Join Spencer each week for insights from successful startups and their founders to find out what they did right, and what they did wrong.
Join Spencer each week for insights from successful startups and their founders to find out what they did right, and what they did wrong.
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Join Spencer each week for insights from successful startups and their founders to find out what they did right, and what they did wrong.
Join Spencer each week for insights from successful startups and their founders to find out what they did right, and what they did wrong.
read more
read less
Evan Tardy is President of the company Dr. Axe. This year they are shooting to $100 million in revenue for their health and wellness online company. This podcast explores the driver of this 6 and ½ year explosive growth- providing value through insightful, not informative, content.
Show Notes:
00:00 Intro
00:09 Evan Tardy, President of Doctor Axe
03:49 The INC 500 list
05:11 Snapshot of the current team
07:10 What kind of things have you done to get to $100m
08:49 Put a lot of effort to providing a lot of value upfront
09:18 Goal: get 20 million unique visitors each month
10:27 How did you get world class content from the beginning?
13:51 How do you as the president know how to steer the ship?
14:36 Culture of data and metrics
15:15 Email and how it’s affected the business and growth
19:47 Unpacking the terms insight vs. information
22:41 Backup intuition with data
24:10 How much do you weigh customer insight?
30:08 Connect with Evan Tardy on LinkedIn
Resources:
Evan Tardy’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/evantardy/
Dr Axe - https://draxe.com
Chris Laub is a research copywriter and is in the quest for understanding what customers truly want by asking them questions in surveys or through phone conversations. He’s going to share the questions he asks and how to get beyond surface level information.
Show Notes:
00:04 Episode highlights and summary
00:46 Introducing Chris
01:45 Helping the Shark Tank product sell
04:38 Getting inside the mind of the consumer
06:50 The Market Research Pyramid
10:29 Using the surface level information
11:01 Going deeper to understand your customers
13:29 Tactics for running a market research survey
15:35 The single most important question you can ask
18:24 Why not just go one-to-one?
20:23 What questions he’s asking to extract the “gold”
27:46 Say thanks to Chris on his Facebook page
Resources:
Market Research Phone Script - Downloadable PDF
Chri’s FB page - https://www.facebook.com/theresearchcopywriter/
SimilarWeb
Quantcast
Adam Hudson is the founder of www.reliable.education and he is making millions selling his own products on Amazon. In our conversation we’ll talk about finding the right products to sell and the best ways to build your product brand so you can eventually sell for multiples.
Show Notes:
00:04 Episode highlights and summary
01:18 Adam’s background
04:34 Why he decided to sell products on Amazon
05:23 The experience of selling his first business
07:57 How selling a business forces you to be more disciplined and smarter in growth
09:10 Spotting opportunities on Amazon
10:53 Is Amazon going to be the first Trillion dollar business?
12:28 Current challenges on the Amazon platform
15:56 Retail arbitrage vs Private Label Products
17:55 Deciding on which type of products to sale (understanding the best seller rank BSR)
21:45 The different types of sellers on Amazon
23:29 Creating your own products vs private label manufacturing
25:21 Secret for negotiating with the Chinese
27:09 Why the relationships with your suppliers and manufacturers is critical
30:36 Getting your supplier to contact you when others want to compete with you
31:59 Creating a professional brand for your Amazon Products
32:22 How to name your products and create your logo and packaging
37:00 Beware where you get your business information
Resources:
Adam’s website www.reliable.education
Book - The Magic of Thinking Big
Book - Built to Sell
Book - Blue Ocean Strategy
Get help naming products - SquadHelp
Get your logo and branding designed - 99Designs
For amazing product photography - Seller Photo
Patrick Combs is a master storyteller and has a fascinating past of having a show on HBO, consulting with Google and selling out theaters doing a one-man show. Patrick shares the mechanics of a good story so business owners can raise more capital, hire better employees, and convert more prospects into customers.
Spencer runs a real time experiment and shares his story for doing the podcast while Patrick deconstructs the story to make it 100X better.
Show notes:
00:29 Introducing Patrick Combs
01:59 His first mentor
03:09 His crazy transition at 33 years old
03:59 Getting a deal with HBO
05:58 Helping business owners tell their story
06:55 Every entrepreneur has an origin story
08:29 A good origin story tells people in 2-3 minutes your values, your reason for existence, your why, and it humanizes you in a way that draws people closer to you.
09:03 Your signature story
11:20 Spencer telling his signature story and totally sucking at it
13:56 Patrick deconstructing Spencer’s story, starting off with finding the drama
16:31 Start with a climactic moment, have a failure, and then feel your phoenix rising in the second half of the story
19:39 If you take an hour to do the work of crafting your story you will be able to wield it like a master
21:03 First step to telling a good story
22:38 The formula to every good story
24:10 Why the final piece is telling people your why
25:40 Stories trump logic and facts every single time
26:27 The reason why people don’t tell stories
27:43 Listener call to action
29:11 Say thanks to Patrick and take action by reaching out on his site www.patrickcombs.com or message him on Facebook www.facebook.com/PatrickLive
Resources:
www.patrickcombs.com
www.facebook.com/PatrickLive
www.youtube.com/user/pcombsgtc
Ty Crandall from CreditSuite.com talks with Spencer about business funding and business credit in today’s episode. On BGP episode #49 Spencer interviewed Gerri Detweiler from Nav.com and talked about building your business credit, so in this episode we dive deeper into another approach to business credit and financing.
Show Notes:
00:30 Introducing Ty Crandall
02:31 Where to start with your business credit
03:56 Using business credit to protect yourself from liabilities
06:20 Why most people don’t set up business credit
07:35 Can you establish business credit with bad credit or bankruptcies?
09:22 What’s the next step for building business credit?
10:06 Establishing vendor accounts
11:07 Establishing major retailer credit
12:15 What timelines you should expect with establishing credit
13:40 The best kind of credit to obtain
15:09 Hidden benefits for credit cards and cash credit
16:53 The difference between www.nav.com and Ty’s company www.creditsuite.com
19:50 The #1 pitfall most business owners face when establishing business credit
22:00 How to get business financing
23:59 Free guide www.creditsuite.com/ein
Resources:
www.creditsuite.com
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/business-credit-financing/id962410056?mt=2
https://www.uline.com/
http://www.quill.com/
https://www.mymonline.com/
http://www.seton.com/
http://www.gemplers.com/
In this episode Spencer talks with Garrett Robins who is currently working on a venture in the home automation industry. They talk why you can’t do it all as a business owner and how putting yourself out there by creating a good ole boys club sets you up for success.
Show Notes:
00:30 Introducing Garrett Robins
03:29 What he’s working on right now
03:52 From making $100k a summer selling home security systems to making $8/hr to learn internet marketing
05:42 His newest venture in home automation
08:04 Why he considers his business a marketing company and not a hardware or SaaS company
08:45 How shooting someone in the face with a paintball gun opened up opportunities
09:23 Why he’s laser focused as a marketing company vs SaaS project
10:19 Garrett's vision to educate entrepreneurs and bring them in as affiliates
11:11 Why the landscape for information products has changed and what’s happening
12:41 What it feels like to scale winning offers
13:52 Getting in with the “Good Ole Boys Network”
15:38 Putting yourself out there and being willing to sacrifice
16:22 Why you can’t do it all
17:17 What KPI’s he is paying the most attention to
18:34 Nothing tells the whole story like a good old fashion phone call
20:26 It sounds really sexy, but it doesn’t give you sexy money
21:36 How automating as much as you can helps you build something bigger
23:15 The real lessons when walking away from a business and losing money
24:42 The right way to structure the deal when taking outside money
25:45 Assembling the team around you as an entrepreneur
27:36 One of Garrett's biggest rules with business partners
30:18 This final piece of advice tightly wraps together what successful entrepreneurs do
31:30 Say thanks to Garrett Robins on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/garrettrobins/ or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/garrett.robins1
Resources:
Book - Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
https://www.instagram.com/garrettrobins/
https://www.facebook.com/garrett.robins1
Business owners that know their credit score are 41% more likely to be approved for a business loan. In this episode we talk with Gerri Detweiler the Head of Market Education at Nav where she shares insights on how business owners can establish and build their business credit. You can get your business credit score from www.nav.com for free.
Show Notes:
00:28 Introducing Gerri Detweiler
03:08 Only 72% of small business owners know their business credit scores
03:58 Nobody needs your permission to get your business credit
04:43 The traditional vs nontraditional source for acquiring capital
05:50 Case Study: How David Edmonson’s got capital for his sauerkraut business
06:59 Business credit cards vs personal credit cards
08:09 Where to start: The easiest and first type of business credit to establish
10:23 What you should expect once you have established business credit
12:10 How the your business and credit age factors into your access to capital
14:13 Why your business category determines if you are high risk vs low risk
16:02 How much capital a business owners should expect to get
17:10 Financing based on cash flow or sales - very expensive
18:02 Financing from PayPal, Square and other merchants
18:34 Access to capital based off of cash flow
19:10 Crowdfunding options like Kiva, Able Lending and Kickstarter
20:44 Do these 5 things to prepare for financing before you need it
21:36 Get your business credit score at Nav.com
23:00 Why business credit is used with government contractors and large vendor relationships like Wal-Mart and Target
26:13 Say thanks and ask Gerri question at https://twitter.com/gerridetweiler
26:50 The Ultimate Guide to Financing Your Business in 2017 free ebook at www.nav.com/ebook
Resources:
www.nav.com
Gerri’s books on Amazon
The Ultimate Guide to Financing Your Business in 2017
https://twitter.com/gerridetweiler
Special shout out to Joel at Nav for connecting us together.
Disclosure: I am an affiliate for Nav so if you sign up I will get paid a referral fee which will contribute to my burrito fund.
In this episode Spencer talks with the founder of Grumo Media Miguel Hernandez. They talk about his fascination of learning and then deconstructing the information and applying it to creating online courses. You can see some of his best courses on the Udemy platform. This is a special interview because Miguel was in BGP Episode 20 a couple years ago.
Show Notes:
00:29 Introducing Miguel Hernandez
03:08 How Miguel learns and processes information
05:03 Why he listens to audio and video at 2x speed or faster
06:45 Consuming information using the food framework
11:16 How to apply what you learn into practice
13:30 Why you should teach others
16:25 How to decide on what topic to teach
19:31 Follow these tips to increase engagement with students
22:19 Designing and structuring your course
25:00 Why it’s so important for people to get a quick win
27:12 Strategies for building support and efficiently educating
29:30 Why Miguel is successful on Udemy
33:44 Building marketing channels and funnels for Udemy courses
35:36 How Udemy rewards you for creating a good course and good conversions
42:55 Leveraging the review credibility
43:34 The fastest way to monetize your knowledge
46:52 What Miguel is focusing on moving forward
48:18 His course funnel is www.marketyourcourse.com
49:39 What it actually takes to be successful teaching online
54:26 Say thanks to Miguel on Twitter @grumomigs or his blog www.grumo.com
Resources:
Miguel’s courses on Udemy
Video Speed Controler Chrome Plugin for faster audio/video learning
www.marketyourcourse.com