I finally had the good pleasure of connecting with Jan Koch to talk about WordPress, e-commerce, and where things are headed.

Founder Matt Barnett joins me to talk about how Bonjoro is revolutionizing personalized marketing, onboarding, and video in email.

Content as equity is a new term I heard recently that I wanted to share with you guys. I also have some updates on my personal life and where I've been.

I was having a conversation with my friend Lee Jackson the recently on a Facebook live stream and we were talking about how sometimes it feels like we're 'cheating' when we're podcasting because we get to spend an hour with these brilliant minds and it's almost like getting a one-on-one mentoring session with them. That was exactly how I felt the entire time I was talking with Brian Kurtz. It's been a long time since I've connected with someone new, who I instantly respected, and thought "as soon as I'm ready to hire a mentor next year, I want to work with Brian" (I need to wrap up a few things this year and get LeadSurveys launched). Brian has an amazing background in direct response marketing (over 30 years) and has brought all of his wisdom from selling offline into the online space. He's also the co-author of 'The Advertising Solution' and has bought the rights to reprint all of Eugene Schwartz' books as well (he also graciously sent me his book as well as Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz... class act! :-) ). I honestly felt like I had been giving a little bit of a glimpse behind the curtain. Over the last couple of years, I've spent a lot of time going back to fundamentals in marketing and direct response. I've started enjoying the process of mastery of the craft and have found a completely different joy in everything I do. I can guarantee you if you're even slightly interested in marketing online with a real strategy (i.e, the long game as opposed to quick tactics), you're in for a real treat with this interview. I'd suggest a pen & paper for notes too. Questions I Asked Brian Can you share your story with the audience? What is Titans Marketing? Let's talk fundamentals and the role they play in list building. What are people doing wrong with list building? What would you suggest someone do to improve their list building? Let's talk about your book, The Advertising Solution. What are you working on now? What You're Going to Learn Brian's thoughts on physical mail today How paying postage made him a better marketer What the 40/40/20 rule is What relationship capital is Why the psychology of selling is the missing piece of the puzzle How & Why Brian acquired the rights to Eugene Schwartz books Where to Connect with Brian Website | Facebook Books & Links from this episode The Advertising Solution The Legends Book Breakthrough Advertising Book Brilliance Breakthrough Book

I have a little confession to make before we get into the podcast with Chris Mason of WooCurve. One of the products sold through WooCurve, Handsome Checkout, was something I had thought about creating with my LeadSurveys business partner, Gordan, about a year and a half ago. Then we pivoted to LeadSurveys (which is good because I'm super excited about LeadSurveys, but that's another conversation). Needless to say, WooCurve has created two amazing products for WooCommerce users that are long overdue. One-click upsells and Handsome Checkout. What was most exciting about talking with Chris for me (besides the fact that he has amazing products), is that Chris is a marketer first. He's the marketing mind behind WooCurve and speaks my language when it comes to direct response marketing (my most recent obsession). Let's jump into the interview. Questions I Asked Chris What were you doing pre-WooCurve? First, I love that you created WooCurve and the two products you guys sell. Can you explain One-click upsells and Handsome Checkout for the listeners? How long has WooCurve been around? What was the process for getting your WooCurve products developed? Who is WooCurve for? Can you share any of your customer's success stories with your products? What's coming for WooCurve? What You're Going to Learn How they ran a beta to test the product Who they targeted for their beta version How they decided what payment gateways to integrate with What features they decided to run with when they launched What the 'proof element' is What Chris would recommend to someone getting started with online marketing Where to Connect With Chris Website | Facebook  Links from this episode WooCurve Handsome Checkout One-Click Upsells No BS Guide to Direct Response Marketing by Dan Kennedy

I was introduced to Kyle from my friend Tom Morkes (who I need to get on the podcast still, he's brilliant at what he does and is a stellar connector) and responded like a little kid with who was just given a new puppy! Because my happy place is content and content creation, I was thrilled to get to talk to Kyle who has a brilliant book and was also partly responsible for growing WP Curve with their content strategy (he took over for Dan Norris when Dan got too busy). The more I dig into "all things content" the more my through processes shift. On one hand, I know there is a ton of value in creating a solid strategy for growing your business with content. On the flip side of that, there's also a ton of value in simply documenting and sharing. No strategy, just creating based on what you're doing and sharing. This is why I was so excited to talk to Kyle. I felt like I got to go behind-the-scenes with a master. Kyle is the author of the amazing book, The Story Engine and founder of ConversionCake. Questions I Asked Kyle Can you share your story of how you ended up with your online business and an author and expert on content marketing? How did you get the job as the content manager for WP Curve? Can you share the results from your content strategy for WP Curve? Let's talk about The Story Engine. I love that you divided the book into 4 parts and then gave different approaches on how to use the book. Can you share what those 4 parts are? Why do you think so many people struggle with creating content? If you could recommend someone to ONE thing today for their content strategy what would that be? I know you don't have a crystal ball, but where do you see things heading in terms of content? What channels & mediums would you recommend people pay attention to? What You're Going to Learn How he created a system around creating more content for WP Curve when he brought on additional writers Examples of what they included in their style guide How focusing only on the data can hurt your content strategy What the invisible value of content is Why you shouldn't work on content one idea at a time Start with the core problem of your audience (and how to find it) Why you should get on the phone with your best customers Where to Connect with Kyle Website | Twitter | Book

This episode is brought to you by my sponsor, Content Snare This podcast interview is long overdue (we recorded a few months ago) and I'm excited to finally share this with you. I had the good fortune of connecting Jürgen Strauss a few years back through a mutual friend. Jürgen is one of those people who instantly makes you feel at ease and is a true pleasure to talk with. He also has a brilliant understanding of processes and systems, how to grow a team (through outsourcing), and how to scale a business with WordPress. Jürgen is a certified WP Elevation consultant and is also the founder of the Innovabuzz podcast (which I have had the good fortune of being a guest on). Questions I Asked Jürgen Can you share your background & business with the listeners? You've also got your podcast, the Innovabuzz podcast, can you share a little bit about the podcast and why you started it? What has the podcast done for your business? One of the many reasons I wanted to have you on the show was because I know you've got some amazing skills when it comes to systems & processes. How did you get into that? What are some of the things you see people afraid of doing or afraid to implement when it comes to creating processes & systems? For web development agencies, is there a common mistake people make? What's coming for the rest of this year for you? What You're Going to Learn How Jürgen went from chemistry to the internet How he's learned to build remote teams in China, Japan, Singapore, India, Europe, and North America while being based in Australia How to focus on building strategic relationships and partnerships to grow remote teams How they position their projects for long-term work with their clients How his podcast was originally focused on innovation and has morphed into so much more (and what it's done for his business) How to connect with startups and get feedback and responses when using their tools How to make sure your team understands the why behind the company and their tasks Where to Connect with Jürgen Website | Facebook | Twitter

This episode is brought to you by our sponsor, ContentSnare  Anyone who has ever worked with clients to create their website can tell you that the hardest part of the process tends to be getting the content from the client to put into the website. My guest today, Christine Thatcher, and her business partner, Michelle Hunter, have solved this problem and are now showing other people how to do the same. What's fun is that I connected with Christine through our mutual friend (and sponsor of this podcast episode), James Rose of ContentSnare. One of the things that I was most excited about when Christine explained the Content Bottleneck Course to me was that they've created wireframes for client content (many people are familiar with wireframes for websites, but not for getting client content). We also talked about the soon-to-be-released Designing to Delight Course, which will help you "Master the Art of Drama-Free-Design" (I wish I had this when I was doing websites!). Questions I Asked Christine Before we get into your content course and design course, can you share your background with the listeners? How long have you been doing client work? What made you decide to step into course creations? How did you decide what to create for the design course (who was this for)? What made you decide to create the content course? Can you share a little bit about what the content course consists of? When are your courses available? What You're Going to Learn What Christine's biggest challenge was when she created her first course How she decided to price her course What her students say is the biggest shift after having taken her course The importance of leading the client through the design process How she collaborated with her business partner, Michelle Hunter, to create 'Say Goodbye To Content Bottlenecks" Why she moves her content due date to the middle of the project Get the Courses & Join the Facebook Group Designing to Delight Sat Goodbye to Content Bottlenecks Drama Free Design Collective Where to Connect with Christine Website | Facebook | Instagram

I have a confession to make. I was SUPER hesitant to jump into live streaming. For a few reasons. The first reason was that I would have to "get ready", as in, do my hair & makeup every day (O.K., technically I don't have to do that. I get that most people really don't care if what you look like if the content is good, but this was my hang up). Another reason was that I didn't want to just jump on at talk at people.  I wanted to have a strategy, plan it a bit, and make sure I had some time to promote the live stream. When I did jump in I got results INSTANTLY. I was floored by the engagement, the number of people that showed up (more than normally show up for a webinar), and the traffic to my live stream post after the event (I pull the videos into my site with Simple Social Press and write a post along with the video. The bonus with using Simple Social Press is that it also pulls the Facebook comments into the site as blog comments, which is awesome). I knew I wanted to have someone on the show to talk about live streaming and after seeing Ross Brand everywhere, I knew I wanted to connect with him. We recorded this a few months ago and things have just gotten bigger (and better) since we first connected. Questions I Asked Ross Can you share a little bit about your background and how you got into live streaming & broadcasting? What is your current business? What are some of the things people are doing with live streaming? How are people monetizing live streaming? Why do you think people are so hesitant to get into live streaming? Who are some of the people that you see doing live streaming well? What You're Going to Learn The three different ways people are monetizing live streaming How Mario Armstrong, of the 'Never Settle Show' is using live streaming to grow his brand What differentiates live streaming from T.V. The technical basics you need to get into live streaming The power of finding the right platform for your audience Why you should look at live streaming as a content strategy Where to Connect with Ross Website | Facebook | Twitter

Thanks to this episodes sponsor, ContentSnare, Get Website Content From Clients Without The Hassle   Feel like No One Is Listening? I've been there. And I'm going to warn you, this might be a bit of a rant, but it needs to be addressed. It seems like lately, I'm having a lot of conversations about people feeling frustrated with their business, or wondering "what to do?"  I don't think this is a coincidence since I feel like I've finally gotten clarity around all of this myself. The thing that boggles my mind (and this isn't a judgment because I did the exact same thing), is that when we're TOLD what will change things and make the difference, we do nothing about it. Even if the person who is guiding us or helping us is walking the walk, has actual REAL LIFE evidence that what they're telling us works. We still don't listen! We are crazy creatures. Before I dive into this any further, let's dispell the myth once and for all: Building an online business takes time and work, just like any other business. Exciting, isn't it? NO! That's the problem with us... the basic, boring response of doing the work is NOT what we want to hear. This is the internet, after all, things are supposed to be MAGICAL here, right? It's all supposed to be easy. The problem with easy is that it's subjective. First, let me tell you that I will take building an online business over working a job any day. After having spent 20+ years in retail management, where I was on my feet all day (in dress shoes mind you, dressed up since I was the manager yet I still had the pleasure of being an extra pair of hands on a daily basis), and two bunion surgeries and plantar fasciitis later, that this beats doing that all day long (and now that I've stopped doing service work it's that much better). I get it that not all jobs are physically laborious, but we're not digging ditches or sitting in traffic for 2-3 hours a day (another reason I need to move out of the Bay Area in a couple years). I get that some of you may have day jobs too, so I'm not poking at you here, I'm simply pointing out to people that don't appreciate how much easier it is to work for themselves. Yes, there are struggles, challenges, money stress... I'm not negating that. But there's like this idea that this is all smooth sailing. This rant was brought on by an email I read this morning about someone feeling unhappy about their business. They had debated even continuing (this is a successful marketer), then realized they wanted to do things their way. They were tired of launches, fancy sales copy, marketing tactics, etc. Before I tell you why I think this is hogwash, let me say that what came through loud and clear in this email to me was that this person was TIRED. More than anything, they need a break. Some time off, a little space, and probably some simplification in their business (see what 14 years of therapy with an amazing therapist can do for you?). Now let's get into why this is hogwash... No-one is making you do ANYTHING you don't want to do! Don't want to do a 'launch'? Great. Don't. Don't want to write 'fancy copy'? Cool, write whatever you want. Want to be more authentic and do things your own way? Sweet, no one is stopping you. BUT... and you knew this was coming... You STILL have to market your business! If you had a brick & mortar store, would you be whining about having to market it? You better be good at writing copy (fancy or otherwise) if you're going to do any marketing. You're going to have to SELL... that's all marketing is, selling. The methods used for marketing online are obviously different (can you imagine trying to do a 4 series video launch for a product offline?), but they work. The frustrating (and kind of exciting) thing about the internet is that things change so fast. Just when you think you've figured something out they change the game on you. Or have they?