What Should Entrepreneurs Think About Before Starting a Company? (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Zev Siegl discusses what it takes to start a new company and what prospective entrepreneurs should think about. Zev Siegl is a co-founder of the Starbucks Coffee Company and founder of Quartermaine Coffee Roasters and socialbees.com. He is a much-sought-after international keynote speaker.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

What people should think about when starting a new company
Why every startup needs a financial expert
How to address the connection with the customer

Starting with the Basics

There are a lot of people interested in starting their own company rather than going back to work for someone else. The first thing that they need to think about is whether they are in the right industry and whether they can make a profit.

The founders of Starbucks started looking into the coffee industry in the fall of 1970 and quickly found out that it was the right industry to be in, that they could make a profit, and do it at several different levels of the industry.

Managing Finances

Another thing that people need to think about is whether they can manage the finances of the startup and the operation/company. This is a big deal because so many people have great ideas but don’t have the financial management skills.

If prospective investors figure out that the entrepreneur doesn’t have a CFO or even an accountant, they will not invest. So, make sure you have a financial person on tap — they don’t necessarily have to be an employee or a partner.

What’s in It for the Customer?

Finally, prospective entrepreneurs need to think about what is in it for the customer. This is something that happens a lot with digital entrepreneurs. They get all revved up about a new platform that they can put together or a piece of software that will save money in a particular industry, like, say, solar power installation.

However, the simple fact that a piece of software has the potential to save solar power installers some money doesn’t mean that they’re going to buy it. So, this connection with the customer needs to be addressed. People in the tech industry create dummy apps or minimum viable products that look like apps but have nothing in the backend. The idea is to get a sense of whether you’re on to something or not through informal focus groups.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Transform Your Marketing and Turn Customers into Evangelists (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Wayne Mullins discusses his book Full Circle Marketing: Transform Your Marketing and Turn Customers into Evangelists. Wayne Mullins is a CEO, entrepreneur, and author. He founded Ugly Mug Marketing, which has won a lot of praise over the years.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The fact that marketing comes down to psychology
How most of us can’t even define what marketing is
Why do our marketing campaigns often fail due to having a diluted message

Fundamentals

It is refreshing to come back to the underlying fundamentals, strip away the technology in marketing, and focus on its psychological part. At the end of the day, it is the psychological aspect that drives decisions, not the technology itself.

You can have the best tool or platform in the world and even the biggest audience in the world. Still, if you violate fundamental foundational human psychology principles, your messages will fall flat. They will not resonate, people will not take action, and you will never convert customers into evangelists.

Defining Marketing

We always assume that we know what marketing is, but many would likely struggle if you asked them to define what it is and is not. If you can’t define marketing correctly, you don’t have much of a chance of getting it right for your business.

Wayne Mullins and his associates define marketing as “your ability to attract and to keep a customer.” However, there is more to keeping a customer than most people think. It is not just about them coming back every few years for purchase. When Wayne talks about keeping a customer, he means turning them into an evangelist for his products, services, and brands.

Diluted Message

In his book, Wayne says that long-term success does not come from easy, quick fixes but long-term thinking and strategizing. As business owners and entrepreneurs, we often become short-sighted as it relates to our marketing.

As a result of our constant struggle to keep everything else in our business under control, we often leave the marketing to others, outsourcing to ad reps and marketing companies without really thinking about what we want our message to be. This leaves us with a diluted message, as there is no cohesive thought or strategy behind all our running ads.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Why Focusing On Our Relationship With Power Will Elevate Leadership (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Runa Bouius discusses why we need to focus on our relationship to power to elevate leadership. Runa Bouius is a serial entrepreneur from Iceland and the founder of the True Power Institute. She is a speaker, author, executive coach, and consultant to visionary leaders, entrepreneurs, and people of influence.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

Our strange relationship with power
Why our greatest power is the power of self-reflection
How childhood limitations lead us to become disempowered adults

Relationship with Power

Most of us have a strange relationship with power, similar to the one we have with money — it feels like a taboo topic to talk about, so we avoid it. Most people go through life thinking that they have no power, and others go through life doing everything they can to get power and hold onto it.

This is most obvious in the political arenas all over the planet. This abuse of power jeopardizes democracy and puts the planet out of balance, similar to how things are with the climate at the moment. In fact, our power imbalance is the primary cause of our imbalance with nature.

Self-Reflection

The greatest power we have is the power of self-reflection and focusing on how we show up in the world. Most people think of external or positional power when they think about power. They think of people in corner offices or the senate, presidents, CEOs, and world leaders.

In truth, we all have power, and it is there for the taking if we have an intention to tap into it. It is all about cultivating leadership from the inside, in connection to something bigger than ourselves. Instead of hoping for or wanting power or thinking we have no external power, we need to reflect and claim our own power.

Internal Power

If you can’t lead yourself or find leadership within your own environment, whether that is being a great parent or a great spouse, hoping for a lot of external power will take you nowhere. You have to be able to lead yourself first and prove this ability before you can ever lead other people.

As children, we constantly check our powers and limitations, and of course, our parents are the first to put these limitations on us. But often, some things happen in childhood that lead us to believe that we don’t have power. This means people often reach adulthood feeling disempowered.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

How to Get Over the Fear of Sales Calls (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Nina Cooke discusses how to get over the fear of sales calls. Nina Cooke is a mindset coach for entrepreneurs. She helps entrepreneurs break through limiting beliefs to achieve their business goals, create impact, and above all, make more money.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

Why people have a fear of sales calls
Why sales calls are not only necessary but essential
How we often sabotage our own success

Fear of Sales Calls

Many people, especially entrepreneurs, enter a business because they are passionate about the product or service, but they don’t necessarily see themselves as salespeople. On the other hand, many salespeople default into a sales job as their first position out of college, and sometimes it becomes a reluctant career. Still, they are never quite able to get over the fear and trepidation of making calls.

When we start a business, we’re the expert in that particular product or service, and suddenly we’re forced to become a sales expert, a marketing expert, a tech expert, etc. It can take so much time trying to do these things when all we want to do is deliver the service we’re passionate about.

Why Sales Calls Are Essential

When making sales calls, we’re fantastic at convincing ourselves into a negative outcome, not even expecting to get somebody on the phone. Sometimes, when we get the person we’re trying to reach, we’re so shocked that we don’t even know where to start.

Unfortunately, without having regular sales conversations, you’re unlikely to get many clients, especially high-paying ones.

Self-Sabotage

People are often reluctant to admit to themselves that they are being held up by limiting beliefs. However, we all know the physical response that we experience when we have trepidation about something. Once people acknowledge this physiological response, it becomes hard for them to deny that the limiting belief is there.

Entrepreneurs go into business wanting time freedom, financial freedom, flexibility in their schedule, the ability to spend more time with their families, etc. And yet, they often end up sabotaging their success by doing things that work against them rather than for them.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

How to Market to Each Generation Separately (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Mary Ann Pruitt discusses generational marketing and how to market to each generation separately. Mary Ann Pruitt started her career in media working as a Senior Sales Executive at some of the largest national media outlets. She founded Mosaic to provide niche expertise and experience to agencies and marketing departments across the country.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The record-wide age range of the American workforce
How to market to all these different generations
The major shift in consumer behavior over the last 18 months

Five Generations in the Workforce

We have more generations in the workforce than ever before. For the first time in American history, we have five generations in the workforce, which means five different generations have a high spending capability and spending power. We have never had that before at the capacity that we have now.

This makes this period in American history unique. We’re actually on the cusp of having six working generations, with traditionalists and baby boomers choosing not to retire and the teenagers headed into the demographic as well.

Finding the Ideal Customer

The wide age range of the potential customer pool is a massive challenge for many organizations, particularly if your product or service isn’t targeted at a particular age group. So, how do you market when all of these different generations like to receive information in very different ways?

It is all about getting back to the basics of your ideal customer and who you’re ideally targeting. We used to be able to go broad with our demographics, simply dividing them into 30-year-wide age groups. Today, the data we collect on customers is a lot more nuanced, targeting very specific groups.

Effect of the Pandemic

So, are there very distinct traits helping you market to different generations? Over the last 18 months, we’ve seen consumer behavior shift, and we’ve learned quite a lot about the different generations of consumers.

There’s a multi-fold tide happening in the shift of behavior. The evolution of social media consumption that should have taken the older generation a decade occurred overnight. Everybody over the age of 60 was suddenly on social media, while the younger generation turned more and more to traditional media. This all resulted in massive changes in how we market to these demographics.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Key Tips for Confidence Leadership and Resilience (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Dr. Lizzy Bernthal discusses essential tips for confidence, leadership, and resilience. Dr. Lizzy Bernthal has worked as a health professional and educator in the National Health Service and the British Armed Forces for over 25 years.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

Why do we avoid making choices
How putting off decisions almost always makes the situation worse
The role of courage in decision-making

Choices

As a leader, you always have a choice, whether you realize it or not. And you make these choices every minute of every day. Once you begin to notice the choices that you’re making, you can change them to empower yourself and your team.

Not making a choice is still a choice, as convoluted as that may sound. And sometimes people don’t realize this. As human beings, we tend to avoid choices, or we struggle to make them at the very least. This is because we know that if we choose one thing, we disregard something else, and we don’t like to do that.

Procrastination

Humans have a natural need for certainty, and that is where our reluctance to make a choice sometimes comes from. By definition, making a choice implies a right path and a wrong path. But in reality, nothing is worse than sitting on the fence and not making an empowered decision.

The more you put off making choices, the worse the situation gets, generally speaking, provided you have the correct input and you’ve done the proper research. All procrastination is just fear, and once we acknowledge that we can just do whatever we need to do regardless of that fear, we can take action and solve our problems.

Courage

Sometimes we need to make choices with only partial information, and as leaders, we need to be prepared to take these risks. This brings us to the courage side of the leadership equation. People tend to think that courage is reserved for people who do momentous things, but the reality is that you have to show courage every day in whatever you’re doing.

Collecting all the evidence you can is another part of the decision-making process. We almost always have some evidence to help us make an informed choice, even if the information is not 100% complete.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Authenticity and Its Power in Leadership Speaking (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Dr. Laura Penn discusses the power of authentic presence in leadership speaking. Dr. Laura Penn is the founder of the Leadership Speaking School, where she trains global leaders and changemakers how to speak in public.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

Why authenticity matters and what it means
The fact that you can’t “hack” authenticity
The connection between self-awareness and authenticity

Meaning of Authenticity

“Authenticity” might just be the 2021 buzzword of the year because everybody seems to be throwing it around. We have talked so much about authenticity this year, not only from the perspective of personal development but also marketing, brand identity, company culture, and other aspects of business.

That being said, there is a lot of value in authenticity, and for Dr. Laura, it means laying down one’s armor, having the courage to dance like nobody is watching, and simply “doing you.” It is about not only living and breathing your truth but being OK with it.

Becoming Your Authentic Self

We often find ourselves thinking about how to be more authentic and almost approaching it from a “life hack” point of view. However, you can’t hack authenticity — it is a state of mind, and it responds to your level of personal development.

Ask yourself if you’re ready to lay down your armor and dance like nobody’s watching. Think about what needs to be going on around you for you to feel safe and grounded enough to do those things. When you finally get there, you will feel free.

Being Awake

Self-awareness and confidence to be your authentic self are incredibly liberating. But before you can be your authentic self, you have to be aware of what that means. And that is a difficult journey for people to go on.

People find themselves in different stages of “being awake” throughout their lives. Speaking in front of an audience can give us a real wake-up call, suddenly making us aware of what we’re doing. This often leads to us not being able to recognize ourselves while on stage and feeling bad after a public speaking appearance.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

How To Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile To Get Found (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Donna Serdula discusses how to optimize your LinkedIn profile to get found. Donna Serdula is a LinkedIn profile writer and optimization expert.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The current situation with LinkedIn as a platform
Why a LinkedIn profile is so much more than an online resume
How to stay on top of your profile and optimize it for the best results

LinkedIn as a Tool

LinkedIn was huge before the pandemic, and it’s now become even bigger. However, it has also become quite noisy, turning into a bit of a spamming platform. So, the question is, how does one stand out on a platform that is so noisy right now?

Despite its apparent noisiness, LinkedIn is a helpful tool and a place where people go to learn about who they would be meeting with. Many people think of LinkedIn profiles as online resumes, but there’s so much more to LinkedIn than that.

More than an Online Resume

Salespeople, in particular, should not aspire for their LinkedIn profiles to look like resumes because that approach could potentially turn both prospects and employers away. As a salesperson, you need to understand that people are looking for services or products such as yours and need your help.

Most of these people do not know who you are, and you want them to know you. So, you need to think about the keywords that these people would be entering into the LinkedIn search bar. On the flip side, someone might be looking for you specifically because you popped out on their radar for one reason or another.

Optimizing your Profile

People often set up their LinkedIn profiles while looking for employment and completely forget about it once they get hired. This means that their profile will often show them as someone who is looking for a job, even though they’ve had one for a long time, and they’re happy with their current situation.

Aside from staying on top of your profile and making sure it is not presenting information that is no longer relevant or true, Donna Serdula emphasizes the importance of your LinkedIn headline. Your name, picture, and headline follow you around the platform and are attached to every action you perform on the website, so your headline needs to draw people in.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.