Episode #136 – A is for Apprentice
Date: 2013-01-03
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Give your family a framework to look at the business you’re starting.
Do the apprentice hustle.
In an apprentice relationship you need to find the right target.
Startup School podcast.
Episode #137 – The Kamikaze Sample and 5 Other Online Marketing Stunts
Date: 2013-01-10
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
A market is a cash flow not a demographic.
Develop affinity partners.
People get ad fatigue. Remake old ads.
The number two social platform (behind Facebook) is the world are forums.
Cater to the audience you’re speaking to.
Send a follow up email to the segment of your mailing list that didn’t open the first email about half an hour later. “There is something else I forgot to tell you about…”
Care about your end users more than you care about your own benefit.
Google Forms.
Episode #138 – How The Pros Generate Winning Business Ideas
Date: 2013-01-17
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Book: Fantastic Voyage
Every small business that has a presence online should be doing some sort of paid advertising.
Lonely Planet is best read before your second trip somewhere so it is easier to implement because you know the context.
It is easy to be attached to your idea and not listen to your marketplace.
Books are a great way to spread important ideas.
Listen for problems and deliver.
millionmilesecrets.com
Episode #139 – “P” is for Product
Date: 2013-01-24
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
You can always start now.
Start with one.
What you do as an employee is a product that can be productized.
Your audience starts with one.
A great employee is good at productizing their job.
Monitor what counts.
Episode #140 – The Location Independence Imperative
Date: 2013-01-31
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
You don’t have to first be successful to travel.
If you want the coolest meetup you gotta start the coolest meetup.
Earth Class Mail automatically scans and emails your mail to you.
A 30-year mortgage is a liability in the flexibility column.
You’re not behind the ball of the location independence trend. You’re at the beginning.
Wealthy is when the monthly income from your assets is more than your monthly expenses.
Have something better to do that your business.
Book: The Foundation
Episode #141 – Rocking the Rockefeller Processes : “H” is for Hire
Date: 2013-02-07
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Japan is awesome.
Book: Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
If you’re building a cash flow that you can’t hire somebody else to handle you’re not building a business–you’re building a job.
The building blocks of leadership are the ability to predict and the ability to delegate.
Race to your first hire.
Have a basic understanding of accounting.
Hire people as effective or more effective than you.
It doesn’t make sense to have a daily call as the data doesn’t change that often.
TMBA25 – Meanwhile, in the Philippines, A Resort Owner Receives 3,000 Youtube Views a Day
Date: 2013-02-08
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
A lot of people are intimidated by the Philippines (a third-world country).
Be careful about the situations you put people into.
Understand the information your audience wants.
Episode #142 – The Hiring Golden Triangle
Date: 2013-02-14
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
You can’t hire for accountability.
Do the action first.
You have to do the work first. Then write a standard operating procedure. Then hire somebody.
Or you can hire a service provider who has a track record for that procedure.
If you can’t write it down somebody else can’t do it.
You have to have something an intern wants.
It is usually a bad idea to have an intern as your first hire.
TMBA26 – Offshore Incorporation 101 For Internet Business Owners
Date: 2013-02-14
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Get accountants and bookkeepers early on.
Get a bookkeeper in year one.
Get an account when you have employees and inventory.
International tax consultant only if really needed.
Foreign Earned Income Exclusion Act excludes about $97k in personal income if you’re outside the U.S. for at least 330 days a year or by qualifying for residence.
You can look into foreign subsidiaries. You can leave profits in those companies indefinitely.
If you’re going to be doing business offshore you want to have an entity in a respectable location that your customers will want to do business with.
You have to tell the U.S. government about every bank account that you open.
Episode #143 – The Art of the Deal and the Science of Ordering the Grey Matter of the Universe
Date: 2013-02-21
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Making deals is the most important skill in entrepreneurship.
You have to be 100% confident in your idea and vision and know that it is right for you and the world.
Find the nexus of your desired future and what works for them.
Demonstrate the extreme cost of the status quo.
Anchor your vision against competing future trajectories.
TMBA26 – Use The Recurring Revenue Test to See If Your Product is Dead on Arrival
Date: 2013-02-22
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Your product is going to get commoditized real quick.
Don’t go to retail until retail comes to you.
If a product is just used to build a list then you could be building the wrong product.
Make your marketing budget an asset for you.
strong>Episode #144 – The 10 Point Business Diagnostic Test
Date: 2013-02-28
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship is a skill.
Plan for your future trajectory using strategic accounting.
Think about your future time value.
If your niche is too broad your customer acquisition costs will be higher.
Speed up your failures.
TMBA28 – A Method For Outsourcing Your Job and Living in the Developing World
Date: 2013-03-01
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
If you are a manager do not quit your job. Convince your boss that you need to outsource.
The Philippines is the second largest English speaking country in the world.
Cutting costs is not just dollar for dollar. It is overhead, insurance, office space, computers…
If you’re not happy with your job get out of it. Get into something that is an opportunity for you and evolve it to where you want to be.
Getting the deal is the most important part.
Episode #145 – Taxes, Taxes, Taxes, Taxes (featuring David McKeegan)
Date: 2013-03-07
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Go after problems that you understand.
Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.
Physical presence test means that you’re in a foreign country for 335 days of a 365 day period.
You get a dollar for dollar tax credit for taxes paid to a foreign government.
Foreign Housing Credit includes rent, utilities, furniture rental.
TMBA29 – How to Get (and Keep) 1000′s of Blog Subscribers
Date: 2013-03-08
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Scale business through process.
If you like what you do you’ll actually be successful.
Have a schedule you stick to.
You’re more motivated to stick to your schedule if you see money coming in.
Always be audience first.
Info is free. Work is paid.
You can’t blog in a bubble.
The people that pay you more tend to require the least support.
A blog is how you attract new users to your real business.
Affiliate revenue comes from authority.
Episode #146 – Some of Our Quirky Day to Day Entrepreneurial Habits
Date: 2013-03-14
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
At the end of the day you have to take responsibility for everything that happens in your business.
Ask your customers a hard question.
Always be willing to revisit decisions you’ve made.
Book: Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.
TMBA28 – A Method For Outsourcing Your Job and Living in the Developing World
Date: 2013-03-15
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
If you are a manager do not quit your job. Convince your boss that you need to outsource.
The Philippines is the second largest English speaking country in the world.
Cutting costs is not just dollar for dollar. It is overhead, insurance, office space, computers…
If you’re not happy with your job get out of it. Get into something that is an opportunity for you and evolve it to where you want to be.
Getting the deal is the most important part.
TMBA30 – Why Location Independent Entrepreneurs Love Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam
Date: 2013-03-15
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
shoppingcartlabs.com
Vietnam has amazing foods, cafes everywhere, and fast wifi.
So much energy can create a sense of stress.
Episode #147 – Trade Shows and Low Blows
Date: 2013-03-21
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Go to trade shows when you’re just starting out in an industry.
Everybody’s defense is down when you ask them how they market their product.
You’re not going to learn anything talking about your product. Listen to them talk about their product.
There are opportunities to collaborate instead of compete.
TMBA31 – Is it Possible To Travel Forever?
Date: 2013-03-22
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
There is an affiliate marketing subculture.
A regular job is the unsafe option.
Travelling is a life decision.
Look for high commission affiliate deals.
Commission Junction is the place to start.
If you use credit cards effectively you get bonus points, fraud protection, etc.
Have a name that gives you an idea what the site is about.
One to three articles a week.
Nose + Grindstone.
Be an advocate for your readers.
Episode #148 – “Up or Out” – Re-Setting Your Strategic Scope
Date: 2013-03-28
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Book: Start With the Why
Book: Maverick
Book: Good to Great
Book: Getting Things Done
Find a mission.
Focus on the big winners rather than the breadwinners.
Scope document is for personal mission.
Reverse engineer your outcomes.
Don’t let your mentors over coach you.
TMBA32 – Subtle Social Media Tactics That Could Change How You Generate Leads
Date: 2013-03-29
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Hashtags are great to find something on a certain event.
You want your tweets to be less than 140 characters so they can be retweeted.
You get more click throughs if you add your commentary to a link you tweet.
Absolutely believe in everything you put online.
Aim for a long tail build.
Use hashtags judiciously.
At bootstrap scale it needs to be you.
On Facebook if you’re not paying to show your posts then they won’t be shown as much.
You’ve got to be putting out interesting stuff.
Twitter cuts through the noise. It is voices you trust to cut through the content.
Buffer is a good tool for Twitter.
Episode #149 – 5 Tips for Managing a Software Development Project
Date: 2013-04-01
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Be specific about the feature you’re looking for.
Use Balsamiq or a screencast to walk through feature with your developers.
Work time estimate into a schedule.
Developers are notorious for overestimating their abilities and underestimating how long things are going to take.
Get a time commitment in writing.
Setup weekly progress reviews.
Don’t save important issues for weekly status reports.
Do not set it and forget it.
Hire fast and fire faster. (for contractors)
Develop standard operating procedures.
Think about how to turn it into an ongoing relationship rather than just a one time transaction.
Set expectations upfront.
You don’t want to be in the business of running your own infrastructure.
Time is money.
Episode #150 – Imperfection and Getting on With It
Date: 2013-04-04
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Get products in peoples’ hands.
Business are dynamic systems.
Book: Anti-Fragile
Anti-fragile things are things that break up instead of break down.
You’ve got to have an ego to get into business and then you’ve got to be egoless to service your customers.
You don’t have a business when you incorporate. You have a business when you have money coming in for a product.
Design should be just enough to tell people what to do.
Dave Ramsey podcast.
Get out of debt.
Episode #151 – Social Feedback Strategy and Adwords Landing Pages
Date: 2013-04-11
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Have conversations with your customers.
Landing page approach isn’t as sticky as social approach.
Put a phone number on it.
Social media strategy revolves around a narrative. You need a narrative if you want people to come back.
Embed yourself into a community forum made up of your marketplace.
Book: Crossing the Chasm
If the center of a community doesn’t exist you need to create it.
Provide indiscriminate value to the community.
Make yourself a leader of the community.
Show that you care.
TMBA33 – What is the Best Place for Location Independent Families?
Date: 2013-04-12
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Greenback Tax Services
Kids don’t have a preconceived notion of what life is like.
For small kids home is tied to their parents rather than a place.
Health insurance is for peace of mind with a family.
Toys made outside of the U.S. might still have lead or other things like that.
Sometimes easier to bring a nanny with you.
$3k to $4k a month for an apartment in Rio for a family of four.
More expensive to have a baby in Rio than in the U.S.
No healthcare in Bali.
International schools are good in foreign countries.
Episode #152 – The 10 Travel Commandments
Date: 2013-04-18
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Don’t use rolling luggage unless you’re going to only one destination.
Leave 20% of space left in your bag.
Use Airbnb.
Most places (Paris is an exception) you can find places on Airbnb that are cheaper than hotels.
Use Google Maps and Google Translate.
First 30 minutes on the ground should be focused on getting a sim card with a data plan.
Before leaving on trip save important data such as addresses of hotel, how to get to train, etc.
Don’t waste away travel time. Use it effectively.
Take some great photos. Put them in Camera Plus or equivalent.
Book a tour.
Do your homework.
Make the most out of your hard-earned points.
You generally get the best currency transaction rates when you take your money out of an ATM.
xe.com
Trust your gut on what you love.
Episode #153 – 10 Potent Quotables From DC BER Speakers
Date: 2013-04-25
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Book: Work the System by Sam Carpenter
There is a big difference between having an idea yourself and getting the employee buy-in.
Work on a business rather than in a business.
People are going to have more exposure to your product than your market.
Establishing a track record as an entrepreneur who can sell businesses is an extremely valuable asset for your career.
Diversify anchor text.
People don’t want to be manipulated. They want to be helped.
Be passionate about helping people.
Build a movement, not a business.
Be data inspired rather than data driven.
Episode #154 – How Profitable Niche Selection Really Works: Rip Pivot and Jam Redux
Date: 2013-05-02
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Me too businesses suck.
Identify your key differentiators and find out how valuable they are to your marketplace.
Inventory your skillsets that people will pay for.
Espionage (who is achieving the results I want to achieve?).
Make sure you choose the right wave.
Don’t choose niches that not a lot of people are making money on.
Choose a growth market. All boats go up with a rising tide.
Don’t limp into a business.
Have sales goals.
Leverage market intelligence.
Episode #155 – The Power of Negative Action – Optionality, Convexity, and Anitfragility
Date: 2013-05-09
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Book: Anti-Fragile
A career does not scale. A portfolio of small businesses does scale.
A blog post scales. A client phone call does not scale.
Do things that give you options.
Stop doing thing that take you down the wrong path.
Episode #156 – George Washington’s Guide to Being The Boss
Date: 2013-05-16
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Choose your inner circle wisely and love them deeply.
Correspond with care, timeliness, and responsiveness.
Don’t have ambiguity in your writing.
Ask yourself if what you’re doing is helping your clients.
It is your job to vanquish rivals.
Episode #158 – 1,000 True Fans, 100 True Customers, or 10 True Clients
Date: 2013-05-30
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Business models are frameworks to inspire consistent action into the chaos.
The Internet has created new business models and changed the viability of existing business models.
If you’re an artist having 1,000 true fans paying you $100 a year allows you to make a living.
Recurring revenue ($1/day) from 100 true customers.
A consulting model is ten true clients paying you $500 or $1,000 a month.
If you’re one of my clients you’re going to be one of my customers. If you’re one of my customers you’re going to be one of my fans.
TMBA34 – A Roadmap (with Case Study) For Replacing Your Salary in Less Than 6 Months
Date: 2013-05-31
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Pricing evolves as you learn what clients want and what they value more.
Bring in people that want the services you offer and find out exactly what they want.
SOP (standard operating procedure).
APHD (Apprentice. Productize. Hire. Diversification.)
People abandon ideas too soon.
The first year in your business is about you having a level of grit and determination that most people just don’t have.
If it was easy everybody would do it.
Pain points are visible if you’re engaged.
There is so much emphasis put on ideas and not enough emphasis put on execution.
Execution is another word for consistent, focused daily action.
Episode #159 – A Philosophical Conversation : Gettin’ Paid vs. Makin’ Bank
Date: 2013-06-06
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Cultivate a professional table image.
Have a lot of conviction and enthusiasm behind your ideas.
Don’t peel cash until it counts.
Make more than a living.
Invest in your education.
Learn to communicate unpopular ideas.
Do little things every single day that are going to build up over the long term.
A brand is built on ideas.
Go from making a living to making a killing.
Reverse engineer every touch point that somebody has with your company.
Don’t work on what makes you money.
500px for stock photos.
TMBA35 – SEOh No! – Sabotage SEO (What to Do About it) and the Impact of Penguin Updates
Date: 2013-06-07
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Disavow negative links through Google.
Disavow links at the domain level.
Reconsideration requests from Google only work with manual penalties.
99% of penalties are algorithmic penalties.
Check your analytics.
Penguin penalties (anchor text variation) refresh at times.
Create a new page. Build foundational links.
Building a brand is the ultimate SEO.
Episode #160 – A Fireside Chat
Date: 2013-06-13
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Empire Flippers for selling websites.
Don’t let what you want now get in the way of what you truly want.
Add value before you ask for value.
Passion is practical.
Don’t be a martyr to your business.
Focus on having good energy.
Where the CEO is very strong the business tends to be very weak.
Push through the dip.
Believe in the trajectories you choose in life.
If your income from assets is more than your expenses you are wealthy.
Episode #161 – We Sold a Business, Here’s What We Learned
Date: 2013-06-20
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Book: Built to Sell
Look at upstream customers.
Have an exit plan when you start a business.
The people that are most likely to be your customers are the ones that understand the most about your business.
Don’t think that an offer means anything about the past or future value of your businesses.
Lay out clear expectations and deadlines when putting a site up for sale.
Putting a deadline on things creates a sense of urgency.
Seal the deal. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Episode #162 – A 21st Century Financial Script
Date: 2013-06-27
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Personal finances are the ground zero for entrepreneurship.
Home ownership cuts down your options.
You don’t NEED to be doing anything with your money.
Banks have an agenda.
Entrepreneurs don’t do things they can’t afford.
Keep it in cash and wait for the dash.
Having a war chest gives you options when things go bad.
Episode #163 – The Bootstrapper’s Guide to Business Partnerships
Date: 2013-07-04
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
A partnership is a sinking ship.
One of the biggest issues with a partnership is managing resentment.
Don’t overvalue money (funding).
Don’t partner for something you can pay cash for because ultimately the equity is going to cost you more.
What is worse than wasting your money is wasting your time.
Don’t partner on side projects that require a ton of time.
Focus on partnering is side project for resources rather than time.
Don’t partner with somebody that has different financial goals.
Create an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding).
TMBA36 – Creating Profitable In-Person Events
Date: 2013-07-05
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Two costs: costs of venue and costs of speakers.
Revenue is money from sponsors or exhibitors and money from ticket sales.
Make sure everything (tables, wifi, etc.) is included.
Have a lower price for people that register early (early bird price). Helps you with inventory. Gives you flexibility to change pricing to get rid of all tickets.
Don’t be scared to do bulk deals.
Never pay for business class for speakers.
Try to get local people to speak.
Episode #164 – 5 Concepts (That Don’t Cost Much To Implement) That Can Help You Build Wealth
Date: 2013-07-11
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Don’t fall subject to behind-the-ball fallacy.
Stop benchmarking.
Things can happen fast if you take the right approach.
Success demands exposure.
Diversify rather than protect.
Understand the dichotomy of value versus money.
Entrepreneurs focus on value.
Hire for it or dump it.
Episode #165 – Building Strong Communities
Date: 2013-07-18
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Embody the connector’s mentality.
Create systems to connect members of the community.
Build SOPs for your community.
TMBA37 – How Hyperfocus In Your Marketing Can Lead To Broader Business Opportunities
Date: 2013-07-19
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Autoresponders.
What matters isn’t how good the product is but how you can pass on information about them.
Online marketers need to acquire trust and attention.
To move up in business you need to have strategic relationships. To get those relationships you need to prove yourself.
Network up. Niche down.
If you just work you’re a martyr. If you just talk you’re a charlatan.
Go and meet people that are already doing it.
Episode #166 – LBP Inside Baseball and Why We are Moving the Show to TropicalMBA.com
Date: 2013-08-01
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Don’t do too much.
Book: The Power of Habit
TMBA38 – Welcome LBP Listeners
Date: 2013-08-01
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Spotlight marketing.
Fix format problems.
TMBA40 – Dreamline 3.0 – A Simple Approach to Getting What You Want in Life
Date: 2013-08-15
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Write down examples of what you want to be having, what you want to be being, and what you want to be doing.
A linear path is a plan–not a dream.
You’re trying to align your micro-decisions.
Eliminate things that aren’t contributing to your goals.
Eliminating things decreases overhead. (Live simply.)
It is basically an operating document for your personal life.
Don’t share your dreamlines with other people. Talking about things prematurely often screws things up.
Only share with people you call partner (business or life partners).
You should be evaluating the trajectory of your life on a regular basis.
If you don’t decide where you’re going there is a long line of people that will tell you where to go.
TMBA41 – Should You Deprioritze Your Income and Go After Your Passion?
Date: 2013-08-22
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Meaning is the new luxury for our generation.
Look at what you did naturally as a teenager without being forced to do it.
Design a business that allows you to do what you are passionate about not just something affiliated with what you are passionate about.
TMBA42 – Working More Doesn’t Always Pay Off
Date: 2013-08-29
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Stop buying dreams and start making dreams.
Productivity is a measure of output per unit of input.
If you’re consuming you’re not producing.
Consumption can help be inspired.
Parkinson’s Law: The amount of time a task will take is the amount of time you give it.
Ask yourself what is the intended result.
Tie actions to a specific result.
Book: Work the System by Sam Carpenter.
You should only have six people reporting to you.
The one big thing. What is the one thing you can do daily/weekly/monthly to move your business forward?
Double-down and focus.
Systematize the six people that are most important to your business success.
Listen to the nature of your procrastination.
Pomodoro sprints.
Book: Getting Things Done
Don’t rely on habits to get things done.
TMBA43 – What We’re Reading
Date: 2013-09-05
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
The more power we have the more institutions that exist exert more power back on us.
If you can’t communicate your vision then how are people going to get onboard with it?
Movie: Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Run into life instead of running away from life.
Thought space is the ultimate wealth.
Take a long term view but like where you are at right now.
Book: The Unconventional Rules of Investing
Invest in teams that can do it without you.
Cashflows scale.
TMBA44 : How to Effectively Use Google Adwords
Date: 2013-09-12
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
You’ve got to be selling something to have paid traffic.
If you’re investing in SEO you should be investing in paid traffic.
You now need to pay to have your product listed in Google’s store.
95% of Internet sites serve ads of some sort.
Retarget a silent list.
A lot of times people make purchases based on emotion.
Know the value of a visitor.
Know your margins.
TMBA45: How To Get Rich
Date: 2013-09-19
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Just get in the door.
Trend following in trading means you never get in at the bottom and sell at the top.
If you find something that works don’t question whether you got lucky. Just stick with it.
There are a lot of people that have a lot of money but don’t have a lot of power.
Hot money jumps around trying to chase returns.
Educating yourself is a good way to invest money into your business.
TMBA46: How Is It Possible To Raise $100,000 In 4 Days Without Giving Away Equity Or Taking A Loan?
Date: 2013-09-26
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Leverage relationships as a way to change your life.
Surround yourself with people who know what they’re talking about.
Ask why five times and then you can start innovating.
Be passionate to get through the hard days.
Shut the hell up when somebody is telling you what they think of your idea. Figure out later if that feedback is good or not.
Locate yourself somewhere important.
The way business is being done is shifting faster than big institutions can adapt.
The money that comes in for a Kickstarter project is to be spent on the project and nothing else.
TMBA47: Building Distributed Software Teams in Asia
Date: 2013-10-03
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
$275-$325 a month for fresh out of college programmers.
Senior developers can go for $2,000 to $2,2000 a month.
Look at whether things are worth doing.
Self improvement doesn’t need to be adding things. It can be subtracting things as well.
Get yourself in shape the old fashioned way.
It is a bad idea to use Modafinil as a sleep avoidance strategy.
It helps to be in the same location as your developers as you’re learning your strengths and weaknesses.
The average education of a graduating computer scientist is higher in the U.S. than is Asia.
EP48: What Makes a Great Conference Talk? (And Specific Takeaways From Outstanding Software Entrepreneurs)
Date: 2013-10-10
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Focus on your craft.
Track customers during the trial period.
Raise your price.
Know if you’re in the learning stage and if it has potential to get to the scale stage.
Your acquisition costs should be one-third of the lifetime value of your customer.
Don’t tell people how hard you’re working for them. Show them.
Do not project your problems onto your customer.
You have to take a credit card to know people are serious.
Feedback of people that have paid you money is worth ten times that of people that haven’t paid you money.
Start a talk with what you’re going to tell the audience and the benefits.
Show what life is like before the problem and what is is like after you solved the problem.
EP49: 10 Predictions For 2014 and Beyond
Date: 2013-10-17
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
There are still location dependent jobs.
People still need a physical connection.
Hire people not where you get arbitrage opportunities but where you get optimization opportunities.
booking.com
The role of a city evolves.
You have more of an interest to connect when you’re uprooting and going somewhere.
You need to get control of your cash flow if you’re going to control your time.
If the network is out of your control you need to figure out a way to leverage it.
Virtual currencies will happen out of necessity, out of frustration, out of pain.
EP50 – DCBKK 2013 – What Our Speakers Taught Us
Date: 2013-10-24
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Never brag about money.
Don’t talk about your future plans.
It is not validated unless they have paid you money.
Don’t believe your hype.
Home offices aren’t always a great idea.
Net 30 is for suckers.
Keep your family and business completely separated.
Don’t resolve internal conflicts on social media.
Don’t link your business name to your Google accounts.
Don’t purchase inventory before your customers have bought the product.
The only thing more important than being nice is revenue.
Design is a defensible competitive advantage.
Design is where you can set your business apart.
Record what you would do during a client meeting or a sales presentation. Put that on your website.
authorityengine.com
What gear are you in?
Select the right lever.
Plan on success. Write stuff down.
Be deliberate with your social media.
Don’t fall into a trap.
Keep your expenses low but don’t let that limit what you can really make.
With great responsibility comes great power.
Entrepreneurs make themselves responsible for things like the outcomes of their clients and the future of their industries.
EP51: Carnegie on How Young People Can Get Ahead in the World
Date: 2013-10-31
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Have no excuses. For quality people to advance the supply is never equal to the demand.
Know what the heck you want.
Anytime you want something try it out as fast as possible.
Don’t be an opportunist. You don’t make a fortune by speculation and keep it.
Ask “what can I do?”
See attention that fosters promotion and self growth.
Break the rules to serve the result.
Don’t ask for a line of credit when you need it for cash flow.
You’ve got to get good at savings.
Creating value makes money.
Put all of your eggs in one basket and watch that basket.
Nobody can cheat you out of your ultimate success but yourself.
TMBA 217: Selling the Assets of Your Business in a Strategic Sale
Date: 2013-11-07
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Look at profitability rather than top line revenue.
Think strategically about the next buyer.
A strategic buyer will be different than a cash-flow or EBITDA buyer.
Most companies don’t take on a company’s liabilities.
Get professional representation.
Get the best attorneys you can possibly can.
Your attorneys aren’t going to let you screw things up.
Get to a yes or no as fast as you possibly can.
Wasting too much time leads to a no.
An attorney who represents you, and you only, is going to help you see through a lot of things that you aren’t seeing right.
Be the lynchpin.
TMBA 218 : The Consultant’s Handbook – How to Make Location Independent Income Quickly
Date: 2013-11-14
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
If it is worth talking to ten people it is worth talking to one.
It is always relevant to be kind.
The more successful the influencer the less they want to meetup about what they are successful about.
You’re embarking on a journey to become a marketer.
Select a clever, catchy domain name that isn’t domain specific.
Identify a tagline (catch phrase) for your site that is hyper-specific.
Small businesses are starting to smarten up.
Be a conversion specialist.
Your clients want results. You’re selling the process.
There are tons of opportunities to build content.
Focus on the first niche first.
TMBA 219 : 5 Lifestyle Business Thought Experiments
Date: 2013-11-21
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
You need purpose filled travel.
Push through the adversity.
Be a boss.
Niche down.
Traction is key.
Rack up the small wins.
Be the best in whatever niche you select.
Take notes.
TMBA 220 : Thoughts on Email Marketing (60% of Our B2B Customers Open Our Emails on Mobile!)
Date: 2013-11-28
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Take whatever you think you should be charging for your product and double it.
Get the end of your funnel right.
Make your product outcome focused.
Up-level your product so you can invest in marketing.
Be on-topic early and often.
In email marketing offer people something and have a time constraint on it.
Emails need to have buttons rather than just text hyperlinks.
Sign all emails from an actual person. Have that person’s email at the bottom of the email too.
Eventually you’ll get some brand traction.
TMBA 221: 5 Trends In Remote Working and Team Building
Date: 2013-12-05
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Everybody is a free agent–their own little entrepreneur.
The term distributed team will replace outsourcing. The term team member will replace digital assistant.
The move is from arbitrage to optimization.
Hyper-specialized services will replace oDesk and Elance.
People don’t care where people are as long as they wear the t-shirt.
Have pride in your location.
Don’t hire people that know nothing about your product unless you’re willing to train them.
The Philippines is losing its edge as the preeminent outsourcing place.
Vietnam has high-level educated people.
The de facto language in SE Asia is English.
Book: Hatching Twitter
Instead of changing your heart change your venue.
You don’t have to do the things that have created success for other people.
You have to give your business your best self. Particularly when you’re getting it off of the ground.
You have to find the best people to work with.
TMBA 222: The Full Story Behind Our First Niche
Date: 2013-12-12
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
It is very difficult to market to everybody at the same time.
Use your marketing dollars wisely.
Customer development.
Target industries that aren’t online but will be eventually.
It is generally hard to sell online any product over $500.
Have your phone number on your website.
A lot of time b2b is high-friction sales.
Take customer feedback very, very, very seriously.
It is easier to lean on word of mouth in b2b.
Be the kind of company that people approach with problems.
If you get a phone call enough put the information online.
Be on the phone with the first 20 customers.
The marketing challenges you go up against in the b2c environment are huge.
Be passionate about the process.
Episode #133 – Deferred Life Plans and the Action Jackson Strategy
Date: 2013-12-13
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
As an entrepreneur you aren’t looking for money you are looking for value. Hopefully the value turns into money down the line.
Never hide your ideas. Share your ideas freely.
Building a business takes shorter than you think but longer than you can stand.
TMBA 223: Things We’d Change if We Started Our Product Business Today
Date: 2013-12-19
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
Go for relationship home runs.
Make sure you think you can be the leader in your niche.
If it is worth getting into a niche it is worth going right to the top.
You’re a spreadsheet and a general manager away from location independence.
If you can’t get the spreadsheet to work then you need to walk.
Develop WITH the customers.
Push the business forward with any means necessary.
Jam as hard as possible.
You want a small enough market where you can be the leader but you want a big enough market that will allow you to grow.
If you want to be the best at something you can’t spread yourself too thin.
Start writing down from day one your processes.
Think about who would like to buy your business.
Optimize your cart.
Do follow up email sequences with people who have checked out.
Episode #134 – If It Makes You Money, You Shouldn’t Be Doing It (The SOP Episode)
Date: 2013-12-20
Link: Lifestyle Business Podcast
Book: Work the System
Have a SOD (strategic operating document).
Top of SOD is strategic objective.
Create general operating principles for your company.
Operating principles allows you to handle grey area decisions.
Look for between 5 and 30 principles.
Any action or set of action that delivers value to customers should have a process.
Employees hate guesswork.
Reserve your willpower for where it counts.
Don’t waste your creative energy.
TMBA 224: Listener Questions, Like : “I Make $1,000 a Month, Now What?”
Date: 2013-12-26
Link: Tropical Talk Radio
As you add a linear number of features things tend to get multiplicity more complicated.
Less is more.
If you want to get into SaaS build an asset first.
Prove the market first (before you build a SaaS app).
Reduce the number of knobs you need to turn.
Keep is simple and focus on what people really care about.
Consider a problem you can solve.
