If you went to a networking event and you talked to two people and left or a party and you only talk to two people you may not have very much fun or meet anybody very interesting so sometimes you’ve got to talk to a few more people to find the people that are interesting that you want to connect with.

Nile:                 I hear that advice so many times and you know my weird mind Jordan. I always get different thoughts with it. But I always come back to networking being so much like personal relationships, like dating and can you imagine only asking two people out on dates in your life? Because one of the two -- you’re looking for your potential partner but you’re only going to ask two of them.

Jordan:            Yeah, yeah.

Nile:                 How many people would remain single forever?

Jordan:            Yeah. That’s a good point. I wonder why people do that because you and I both have heard that kind of story over and over again. Do you think it’s fear? Do you think people are just generally afraid of putting themselves out there?

Nile:                 I do. I do. I think after you’ve done it a 100 times -- at that point in time I think you’re comfortable about it and you’ve sort of just -- you go with the flow, you’re having fun with it.

Jordan:            How about you Tracy? Do you think there are any other emotions wrapped up in that?

Tracy:              I mean, I think there’s two reasons. I mean, one I think is fear. Yeah. There’s always that I was rejected by two people and then also I think people are expecting that -- well, I reached out to someone. Why didn’t they reach out to me. Now, generally the people who tell me this that they’ve reached out to two people when we start getting contacts and we start connecting with people on Linked In I’ll tell them oh, well, we’ve had five people respond to you and here’s what they say and they’re usually like oh, I’m not interested in at least four of them. Well, likewise. It’s a -- it works the same way. So it’s also like if you’re driving down the street and you’re hungry and you see all these signs for all this different food, right. You’re not going to stop at all of them hopefully. So you pick the ones that you think are going to be a good fit for you and so if a client isn't -- if I’m not a right fit for them well, they’re probably not a right fit for me so what we want to have is a really good, strong working relationship that’s successful for both of us.

Nile:                 You looked at my profile picture on Linked In, didn’t you? I know. Because talking about those fast food restaurants and stopping at every one of them. Just saying.

Jordan:            You just don’t want those business owners to feel bad that you passed by them and didn’t give them any business.

Nile:                 That’s really what it is. Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried this but have you ever done a fast food gourmet meal? That’s where you figure out who has the absolute best French fries or onion rings, whatever it may be. The best burger or a taco or whatever it may be and you end up going to five or six of these to prepare the perfect fast food gourmet -- you’ve never done that?

Jordan:            Only in America.

Nile:                 Only in America.

Jordan:            Only in America.

Nile:                 Well listen, after all of this fun and frivolity I know a lot of people would like to engage with you. What sort of services do you offer and how do people best engage with you?

Tracy:              So we’re a full service marketing firm meaning that we can do everything from branding to websites to content development, blogs, your traditional marketing collateral, PR. So basically everything that falls under that marketing umbrella we can do for them. They can contact us on our website at marketingeyedallas.com so we’re really easy to find.

Nile:                 Now the eye is E-Y-E? Not just the letter I?

Tracy:              E-Y-E. Yeah. So it’s like the eye, like seeing. So basically what we are is we’re your marketing eye. We take a look at your marketing, find out where the holes are and then we keep watch to make sure that everything is consistent, running smoothly and working to the best that it can.

Nile:                 And of course we share all these links out on social media business hour so everybody could always go to social media business hour and find all of the links that you’re talking about. Now, one of the things that you’ve done is you’ve got a special offer for our listeners. Now, I want to tell our listeners right up front. I think she’s crazy. I mean, I think she’s totally crazy. So I’m not even going to talk about the special offer. I’m going to let you talk about it because I’m not claiming any liability here. I think you’re doing something that is just tremendously powerful and valuable for any listener that would like to take you up on the offer so could you tell us a little bit about that?

Tracy:              Yeah. So we are offering two hours, no obligation for us to sit down and look at your marketing. So if you’re not in the Dallas area we can Skype. If you’re in the Dallas area we can meet but what we’ll do is we’ll look at your social media, your web, your branding, your logo and we’ll also do a little bit of analysis on how that compares to maybe some of the other competitors in the industry and the people that you’re competing against and let you know kind of where those holes and gaps are and what areas that you could strengthen to improve your marketing. So many times that our clients -- marketing is not the business that they’re in so they think that things are going really well and then we turn down and we say things aren’t really going as well. we have a client who gave us all of their social media the other day and we realized that some other social media’s a little negative so we want to make sure that we’re turning that around and figure out how to change that. Sometimes we found that we have clients who have multiple Twitter accounts and they had no idea so some are dying and they’re splitting their people -- splitting their followers. So we can go ahead and take a look and find out where there might be some issues and where there is definitely opportunity for improvement.

Nile:                 Well, we will have the links for that special offer on our website at socialmediabusinesshour.com. I think that is quite generous. I know that there are so many marketing firms that -- for that type of sort of consult you could easily pay a 1000 dollars or more so I think that that is a huge offer Tracy and as the host of the show I thank you so much because I love when our listeners get great value out of the show. So thank you so much for that.

Tracy:              Thanks. I love helping businesses though.

Nile:                 Well, I know that they’re going to love what you can do for them and to our listeners, I’d like to thank you for joining us on the social media business hour. Hopefully you learned a few new ideas or concepts. Maybe you were just reminded of a few things you already know but you haven’t been doing to improve or grow your business. Our desire is that you take just one of the things that you learned or were reminded of today and you apply it to your business this week. We know that a small change can make a big difference. I’m committed to bringing you at least one new idea each week that you could implement so go back and listen to either segment one, two or three. Maybe all three of them. Identify just one small change that you could make to your business this week and see what a big difference it will make for you. So until next week, this is Nile Nickel. Now, go make it happen.

Woman:         Social media business hour is powered by linkedinfocus.com. For show notes, updates and to pick up the latest tips and tricks head over to socialmediabusinesshour.com. Until next time. Thanks for listening.

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Weblinks:

Website: www.marketingeyedallas.com
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/marketingeye
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracymooremktg
Twitter: @marketingeyeus / @tracy.mooremktg

 

 

Direct download: SMBH_119_-_Tracy_Moore_-_FINAL.mp3
Category:SMBH Weekly Episodes -- posted at: 8:00pm EDT

Do you ever wonder how successful entrepreneurs streamline their businesses?

In this wonderful interview, Natalie Sisson shares with us her magic formula for creating freedom and success through streamlining everything about her business.

It takes most entrepreneurs a long time to get this right, if they ever get it and Natalie openly admits, took her awhile to figure out, too.  Save yourself time and frustration – join us for some great business advice:

-Top 3 Stages For Building A “Freedom Lifestyle” Business
- How One Entrepreneur Can Live Out Of A Suitcase And Still Be Successful
- Natalie’s Magic Formula For Success
- Timeless Business Advice From An Entrepreneur Who’s “Been There”
- How To Leave Your Legacy Intact

 

Natalie Sisson is No #1 bestselling author, podcaster, speaker and adventurer who believes everybody has the right to choose freedom in business and adventure in life. Shes on a mission to ensure 100,000+ entrepreneurs do just that by 2020 over at the SuitcaseEntrepreneur.com

Born in New Zealand Natalies built her multiple six figure business from her laptop over the last 5 years while living out of her suitcase, traveling to 70 countries and showing others how to build a profitable online freedom business that supports their ideal lifestyle through her definitive Freedom Plan program.

A Mission Of Freedom And Adventure…

Natalie is on a mission. Her mission is to ensure that 1,00000+ entrepreneurs will have their well-deserved freedom with their businesses and an adventure in their life by Year 2020.

She provides some terrific resources at suitcaseentrepreneur.com.

Natalie's Magic Formula For Success

Do you ever wonder how successful entrepreneurs streamline their business? In this interview Natalie shares with us the magic formula for creating freedom and success, which she admits, took her awhile to figure out.

What is that magic formula? The answer isn’t as simple as just one thing BUT if there was one very important element that stands above all others, it is  DISCIPLINE. She tells us that the more disciplined you are around your team, the more disciplined and organized your team is.

Just watch.  As you become more disciplined, you’ll see your team change in the way they take care of your business.

Natalie’s “Sexy Operating Procedures”

Natalie further said, because she and her team work with discipline and strictly follow her protocol (named “The Sexy Operating Procedures”) she can take as much time off as she wants (within reason) and still be confident that her business will still make money.

Even without her being physically there, her business still operates just fine.  

If You’ve Ever Wondered How To Do It, Then Just Ask Some One Who Already Has...

Natalie has found what she absolutely loves.  She is able to travel around the world, taking on new coaching clients and leisurely write new blog entries... all because of her supreme confidence in having built a tremendous business.

Success Isn’t Always Easy

Knowing she wanted an awesome lifestyle, Natalie committed herself with incredible discipline, to building her community, portfolio of products & programs.

Natalie’s Timeless Business Advice

Her one piece of advice, live and breath what you preach. If you focus and discipline yourself into just one thing that you truly love, the rewards will be wonderful.  Don’t forget to put a lot of effort and fun into it.

Make sure you make an effort to build a business around people who  appreciate what you offer, your work and share the same vision.

Find people who want to have the same adventure and share the same definition of freedom as you do.  

Why Would YOU Want To Live A Suitcase Life

Natalie describes herself as an entrepreneur who is Rich and Homeless. She is living a “suitcase life”. Natalie does indeed own a house and she doesn’t care about what other people think of, her property and belongings. All Natalie cares about is that her place is enjoyable, where her guests can feel comfortable  and welcome.

She believes that material things really don’t matter.

Even if you have the fanciest car, the most incredible sofa, the most amazing artwork hanging on your wall, none of this stuff matters.

How To Leave Your Legacy Intact

Natalie shares with us, that there is so much more beyond having possessions. Let’s just say that you were to leave this planet tomorrow. Nobody will remember you for the car or the expensive artwork that you had.  You have to aim and hope that people will remember you for the legacy that you’ve left through the amazing work you’ve done and from the people, whose lives you’ve touched. That is much more important than material things.

Invest in experiences and in memories that can never be taken away. In the end, those things are really your priceless possessions...and no amount of money can buy them.

Three Stages Of Building A Freedom Lifestyle Business

Natalie quickly turned her attention to building an online business that helps others escape the confines of an office, work remotely, still be productive and earn good money.

Below, Natalie shares with us her time-tested, three stages of building a “Freedom Lifestyle” for any business.

  • The Freedom Mindset -  This is the stage that is the hardest for people to really understand. It’s the freedom mindset. She explains that once you have a business or a career that affords you to have a little bit of more flexibility, a lot of people start to struggle. Their mindset changes to “I don’t necessarily have to work a normal working week nine to five”, “I can take more time off”, “I can take a mid week weekend”, “I don’t have to be based in an office”. “I don’t need to have clients that are in the same location as mine”.Despite the flexibility, you should not lose your vision and still be clear about it. Having great friends and family who keep you reminded about your vision is also a good idea and will also help you stay on track.
  • The Financial Freedom - The second stage “Financial Freedom” which really comes down to how we setup our business or career. Do you have enough revenue and income to afford a great lifestyle, that will not tie you down at the same time?Natalie’s goal for financial freedom is having a revenue stream or a stable cash flow that will allow flexibility in whatever you’re doing and lets you be involved either actively or passively in your business. These are the nuts and bolts of building an online business.If you want Financial freedom in your business, you should carefully consider your business model.  As an example, what are your plans for social media, sales strategies, sales funnels and outsourcing?  What are the systems you’ll used to create your business?
  • The Lifestyle Freedom - And the final part is lifestyle freedom. This is asking yourself, “What sort of a lifestyle do I want?” “How am I going to live it?”, “How often do I want to travel, how much time do I want to spend at home?”, “How will I travel?”, “how do I pack lightly?”. It’s really thinking about minimalism and how do you get rid of unnecessary possessions that are weighing you down to be more free.

Natalie Talks About The Transparency Of Living A Suitcase Life

While she says that she “really enjoys the constant change” her travel brings, it also gives her a few downsides. For instance, it can often be difficult for her to forge long-lasting, meaningful relationships with people. Structuring days can also pose a challenge for her. She hoped that her businesses will get over the fact that she doesn’t need to be present to reach out and connect with people and still add value.

As a result of this, she plans on slowing things down.

Natalie is looking forward to spending a little longer in the places she visits. She looks forward to finding somebody who’s up for an adventure to share and for moving around as well.

The Ultimate Goal

Natalie hopes that more people will be able to live her way in the future.

She wants more entrepreneurs to build and design their businesses based on what they love doing and around their lifestyle needs. She hoped also that everyone will aim on having a lifestyle business that will give all the freedom to take a time off at any time.  This means especially for that time you might need to drop everything to take care of yourself, relationships and family.

In that circumstance, she wants you to still have the confidence that your business will be stable and will still generate income even when you’re not around.

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Natalie: Hi. I’m Natalie Sisson, the suitcase entrepreneur and I once was almost arrested in Sydney airport for being a little bit silly with one of the security officers and telling him that he wouldn’t find explosives in my suitcase. That he’d actually in fact find them strapped to my chest. I thought it was really funny at the time. He didn’t think it was funny at all. If I’d been in America I probably would’ve been arrested. Not my smartest move on my travels.

Woman: In business and know the way forward most include social media. Perhaps you find it a bit confusing. Even frustrating. Well, you have no idea how to make it work for your business. Fear not. We interview some of the best social media experts in business who will share their experiences, ideas and knowledge. Plus offer tips and tricks to make using social media a breeze. Leverage the power of social media and grow your business now. Welcome to social media business hour with your host Nile Nickel.

Jordan: Hello and thank you again for joining us. This is Nile’s trusty sidekick and co-host Jordan and I’d like to take a moment to share with you how you can benefit from Nile’s incredible experience using social media for real business success. If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking about starting your own business then using social media might be the most cost effective and time effective way to get your business real results. That’s not to mention much of what you can do to get those terrific results on social media is even free. Take Linked In for example. Nile always says it’s the best social media platform for business today. And that’s why I recommend you go to linkedinfocus.com and start your social media education today. Sign up for Nile’s free tips, tricks and strategies. Once again, it’s free and it only takes a few seconds. Go to linkedinfocus.com today. You’ll be glad you did.

Nile: Hey, welcome back. And after our funny news story there -- obviously you heard the tease at the beginning of the show with Natalie Sisson and by the way with the tease that Natalie gave us at the beginning of the show -- if you take a picture of Natalie I think if I was on the other side of that I would be laughing but let me tell you a little bit about Natalie. Maybe together with her. But Natalie Sisson is a number one bestselling author, podcaster, speaker and adventurer. Definitely an adventurer. Who believes everybody has the right to choose freedom in business and adventure in life. She’s on a mission and I love this mission. In fact, Natalie I’m going to ask you about this as soon as I tell everybody what your mission is. Your mission is to ensure 100000 plus entrepreneurs have freedom in their business and adventure in their life by 2020 over at suitcaseentrepreneur.com how did you come up with that and how do you go about helping people do that?

Natalie: Actually I just changed it recently to a million because somebody told me I was playing too small and when I started my business around five years ago that seemed like a pretty big number for me to reach either directly or indirectly through spreading the word in my books and my podcast and my blog and my programs and my retreats and my workshops around the world so now it’s a million people. So I’ve got a lot of work to do. But how I help people doing that is really showing them what’s possible and I think a lot of people are able to build a business that supports their ideal lifestyle. They just have to get really clear on what their ideal lifestyle looks like. And freedom means a lot of different things to a lot of different people and so for me it’s just getting them really clear about if you could wake up tomorrow and do whatever you wanted, spend time with the right people, be in a location that you wanted, what would your life look like and what would you be doing and how would you be spending your time? And it’s a great place for people to start and from there I can then get them to look at how they’re going to monetize themselves, build a business that’s mobile and really make revenue and make enough money to support their lifestyle and have an amazing life. That’s not the specifics of how I help them do it but that’s essentially the overall division of what I’m trying to help them with.

Nile: One of the things that I find fascinating is people might detect you have a little bit of a different accent.

Natalie: I have a different accent. Awesome accent.

Nile: Might even say a southern accent. I think it’s awesome too. Sounds very romantic I might add but that’s just me. But you come from New Zealand and you came up with this big bold thing. You’ve been living it, you’ve been doing it so by the way, this isn't a -- just a vain promise. You’ve been out there doing it. But New Zealand’s a fairly small country, not heavily populated. What brought all this on? I’m just really curious.

Natalie: That’s a great question. Well, it is paradise here in New Zealand. I’m actually just back here visiting family and it is a beautiful place but it’s also as I like to say on top of the world so there’s a whole lot more world out there to explore. And ever since I was a kid I’ve been traveling, my parents have been amazing. They’re both from Europe. They took my sister and I on tons of boat travels and so I just have this massive curiosity about the rest of the world and the countries and the cultures that I wanted to explore but what lead me to this point of living out of a suitcase and running a business and teaching other people how to travel the world and create a business that they love is really I think just kind of partly by accident and partly because I really wanted to not be stuck in an office working for other people so when I did finally go out on my own and become an entrepreneur and start my business and run some workshops I took everything that I did online and thought if I can make money from anywhere online from my laptop then I don’t need to be in one place to do it. So that’s what started the adventure and freedom quest.

Nile: So you’ve mentioned that your parents took you as a younger adult, a child on a number of trips. Is that where the inspiration really came from?

Natalie: I don’t know. I mean, I love that they’ve always encouraged us to travel. But as I said the inspirations probably come from a myriad of things that happen in my life. I recently found a photo of myself in a suitcase when I was a kid. I’m like literally poking out of a suitcase. And if I look back on my university studies, all my corporate jobs that I used to host, the cofounding and technology company, everything’s always been around technology, information management, communications, presenting, magazine style work and travel combined so I really just pulled together marketing, brand management from my corporate jobs, the technology side and social media from the company I cofounded and then my love for being able to teach, learn, teach and learn and just really be able to do that from anywhere. So it was -- like I think an accident or genius really on my behalf to be able to do it and probably a very strong longing from the get go to still be able to incorporate travel into anything that I do.

Nile: How many miles would you say that you travel in a given year?

Natalie: Oh, I don’t know because I work in kilometers. But a lot. For example, just coming back --

Nile: Well, we could go to kilometers. That’s fine.

Natalie: Do you know what? I’ve never really actually taken the time to look at that because probably it would scare me. But just for example coming back to New Zealand I -- it was a 37 hour journey because I had a flight from Lisbon to Dubai. Then I had a nine hour wait in an airport which was actually not as bad as it sounded. Then I had a 13 hour flight to Melbourne, a four hour wait there and then a three and a half hour to New Zealand and I think I was looking and there were at least 10 -- or was it 12 and a half thousand kilometers on one of those legs alone so I’ve taken a lot of trips already this year and more to come so I don’t even know. Probably more like you with your 100000 miles I’m used to do in a year.

Nile: Yeah, well, one of the things that I found and I’m going to get a little personal with you if it’s okay. I know that -- I had a family at the time and it was really hard on my family life to do that. I’ve got to believe for family or dating or whatever it may be that’s a pretty difficult thing to do. Have you found that or does it matter?

Natalie: Yeah. I mean, obviously if I had family independence which by the way is not something that I do want so that’s the reason that I can't be even more free. I’m sure it would be even more complex or challenging but I’ve actually interviewed and profiled a lot of people in my community. I have lots of customers and clients who have families and they do make it happen. It’s awesome to see how they do it. They go off in RVs around the world and they go off to Guatemala and get their kids involved in nonprofits or working on the land or home schooling so there’s always ways to do what you want even with families. But for me personally I enjoy being single and I enjoy traveling the world. I enjoy having romances on some of my trips but for sure it makes it having a relationship a lot harder and that’s probably my next stage is how do I make that happen and make it more appealing to a person that I meet that oh, look. I’m heading off in a week here. Why don’t you come with me? Or being a bit more stable and sticking around in a few places which is my aim right now is to have a few more bases around the world and actually spend my time in fewer places, more time in the communities that I want to be in getting to know people, developing better relationships with friends and people and settling a little bit more so I think that time is coming up.

Nile: Well, that makes sense and I could see that being the next book that will be coming out.

Natalie: Maybe.

Nile: I mean, I’m planning seeds here.

Natalie: Well, I did touch on it in my Suitcase entrepreneur book. I did touch on how to manage relationships with family and friends while you’re traveling and also as a single person or as a couple but I didn’t go deeply into how do you find love on the road because frankly I don’t have the answers for that and I know a lot of people do struggle with it so I think when the times comes you put your mind to what you want to do. You’ll make things happen and you’ll put the effort in priority into that but this -- it is always challenges whether you’re single or married or whatever so it’s really up to you to kind of figure out what you’re wanting out of that.

Nile: It absolutely is. One of the things that I have been really fascinated with -- clearly people go to your website which we’ll have in the show notes so we’ll make it easy for everybody but they go to your website, they look at your book, they see any of that. Clearly you’ve had a lot of success in what you’re doing. Now, that requires promotion and branding and all sorts of things like that. That being the case, how have you found the magic formula to do that as you’re on the road all the time?

Natalie: The magic formula ironically to have all this freedom is discipline and it took me a while to figure that out. so the more disciplined I am around having assistants and a team and processes and what I call sexy operating procedures but most people call it standard operating procedures has really helped me to streamline my business so that I don’t have to spend much time on it. I can take as much time off as I want within reason. The things will still operate without me that I’ll still make money without it and that’s from all the years and hard work and hustle of building community and building up my portfolio of products and programs and committing everything that I have really to this and living the lifestyle as well. Living and breathing what I preach. So I think it’s taken focus and discipline and now I get to reap the rewards which is wonderful. But I still love what I do so I put a lot of effort into it but it’s fun and it’s wonderful because I built it around what I wanted it to be and I really appreciate getting to help people all the time with choosing their own adventure and their version of freedom.

Nile: Well, I could clearly see that. I mean, your book the Suitcase entrepreneur -- if you look on Amazon at that it’s a five star review which isn't easy to get and reading through the comments that people have left I would say the majority of them are positive. Some of them are not so positive. But what I see and what I find about you through this process is through everything it appears that you’re very real, down to earth and transparent.

Natalie: Absolutely. 100 percent. And I don’t want to be anything else. That’s funny that you say that about Amazon though because I think the very first one that comes up is a one star review saying living -- selling the dream or something. And the lady is really complementary about me. She’s like I’m sure Natalie would be a great person to hang out with. She seems really fun and cool but can't help but think that she’s selling a dream here and it’s such an interesting thing that you come up against because even just being back in New Zealand so many people look at this and they’re like well, how does somebody do that? How do you run a business from a laptop? How do you make really, really great money and be able to make an impact by selling how to make a business or how to run a business, how to live this lifestyle. So I get it. And it’s something that people have really taken a while to _____22:39 onto. How do you become a digital nomad. Use software and tools and technology and outsourcing to run any type of business actually from the road. And I think the biggest thing that’s been my success as you’ve mentioned Nile is just being really open and transparent about everything. My screw ups, my failures, the good times, the bad times. I recently ran a webinar and I totally forgot to plug in the Wi-Fi router and I was right at that critical moment of talking about my program that people could join and it cut out and I was like oh my god. This is ridiculous. And I just laughed out loud and then I shared it in a podcast. Like how not to run a webinar or how to -- things to avoid based on what I just did and people really appreciate that. It’s not all perfect. I don’t think there is this magic formula, I don’t try and put on a front and I think people appreciate that it’s just real and you show them the good, the bad and the ugly of being an entrepreneur and traveling the world.

Nile: Now, so the next thing that I’m really curious about and I’m going to come back to the social media and the promotion and all of that in a bit but you mentioned a 100000 people that you really want to -- if you will transform their lives. And that wasn’t big enough. Now that it’s a million how are you going about that and how are people enrolling in this process because I assume that that’s where they say yeah. That’s what I want. How do I get it? So tell me a little bit about that.

Natalie: Yeah. It’s a great question. Well, what’s coming out this year that I’ve been really excited about is social enterprise that I’ve been considering in my head for way to long which is why I need to take action and it’s still based around freedom. It’s called the Right to freedom and to answer your question I feel that’s the movement, that’s the initiative that’s going to spike hopefully up to a million people to join. So it’s still very much based on my Suitcase entrepreneur business and what I’ve been doing there but I’ve always had this long held belief that underneath the soul there’s a greater desire for me to understand what freedom really is because in the US it’s completely different to other parts of the world and I’m just fascinated by it now and I still see people getting blocked in my community that I’m working with and I think it’s because we have this real disparate idea around can I have an amazing lifestyle and a really successful career or business, family and all the freedom that I want or is that being too greedy, is it even possible and so Right to freedom is this movement that I’m going to be beginning actually later this month to start working on social enterprise and the first hopefully global study on freedom and from there I’m going to be expanding out into a whole bunch of things. Hopefully a documentary and a book and a whole assessment type profile where people can understand and learn more about how they can have more freedom. So that to me is the -- what I’ve been working to for the last five years with my business has gotten me this place where I’m like great. Now I can work on an even bigger initiative with a nonprofit aspect that has a huge amount of potential to be one of the most scary but exciting things I’ve embarked on but also make a huge impact on the world. So that’s why I’ve stepped it up to a million people this year because I finally feel I’m ready for the next five to seven years to go on this journey.

Nile: One of the things I’m interested in is -- and the US is sort of a unique place if people haven’t traveled outside the US. The majority of my listeners are US based but that’s not true of all of the listeners. We’ve got people listening all throughout Europe and Asia and so on and so forth. But that being the case, you mentioned the difference in the US and how sometimes their idea of their right to freedom or that freedom view that they have is different. Talk to me a bit about that.

Natalie: Oh, sure. I mean, I’m probably insulting people right now because I have a lot of American friends and I love them and I love visiting and being in America but it always blows my mind that people there are like having to be busy and working all the time and if they’re not seen to be doing that then something’s wrong. Like having time off, taking time out, enjoying half a day off from your business seems like you’re not doing the right thing or that something’s going wrong if that’s what you’re doing. And there’s a huge inherent nature there to be just hustling all the time, to be ambitious, to be making money, to be working as hard as you can, to be setting up that American dream and I think you’ve got it all wrong. Completely the wrong way around. And what you end up doing is working so hard to earn as much money as you can to buy things and more things and more materials that you don’t need that ultimately make you unhappy and you see so many people over there who’ve done really well for themselves, super wealthy and they’re miserable. So I’m not saying that’s indicative of all of the US but there is this -- very much this nature there that you have to push hard, work all the time and everything is a priority and a commitment in that respect and I’m like why are you doing all this work and why are you working so hard when your life is sitting there waiting for you to live it and go on adventures and really enjoy it and spread happiness and cherish every single moment and live like there is no tomorrow.

Nile: That’s an interesting observation. We’ve got the phrase in the States and you’ve probably heard it as much as you’ve been here. Keeping up with the Joneses. Do you think what you observe with a  lot of people in the US is a bit of that keeping up with the Joneses syndrome?

Natalie: Yeah. And I don’t think it’s just limited to the US but for sure it’s there. I mean, you see it in other cultures as well. And I get it but I just don’t agree with it. Like I mean, here’s a person speaking -- it’s easy for me to say. I live out of a suitcase but if I eventually buy and live in a house I frankly don’t care what other people think of my house, of the goods and the things that I have inside it. I want it to be my place, I want to enjoy it, I want people to feel comfortable and welcome there. It’s not about that I have the fanciest car or the most incredible sofa or the most amazing artwork on the walls. None of that stuff matters. If you were to leave this planet tomorrow nobody is going to remember you for the car that you had or the artwork that you had. I hope. I hope they’re going to remember you for the legacy that you’ve left through the work you’ve done or the people’s lives that you’ve touched. So all of that stuff just seems so unimportant in the scheme of things.

Nile: I’m curious because I think in my own life apart from my family there are very few material possessions that I really, really enjoy and most of them are relatively small. I'm curious if you have any of those material possessions that find their way in the suitcase and travel around with you.

Natalie: Short answer is no.

Nile: Okay.

Natalie: I mean, obviously if I lost my new Macbook tomorrow or my iPhone six I’d be a little bit frustrated but it’s -- all of it is replaceable. And even to the point that my mom bought me a beautiful ring for Christmas, the Christmas we just had and I love it and it’s the only thing that I wear every single day but even if I lost that it’s -- I’ve still got the memory. It’s more important that mom’s here than the ring that she gave me so I would say there’s pretty much nothing. Sometimes when I get a bit sick of my suitcase I’m kind of excited that if it got lost by the airlines because I’d have to go out and buy something new and refresh my wardrobe and start it fresh and just keep it interesting.

Nile: Well, there you go. Well, no. I think of that. As I said, there’s very few things. I have for example a silver dollar money clip and that’s what I carry every -- the physical currency that I carry around is in that money clip. But I’ve now had that money clip probably for 25 years and is it materially worth a whole lot? No. it’s just worth something to me. But I -- little things like that that I enjoy. I was curious if you had any of those little things like that. you mentioned the ring but that’s interesting because it’s really -- if you get down to it and there’s a big fire or a big flood and you’re going to lose everything or virtually everything other than what you can carry in the palm of your hand; I always like to ask people what would that be because it really sort of defines a lot of things about you.

Natalie: It does. And you know what? the things that nobody can ever take away from you or be lost is memories, experiences and the people and the relationships that you have so that’s the most valuable thing in my life right now and the reason I’m even back home in New Zealand right now is my dad was in the hospital and it was incredible to just see how I dropped everything. I finally had plans to stay in Portugal for a few months which is quite a long time for me and I was really loving it. I’d actually bought a scooter for the first time, I was doing Portuguese lessons. I was actually trying to integrate into society a little and enjoying it and I just dropped everything to come back here because family, friends are just so much more important than anything else that you could ever own. So experiences as I said and memories that can never be taken away from you and they’re worth millions of dollars in my mind.

Nile: Yeah. No. I would agree with you. Other than the fact that I’m getting a little bit older and some of those memories fade. I’m not sure you can --

Natalie: Yeah. That’s true. You need to write a book maybe. You need to write a book.

Nile: Yeah. That might be it. I’ll have to read it to remind myself. That’s all.

Natalie: Yeah.

Nile: Well, again, I want to go back to the promotion and I want to go back to the promotion because when -- you typically promote to a community and you typically build that community from people that you know, like and trust or people that know, like and trust you. so as you’re traveling around the world obviously you’re meeting a lot of people but that marketing gets to be challenging and I think you have an interesting take on it which is I guess why I wanted to get there. It’s certainly not what I want people to focus on with the interview with Natalie here but I think you’ve got some interesting takes on it so what -- how do people get to know you?

Natalie: That’s a great question. I mean, I think you touched on it earlier. It was a really lovely compliment. I’m pretty open, I’m very transparent and recently I was in Berlin and I held a meet up there with my community and one of the guys from Netherlands said oh, you’re just like you sound like on your podcast and you look like in your videos and you’re just you. And he’s like we thought you’d look like a celebrity when you walk in and we’re all -- but no. but you came straight over and talked to us. And I was like well, what did  you expect me to do? So I think people get to know the real me if they ask the right questions for sure. As you said, I meet people all the time every single day and it can be overwhelming to remember every single person you’ve met but some people you just really connect with and those ones that usually share a curiosity and love for life. They ask intelligent, smart questions. You have discussions over all sorts of topics and from there you forge friendships and you actually make an effort to keep in touch and I’ve met up with several people around the world in two or three different countries. It’s kind of becoming a theme with some of my good friends is to see how many places we can meet up with around the world and share more experiences and good times so people just have to ask and get in touch.

Nile: Well, one of the things I guess I was going on was you do an awful lot of your business on social media and social media I think has become a little bit of cornerstone in your business. But it’s social at the same time. So I -- at least from what I could see a lot of people that get to know you and a lot of your marketing for that matter is social media based.

Natalie: Absolutely. Yeah. Precisely. So I’m anywhere and everywhere on social media because I love it and it’s how I built my business so very, very important and has allowed me to just have my unique voice and be who I am and people really connect that way. I think they feel they can reach out on Twitter, through Facebook messages and Periscope which I’ve started using and through my blog and podcast and all of it has just helped to build an engaged audience and community of -- I call freedom fighters who get what journey I’m on and want to be on a similar journey but on their own unique path.

Nile: Do you find that there are people that engage with you and you mentioned that engagement. That’s one of the things that we talk about quite a bit because you could do a lot of things and a lot of big marketing programs that people do but unless you engage it just doesn’t matter. But do you find that there are a lot of people that engage with you and that initial part of the engagement is following you to really build their belief that this could really be done? I mean, are they -- do they question that can she really do this and this is the way she lives her life and they follow you and find out that maybe it is?

Natalie: I think that people have told me a lot in the past that they live through me vicariously until they can take their own leap of faith and build their own freedom plan. So yeah. I think that’s a huge part of it and why I like to live and breathe my brand and I do show it. I mean, obviously it is possible. There are some people who may be cut out to be entrepreneurs perfectly but it doesn’t mean that they can live the lifestyle that has more freedom or they couldn’t incorporate more of those things into their daily life so I love to -- I’m all about taking action and showing what’s practical and implementing so people who like that and actually want to get something done, not just talk about it generally are the type of people who -- I'm in their lives and they're in mine if that makes any sense. And you do start to attract a certain kind of person. I’ve seen that with big brands online how often men will attract men of a similar age or women will attract women who were into that particular topic or thing that they’re talking about. So I’m pretty sure I attract some weird ass awesome people who want to achieve all sorts of different things and travel the world or even just stay at home but experience more adventure. Yeah.

Nile: Before I transition to sort of the heavy question I have to ask one of the light questions. Whenever you travel a lot you come up with some different strange stories. And you and I were talking a little bit before the interview about some of the strange stories and you said well, so many things happen to me I don’t even know where to go. And I have to give you an example because -- and just like me I’m sure that you have hundreds if not thousands of these stories but I got stuck in an airport and they gave us meal vouchers. Not an uncommon thing. And so the only thing that was open was a little sundry shop and you could go in and get cookies, crackers, potato chips and drinks or whatever. That was going to be dinner so I went in and I got a box of cookies and I knew that I didn’t need the whole box of cookies and if anybody looks at my social media profile you’ll know I didn’t need the box of cookies either but nevertheless I got a box of cookies and something to drink and I was reading the paper and I opened up -- reach in my bag and I open up the box of cookies and I pull out a cookie and I have one and there’s a little boy playing there and he’s probably four or five years old. And he comes over and he reaches in and gets one of the cookies and I go well, that’s sort of interesting. He didn’t ask or anything and his mom just looks up and smiles at me and so at this point in time I’m reaching in and getting a cookie and he’s reaching in and getting a cookie. And we go on like this until the last cookie of the box comes out. And I pull out that last cookie and his bottom lip comes out and starts that quiver. And I’m going what? I’m just eating my cookies here. And his mom doesn’t say one word to me. She reaches over and she takes the cookie from me and she breaks it in two and she gives him half and me half. And I’m going wow. I’m a little bit blown away by this but I really don’t need the whole box of cookies but I was just looking at it from -- there was no discussion and it was my box of cookies and all of that. And so we get ready to load the plane finally and we get on the plane and I go in and sit down and I open up my briefcase and in my briefcase was my box of cookies. And so I realize I’d been eating his box of cookies the whole time. Gives you a little bit of a paradigm shift there. I reached across the aisle and the mom and the kid were there and I gave her my box of cookies back -- or my box of cookies and we just both laughed because both of us were like well, this is interesting. But that’s just -- hey, I’ve got hundreds of stories like that. But I bet you’ve got even more. So I’m going to put you on the spot. I need some of your stories.

Natalie: Well, I’d say -- I mean, I’ve got some pretty funny ones. I tend not to attract too much drama into my life so I’m sure what other people would tell a tantalizing tale about -- I just kind of take in my stripe but probably one of the most significant and it was pretty scary at the time and ridiculous afterwards. In Vietnam a year and a half ago and I’d actually just been -- I’d won over the role of being an editor for a book for startups in Asia and I’ve been editing this book about Vietnam for entrepreneurs so I’ve been learning tons about the culture and the way in which they do business but also the safety of the country, the communication, the political setup and I remember writing about this particular area of Ho Chi Minh City where you shouldn’t really stand as a tourist and it’s notorious for theft and you have to be careful and you should catch taxis and I’ve just come back on a six and a half hour bus ride from Mui Ne. I’ve been on the coast and I’ve been enjoying some beach time and relaxation and a digital sabbatical. Time offline. And I got back into the capital and got off the bus and I knew that my hotel was only a five minute walk away because I’ve been there before and the taxi driver’s like you want a life? And I was like no. no, I’m good. I’m going to walk because I’ve just been on a bus for six and a half hours and I’m walking along with my suitcase in my hand. Obviously rolling it along. And I had my laptop bag with every single thing in it tied around the handle of the suitcase and I’m looking at my phone which I’m holding pretty firmly in my hand but I’m looking at the map to go yeah. I think it’s this way and not that way. And out of nowhere comes this scooter like a sort of a very, very quiet scooter motorbike, two guys on it and then they suddenly speed up and I’m like totally off in my own world. I’m tired and I’m jetlagged and I’m looking at this phone. And they just came by and they grabbed my laptop strap out of my -- like off my shoulder. And just sped on and I just remember spinning around and shouting out no and watching my entire life like speed off down this street and I started running after -- I wouldn’t have had any chance in hell of catching them but all I could see was my purple suitcase and my laptop bag and everything just gone and I start running towards them like yelling going darn you. And they dropped it. they dropped the whole thing because what had happened as I -- one thing that I did as a safety move was I attached as I said my laptop loosely, the strap around the suitcase handle and so by grabbing a laptop bags that also hooked to my suitcase and it was just too heavy and they couldn’t get away with it. So then some respects I was -- I just stood there and went oh my god. My suitcase just saved my life because I had my passport in there, all my money, my hard drive, my computer, everything. I hadn’t even split anything out onto myself. Normally I will hide like another card somewhere else or I just won't have everything in one place and also it was the only time that I put a jumper in my laptop bag. I don’t know why. Sort of a jacket which padded the fall when it fell down so my laptop didn’t smash. Nothing got broken. It was incredible. And I just remember standing there going you are an idiot. Like you wrote about this in a book and here you are standing in the exact place. I’d even crossed over the road to be on the quiet side so there wasn’t anybody around for once which is pretty not common in Vietnam and yeah. It was incredible. So that was my story that I got everything back and I felt ridiculously lucky and fortunate to have all my stuff back and be alive.

Nile: Well, it’s always interesting when we get those reminders like that too. Now, you teased everybody with a story about coming back into Australia and making a joke that maybe wasn’t a good joke so we can't let that story go either.

Natalie: Oh, yeah. That was just another wonderful moment where sometimes my sense of humor which we talked about before doesn't go down so well. So I was waiting for a flight out of Sydney. This was back when I was in the corporate world and I was waiting in line to actually just check in on the flight and this guy came up to me, a security guy and he’s like ma’am do you mind if I check your bags? And I was like no. That’s fine. Go ahead. But can I ask you what you’re checking for. And I knew what he was checking for but I just wanted to make conversation because frankly I’ve been on the airport for a while and it was a bit boring. He’s like I’m checking for any explosives. And I was like well, you’re not going to find them there. I’ve got them strapped right here and I pointed at my chest. And I was wearing quite a fitted top so it was clearly obvious that I didn’t have anything strapped under there and I thought it was hilarious and he just -- that’s a federal offense ma’am. I could have you arrested right here on the spot. I’m not going to but that was stupid. Don’t do it again. And I was like okay. The more people that I told about that -- they were just like Natalie what were you thinking? Like what an idiotic move. So every so often even as a frequent traveler you do do some pretty stupid things.

Nile: See what lack of sleep could do to a person. Well listen, we don’t have a huge amount of time yet but one of the things that I’d love to talk about if it’s okay -- in your book you talk about the three stages of building a freedom lifestyle business and I found that fascinating and I don’t know if I could indulge you but would you mind sharing those with us?

Natalie: Absolutely. So _____45:01 is not surprising. The first stage is the -- I think the hardest one for people to get their head around. It’s the freedom mindset so once you do have a business or a career that affords you a little bit more flexibility a lot of people really struggle with oh, that means I don’t necessarily have to work a normal working week nine to five. I can take more time off, I can take a mid week weekend. I don’t have to be based in an office. I don’t have to have clients that are in the same location as me so it’s that -- there’s a lot more to it. There’s also dealing with friends and family which we’ve talked about here and really getting clear on your vision for how you would like to live so that freedom mindset is the first stage that I take people through. the second stage is financial freedom which really comes down to how you’re setting up a business or a career so that you have enough revenue and enough income to afford you a great lifestyle but also not tie you down; your revenue streams that you have allowing you to be flexible in what you do; how active or passively do you want to be involved in the work that you do as well. so that’s all the nuts and bolts of building an online business, the business model, the social media aspect and strategy, your sales funnel, outsourcing, systems etcetera. And the final part is lifestyle freedom. So what sort of a lifestyle do you want? how are you going to live, how often do you want to travel, how much time do you want to be spending at home, what does that look like to you, how do you travel, how do you pack lightly. Really talking about minimalism as well and how do you get rid of a lot of those possessions that are weighing you down to be more free.

Nile: I like that travel hack. I noticed you’ve got a few interesting terms like travel hack and digital nomad and things like that.

Natalie: Yeah. I don’t make them up but they’re quite common in my world. But for people who’ve just heard them for the first time they’re like oh, digital nomad. I like that. And I’m like yeah. I didn’t make it up.

Nile: Well, that is quite alright. I know that you’ve got an awful lot to share with people. We will have the links up on our website and it will be on social media business hour. Episode 119. But can you tell a little bit of -- the listeners -- share with us what you have and what you do and how people could engage with you?

Natalie: Yeah. So a little bit more about kind of how I run my business or what I have on offer?

Nile: What do you have that you offer people so that they could learn to do what you do and sort of roam around the world and be fun and fancy free.

Natalie: Well, most of what I do actually is free for people which is great. So I do have a blog at the suitcaseentrepreneur.com and I have a twice weekly podcast which is also free on iTunes. And the Suitcase entrepreneur all within the branding. The book which is really, really affordable on Amazon and just a ton of stuff that I put out there free. I do webinars, I do -- I’m starting to do more Periscopes and I just love teaching people and sharing how they can do this for themselves. And then I have digital products that I sell on my site that are all related to building an online business and also using crowd funding to sort of kick start your business if you need. And my most definitive program that I’m really excited about launched last year which is my main stand. Every single piece of advice and experience and learning has gone into it. It’s the Freedom plan and you touched on the three stages. There’s what basically makes up the Freedom plan so it’s 12 modules. There’s a lot more to it than that but essentially I take people through those three stages with 12 modules of online learning, support and community involved and that’s my baby that I’m really wanting to get more and more people through because I’m starting to see incredible results that people are getting. And as I said, I think it’s like everything that I’ve accumulated over my entire lifetime but also five years in business to help people do this for themselves.

Nile: Well, I can't recommend highly enough. As I said, you’ve got a five star rated book. When you look at all of the ratings on Amazon. The Suitcase entrepreneur. I recommend that. We’ve got that available as a link on the show notes as well for episode 119. And I have to say I’ve got the privilege -- I like all of the pictures on your website and everything like that but one of the pictures that just says freedom to me is your Skype picture and I’m not sure that everybody gets to see your Skype picture.

Natalie: Oh, does it? I should look at it. Oh, that one.

Nile: Yeah. Well, you’re up high. I don’t know if it’s a mountain top. I’ll call it a hill top. But beautiful scenery behind you. There you are with a great smile and two thumbs up and to me that just says freedom in a really great way so I love it.

Natalie: That’s true. I should probably put that one out. That was actually a panorama looking across the _____49:51 it reminded me of the hobbit’s land and Middle Earth because it’s just so beautiful so maybe I’ll incorporate that into my blog.

Nile: It needs to be because it really is a great picture that says freedom in a big way. But Natalie I would like to thank you so much for joining all of us today on the social media business hour. And for our listeners, I want to thank you too. Hopefully you learned a few new ideas or concepts. Maybe a dream got started. Maybe you were just reminded of a few things that you already know but you haven’t been doing to improve or grow your business or your life. Our desire is you take just one of the things that you learned or were reminded of today and you apply it this week to your life or business. We know that a small change can make a big difference and I’m committed to bringing you at least one new idea each week that you could implement so go back and identify just one small change that you could make to your business or your life this week and see what a big difference it will make for you. So until next week, this is Nile Nickel. Now, go make it happen.

Woman: Social media business hour is powered by linkedinfocus.com. For show notes, updates and to pick up the latest tips and tricks head over to socialmediabusinesshour.com. Until next time. Thanks for listening.

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Weblinks:

Facebook: http://facebook.com/suitcaseentrepreneur
Twitter: @nataliesisson

Related Books:

Direct download: SMBH_118_-_Natalie_Sisson_-_Final.mp3
Category:SMBH Weekly Episodes -- posted at: 8:00pm EDT

Evan has a crazy passion for Salsa dancing.

Years ago, he discovered people were willing to pay for him to teach them.

The problem?  At the time, there were already BIG players in the “Learn To Salsa Dance” market.

How could he possibly compete?

In this inspiring interview, Evan tells us how he took his crazy passion and turned it into a huge business, despite battling competition that dominated the industry and had much deeper pockets.

Better still, now Evan uses his time-tested formula to create massive profits with other products Amazon.

 Join us and learn:
- How One Man Against The Odds, Built A Business EMPIRE Out Of Salsa Dancing
-How To Combine Your Passion With Selling On Amazon To Create Profits
-Terrific Marketing And Rock-Solid Business Advice

Direct download: SMBH_117_-_Evan_Margolin_-_Final.mp3
Category:SMBH Weekly Episodes -- posted at: 8:00pm EDT

How does your generation differ from others?  You might be surprised at what the real answer is.

On this great interview, Lee Carahar and Nile Nickel talk about how your interests aren’t exactly shared with other generations.  If you work with other people, the odds are you’re working with a couple different generations…and the huge differences between those generations could mean lots of frustration and misunderstanding.  

Listen And Learn:
- Why Most Baby Boomers And GenerationXer’s call Millennials the "Strange Generation"
- Understanding The 4 Different Generations At Work
- The Common Myths About The Millennial Generation
- Why The Millennials Are Called “The Generation Of Negativity”
- Marketing Death By Millennial
- The Tremendous Advantages Of Being Imperfect

Direct download: Lee_Caraher_Final.mp3
Category:SMBH Weekly Episodes -- posted at: 8:00pm EDT

There are many people who are very talented and even
have great ideas. You have so much promise and potential but fortunately, as
the world gets noisier and more crowded, your ideas aren’t getting heard.
In this awesome podcast, Dorie Clark and Nile Nickel teaches us the importance of Standing Out and Becoming A thought Leader.
We also talk about:
- Terrific Marketing Ideas To Get Your HEARD
- 5 Strategies For Getting People Focused
- How To Get People To Follow You
- Dorie’s Very Own, Almost Magic Secret Sauce For Success
- Why You Should Be Very Motivated to Standing Out In Your Own Industry
CAN YOU STAND OUT?
Direct download: Dorrie_Clark_Compiled_Final.mp3
Category:SMBH Weekly Episodes -- posted at: 8:00pm EDT

Award-winning marketing expert Linda J. Popky, the founder and president of Redwood Shores-based Leverage2Market Associates, transforms organizations through powerful marketing performance. Her clients range from small businesses and consultants to mid-sized companies and large Fortune 500 enterprises. She’s been involved with many of the Silicon Valley companies who developed and deployed the technologies that have changed the world over the last twenty-five years, including Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, NetApp, PayPal, Plantronics, Autodesk, Applied Materials, and others.

A consultant, speaker, and educator, Linda has been named one of the top women of influence in Silicon Valley and inducted into the Million Dollar Consultant® Hall of Fame. She is the past president of Women in Consulting and is a member of the Watermark Strategic Development Board. The first marketing expert worldwide certified to offer the Private Roster™ Mentoring Program for consultants and entrepreneurs, Linda has taught marketing at San Francisco State University’s College of Extended Learning, University of California Santa Cruz Extension in Silicon Valley, and West Virginia University’s Integrated Marketing Communications program.

Linda holds an MBA and a BS in Communications from Boston University. Her new book Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters¸ was released in March 2015. A classically trained pianist, Linda has also produced Night Songs, a CD of classical piano music.

Direct download: Linda_Popky_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00pm EDT

Noah is a marketing expert. As a thought leader in strategic marketing and customer loyalty, Noah helps clients;

  1. Dramatically and rapidly increase sales,
  2. multiply profits, and
  3. maximize customer value.

He is the trusted source for coaching and consulting to thousands of owners, executives, and individuals.

Noah is the author of the Amazon #1 bestselling book in Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service - EVERGREEN: Cultivate The Enduring Customer Loyalty That Keeps Your Business Thriving (AMACOM). He’s an expert blogger for Fast Company Magazine, and a regular contributor to The Globe and Mails Report on Business Section. Noah has been routinely quoted and mentioned in publications like Forbes, The New York Times, Reuters, and more.

Webiste Links:

http://www.noahfleming.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahfleming

https://twitter.com/noahfleming

thumbnail (1) [audio mp3="http://socialmediabusinesshour.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Noah-Flemming-Final.mp3"][/audio]  

Is Your Company Seeing The Forest For The Trees?

In today's show, we will have another very impressive guest by the name Noah Fleming.

Noah Fleming, The Evergreen Guy

Who does not like to interview Noah. He is a marketing expert, a thought leader in strategic marketing and customer loyalty. A trusted source for coaching and consulting to thousands of owners and executives and individuals who helped his clients to dramatically and rapidly increase sales, not just sales but maximized their profits and customer value too. He is also the author of the Amazon #1 bestselling book in Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service – EVERGREEN: Cultivate the Enduring Customer Loyalty That Keeps Your Business Thriving. He’s an expert blogger for Fast Company Magazine, and a regular contributor to The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Section. Noah has been routinely quoted and mentioned in publications like Forbes, The New York Times, Reuters, and more. Also a member of Alan Weiss’s Mentorship Program & Growth Cycle®, two highly respected and world-renowned programs dedicated to the refinement of advanced consulting skills, and one of only 36 people who are globally recognized & accredited by Dr. Weiss as a Master Mentor.

Hammers, Drills and Screwdrivers

Why do we have hammers, drills and screwdrivers here? Bizarre right? Might be, but not for Noah. His Skype name-- guess what? It’s Tool Junky. Aside from being an expert, he is obsessively in love with hammers and drills and screwdrivers. It actually has to do with the band Tool which represents a heavy metal band during his high school days.  I’m sure you know exactly who he is talking about. And, he admits that until now he is still junky for the band.

What is an Evergreen? Is it a Christmas tree?

You might know or not know, But, What is an evergreen really? No it is not a Christmas tree. The concept of this very successful book came from an idea whilst he and his wife are walking in Cathedra Grove at Vancouver Islands. They have some of the tallest trees in the world. Some are even 30 feet wide. They’re 150 feet tall and walking through this forest again with his wife on their honey moon, made him think about anything, and this includes business. He finds himself staring at these trees and thinking that these tress can be an amazing metaphor. The Evergreen trees are lush, lively, they’re green, steadfast, and they grow really in any condition. They also last forever in perpetuity and they don’t have cold winters where they’re struggling to put new growth on the trees or all the leaves fall off and then they have to come back. This metaphor is really staring him on the face. And that is where it all started.

The Evergreen. Cultivating the enduring customer loyalty that keeps your business thriving.

This famous book Evergreen is a funny, highly pragmatic and detailed playbook on customer retention, customer experience, and customer strategy. It is more of a mindset book which provides strategic framework in owning a business. The book suggests to readers that most organizations are “addicted to sex” – the thrill of the chase of gaining new customers – as opposed to “looking for love” – finding worthwhile customer relationships that will last for years and years. In addition, many companies fail to analyze the profitability of their existing customers or the potential profitability of different types of new ones. As a result, companies lurch from one customer base to the next—losing some of their most valuable customers, as well as, gaining others many of whom turn out to be duds. Fleming describes this phenomenon in Evergreen to that of how trees lose their leaves each fall.

The Worst Business Advise In the World

"It is five times less expensive to keep an existing customer than it is to get a new one". Noah highlighted that this specific advice is always given by most authors and speakers, his difference, he get serious about it. He thought that this is the worst business advice in the world because none of these people ever tell us how to actually do that, how to actually make that customer five times more valuable. And so they would say things like well, provided you provide good customer service they’re going to spread the word of mouth about you, right? But he again highlighted that it is really hard for a business to build marketing budgets around, to create projections around or to try and define some tangible business outcomes like increased profits so aims to understand how do we actually make the existing customer five times, 10 times, 20 times more valuable, more profitable. And that is Evergreen, the first half of the book is really this big sort of strategic framework that I found that I was using and that my own clients were using and that big companies are using and that anybody can really implement in their own company to make some dramatic shifts. And then the second half of the book was really the tactical stuff which I was just talking about in terms of how do you actually bring back a lost customer, how do you actually increase referrals, how do you truly define the value of a customer and know which ones you should fire and those are the things that are covered in the second half of the book.

The Mad Pursuit. The Problem that needs to be fixed

His bank, a multibillion-dollar Canadian organization, on one issue that he raised with them, they told him that the resolution would take three days to be fixed. However, it ended up taking 30 days with all the hilarious story behind it. When he finally asked the manager, why? Why did it take this long? What could’ve possibly happened in something you told me would take no longer than three days? She flat out said him and told him that they were too busy with our new customers that we just can't take care of our existing customers. Most businesses right now are too focused on chasing new customers, losing the track of retention.  We're running around jumping from one thing to the next because we think it’s going to be sort of the savior and salvation to a struggling business or to a business that’s not seen the type of growth it wants to have. The problem on this, ending up spending more time, more energy, and more money on probably efforts that could’ve been much far more focused.

The Three C's

Wondering what makes Noah's business tick? It's all about the tree C's.

Character - and character is really my term to talk about positioning which we all know in the marketing world positioning is how the world sees you, how you’re quickly understood and represent.

Community - Community is all about how we engage our customers. We talked about customer engagement but how do we bring them closer together around what it is we’re doing, how do we get them to be interested more in the bigger, broader picture of things.

Content - Content is the term that he use to describe the thing you actually do. So content is your product, your service, the thing you actually give in exchange for money.

Would you buy a mattress worth $30,000?

When was the last night you've had a really good night sleep? This the golden question. Noah also shared about a mattress experience. He has a friend who owns a mattress company in Rhode Islands with each mattress sells averaged of $30,000. You might find it very expensive, but here's the catch. He is selling the mattresses with that average amount. What's his secret? Customer Engagement.

The Power of Reconnection

His book has a whole chapter talking about the idea of engagement and re-engagement. Reactivating lost customers and reactivating lost clients. An opportunity left behind. Knowing why we’ve lost a customer, sadly, most of us don’t even know when we’ve lost a customer and so the first key is really trying to understand when those changes have happened, being aware that they’ve happened and then learning from them. Once we know the reason behind this and putting solid actions about it, our profits will massively increase with little to no investment.

Website Links:

http://www.noahfleming.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahfleming https://twitter.com/noahfleming

Related Books:

Direct download: Noah_Flemming_Final.mp3
Category:SMBH Weekly Episodes -- posted at: 8:00pm EDT

This is a special episode of the Social Media Business Hour. In this episode Nile Nickel allowed the microphone to be turned on him. Lauren Gaggioli of The College Checklist Podcast interview Nile, the CEO of LinkedInFocus to learn how students can leverage LinkedIn to get into college.  Nile provides helpful, actionable information on how to use LinkedIn to help our college-bound students network and showcase their academic efforts to ease the college application process.

Nile also explains how important networking is for college admissions and how students can stand out from the crowd by making connections with people on LinkedIn that can benefit their college experience and career.

Direct download: Nile_On_Laurens_Show_Final.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

SMBH Tammy Stanley thumbnail   [audio mp3="http://socialmediabusinesshour.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tammy-Stanely-FINAL.mp3"][/audio] Tammy Stanley directs The Sales Refinery, a sales training firm that transforms the bottom line in corporate and individual sales. Known for her self-revealing style and her captivating story telling, she analyzes and presents the often over looked fundamental aspects of the selling process. Tammy started her Master’s Degree in German Studies but got sidetracked having children – 4 of them. Within only one year of moving to an entirely new city and state, Tammy built a multi-million dollar direct sales organization, reaching her company’s Circle of Excellence seven years in a row. Wanting to make a greater impact on salespeople everywhere, Tammy founded The Sales Refinery, a sales training company that assists sales professionals in the field as well as executives at the corporate level. Tammy’s greatest strength is taking on complex challenges and creating solutions. She causes breakthroughs in performance by transforming the way salespeople perceive themselves, others, their situation, and their opportunity. Tammy is the author of Carpe Phonum… How to Seize the Phone, Take Action and Call Your Prospects Even When You Lack Courage, she is a co-author of Direct Selling Power, and her newest book, Calling to Skyrocket Your Results was released in June 2014.

Website Links: www.tammystanley.com

Related Books:

Direct download: Tammy_Stanely_FINAL.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

thumbnail   [audio mp3="http://socialmediabusinesshour.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Liane-Caruso-Final.mp3"][/audio]   A marketing communications specialist with twenty years of experience ranging from strategy to design to execution, Liane Caruso launched Limelight Marketing Consultants in 2009. This well-respected Tampa-based firm was singularly committed to the establishment of meaningful campaigns that connected clients with their customers and prospects by powering brand awareness. Limelight expanded rapidly with the addition of in-house specialists in design, demographics, branding, social media management, and content marketing. The second phase of the expansion included the addition of SEO and SEM digital marketing strategists to develop cohesive, research-based approaches to further client initiatives. In 2015, Liane merged Limelight with The CRUSH Agency out of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania; the company responsible for supporting the franchise marketing needs of new and established businesses across the country. Now responsible for managing the recently formed agencys creative and marketing teams while identifying proficiencies and efficiencies in budgeting, planning and strategy, Liane oversees the creative process; ensuring quality control and marketing planning are in place for the clients and for the agency.

 Additional Info:

A lot has happened since I launched Limelight Marketing Consultants back in 2009. After a comparatively short time in business I had the latitude to add an intern who soon became a trusted employee. That led to hiring more employees, and then even more employees. Now I am proud to say our new office space is brimming with exceptional professionals. Late last year a golden opportunity arose to merge with a Pennsylvania-based firm that specializes in franchise marketing. Long story short, we have officially joined forces into one crazy-talented team! Our new name is The CRUSH Agency, and I will serve as President of the entire agency with two locations in Tampa, FL and King of Prussia, PA. Marketing Communications specialist with an emphasis on social media marketing and management, workshops and presentations, training and consulting. Equally passionate about creating brand identities, developing content for all marketing initiatives, and internet marketing through a collaborative effort. Specialties: Social Media Management & Training, Branding and Brand Identity, Interactive and Online Marketing for brands, products, services of all sizes. Experience in franchise marketing.

Website Link:

http://www.thecrushagency.com

Related Books:

 

Direct download: Liane_Caruso_Final.mp3
Category:SMBH Weekly Episodes -- posted at: 3:00am EDT