Entrepreneurship Archives - Page 6 of 23

Thought of the (Fri)Day – It’s NOT Just About Me, or YOU!

It’s Friday.

Generally, I don’t work Friday’s. However, today is a little different…

I’ve just clearing my inbox to ZERO. Prior to that I shot a couple of quick videos, had a 15-minute meeting with my VA team via Skype to discuss a new project and was interviewed for a podcast.

The time, as I hit publish on this post (which took me around 20-minutes to write) is 11am. I’m done for the day.

I’m now off to spend the afternoon with my youngest and then it’s date night for me and my wife… dinner and a movie.

Why am I telling you all this?

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How to Use a ‘Nano Podcast’ to Successfully Launch Your Next Big Thing!

I recently launched my first ever traditionally published book to the world.

It quickly became a #1 Bestseller in three separate business categories and climbed into the Top 150 Rank (hitting 133) of ALL books on Amazon.com – woot!

In short, the launch was a big success, selling thousands and thousands of copies in it’s launch week alone.

I did many things to skyrocket the initial (and on-going) success of Virtual Freedom, such as being a guest on every major entrepreneurial podcast, guest posting on some of the biggest blogs online, running a private Facebook group, mailing finished copies to major influencers (both on and offline), speaking engagements, building out a dedicated website for the book, and much, much more.

However, the one thing that I’m most proud of is deciding to publish podcast episodes directly and exclusively dedicated to the book, it’s message and the type of people that would be buying it, via a brand new, limited release podcast.

In this post I’m going to let you in on why I decided to do this, how I put it together, the execution involved to make it happen the right way, and results on how the podcast affected the initial launch success of the book itself.

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How to Put Your Podcast on Auto Pilot

I’ve been podcasting since April 2010 and I can directly relate additional business, more profits, more connections, better community building and a host of other opportunities to that sheer fact that I’m actively engaging in this brilliant medium.

Just like a blog, I believe that every entrepreneur today should be podcasting. Truly, I do.

One of the main reasons a lot of people don’t pull the trigger on this, however, is because of the time it takes to produce regular podcast content. Today, I want to try and change that!

The following is the EXACT process I follow to put my podcast on auto pilot.

It’s so simple, anyone can follow it.

Step #1 – Creating Your Podcast Content

This is the one part of the process that you cannot hand off to anyone else. This is why people are going to tune in. They are going to tune in because of you.

People want to hear your stories. Your experiences. They want / need your expertise. They want you. So, give it to ’em, okay!

And a quick note on equipment – you don’t need a pro set-up like the one I use, above. Just a simple mic and a quiet environment is all you need to get started.

Step #2 – Editing Your Podcast

Once I’ve created the raw content of my podcast, I dump the files into a Dropbox folder which is shared with my Podcast Editor VA. Typically there are two files:

The bulk of the show – either an interview recording, or my solo presentation for that episode.
My spoken intro – this is where I mention any special events, masterminds I might be doing, etc., it’s also where I read out recent reviews for the show, too.

My editor will then get to work splicing these files together with my pre-recorded intro and outro, and export everything as the final .mp3 file.

Step #3 – Tagging & Uploading Your Podcast File

As soon as my editor has finished the editing of the show he will upload the file into another Dropbox folder I share with my General VA (GVA).

She will then tag the .mp3 file with the show’s artwork, and the episode information (image above), before uploading it to my audio server – I currently use Libsyn for the New Business Podcast and Soundcloud for the Virtual Freedom Podcast.

She’ll then forward on the URL of the uploaded file to my Show Note Editor VA.

Step #4 – Create Your Podcast’s Show Notes

Once my show note editor gets the URL, she’ll download the file and listen to it. At the same time she’ll be taking down notes on important parts of the show, as well as any mentionables, such as websites, videos, etc.

She’ll then use the file’s URL to embed the audio file into the show post (I use the BluBurry Powerpress plugin), select an image to go along with the podcast topic (image of the guest, for example), write intro and outro paragraphs, select a few main talking points from the session and list them down, embed any videos, list down all the websites, etc., and finally hit ‘Save Draft’.

She will then drop me an email letting me know that the post is ready for my approval.

Step #5 – Publishing Your Podcast

I’ll then log into WordPress, open the draft post and check it out. Once I’ve spent 10-minutes going over it, making any final tweaks, etc., I’ll either schedule it to go live at some point in the future (I currently have podcast content scheduled until June!), or simply hit publish.

Step #6 – Promoting Your Podcast

At this point my General VA will put together a quick ‘social image’ (pictured below), and post the image, along wit a quick description to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ to spread the word.

She will then log into my Aweber account and with a pre-written email that I’ve already given her, schedule a broadcast to go out to my subscriber list to alert them of the new content, too.

That’s it.

That’s my entire process for producing (and promoting) podcast material on a regular basis.

About The Team That Gets it Done!

I want to state very clearly that only one person in this entire process is employed with a full-time salary – my General VA – as she does plenty more for me, too.

Everyone involved has a copy of this process flow and follows it time and time again. It’s not broken, so nobody tries to fix it – it’s the process we simply follow to run the podcast on auto pilot.

It simply works.

I hope you’ve found this quick guide helpful, and I’d like to do more of these simple process posts for you, if you’d like to see them, of course?

Question: If there was ONE process you’d like to offload to virtual staff with the help of a simple post like this one, what would it be?

Virtual Freedom is a GO! Launch Giveaway (Grab ’em While They’re Hot!)

POST LAUNCH UPDATE: The launch offers below, which were 100% exclusive to this website are now no longer available. However, the GOOD NEWS is that there are still bundles available for one book and 5 book bundles available at the official Virtual Freedom Book website. Check ’em out!

Today is THE day! The launch of Virtual Freedom!!!

This book has been a part of my life for over a year, and to finally get to the point where I can officially launch it to the world is everything from a little surreal, right the way to just down right exciting!

The purpose of this post is to simply give as much value to those that buy the book in the next 3-days (72-hours) as possible. It’s also my personal effort to try and sell lots of books and turn this baby into a bestseller, if possible.

I’ve spent a lot of time putting these giveaways together, chatting with key companies to include, liaising with my publisher on volume discounts for retailers, etc., and I’ve come up with what I think are four amazing giveaway packages.

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27 Reasons Every Entrepreneur Should Utilize the Power of Virtual Staff!

In late 2009 I hit a brick wall. I burned out. I’d been working 15-16 hour days for close to 3-years, building my company. We were doing well, growing and serving our clients professionally in the process.

However, I was a total wreck. I was a waste of space as a business owner, and a very, very absent husband and father. Things had to change. And they did.

Watch the video below to find out how. Seriously. Do it now!

Watch this video on YouTube, if you prefer.

Now that you know what I did to get over my own entrepreneurial issues, or ‘Superhero Syndrome’ as I refer to it in my new book, lets focus on getting you sorted out, okay?!!

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The Definitive Guide to Training Virtual Staff (The VA Training Trifecta)

The following is an unedited excerpt from my upcoming book. Visit the Virtual Freedom Minisite, or Amazon page for more details.

Training is one of the areas that I spend a lot of time on in the book, as it seems to be a pain point for a lot of virtual bosses to get stuck into – it also happens to be the one area that they should not (but, often do!) forget to focus on, hence the fact that I wanted to include this particular content here on the blog, to refer people to on a regular basis (in case they didn’t have the book already!).

— BEGIN EXCERPT —

In 2007, Tim Ferriss released his book The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. Overnight, the entrepreneurial world dove into a virtual assistant frenzy.

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Ducker Digest: February, 2014 – My Monthly Entrepreneur Report

Last month I published my first ever monthly entrepreneur report. I got some really good feedback from a lot of people on it, and so I’m excited to publish this, my second ‘Ducker Digest’ – a rundown of everything I’ve been through in the last month, lessons learned, wins, losses and a look at the upcoming month and whats in store.

I don’t publish these reports to gloat, or to ‘show off’ in any way. There are lots of other entrepreneurs that are out there that are overall more successful than me. I publish them because:

They’re a great way to keep myself on track, in regards to my goals and overall business aspirations.
I think that that ‘fly on the wall’ approach to showing how to ‘get sh*t done’ is a great way to learn.
It’s just a lot of fun to put ’em together!

With each report I’ll be focusing on three key areas:

Important Happenings This Month
Lessons Learned This Month
Plans for Next Month

So, without further ado, let’s start breaking it down.

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2 Ideas to Monetize Your Brand, and 1 Way to Make Money with it – TODAY!

I’ve talked a lot about building a personal brand here on the blog. It’s a subject I’m super passionate about and something that I know works all too well, when it comes to your overall business growth as an entrepreneur doing business in todays marketplace.

However, building that brand, launching it and marketing it to the world to gain the attention you want / need to take everything you’re doing to the next level is just the start. As an influencer, you have to be seen to sell (something I discussed in depth in Episode 42 of my podcast) – doing so drives authority.

You can’t and shouldn’t be seen as giving ‘everything’ away for ‘free’.

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