Category: Business

Posted on December 23rd, 2021

How to Use Your Personal Story for Brand Building

  • Brand
  • Business
  • Business Growth
  • Community
  • Entrepreneur
  • Leadership
  • Personal Story
  • storytelling
  • Strategy

Stories can make your brand stand out in a saturated market. 

Don’t think you’re interesting enough? You are. All your trials and errors and all your experiences create a unique story you can share with your prospects. 

Authentic stories are relatable and gain empathy from your target audience, helping you connect with them. 

Here are five ways you can tap into your story to build up your brand image.

 

Understand your personal story

Who are you? What do you do? Who is your audience? Why does your brand exist? 

The answers to these questions should be a story. You can tell all sorts of stories. They can be entertaining and/or inspirational. 

Have a clear vision of the story you want to tell, and make it meaningful so people can feel personally connected to it. 

Explore the things you’ve done. Whether it’s sports, your job, your hobbies, or any other activities一these things can add to your personal story and enhance your brand.

A remarkable brand story connects to your own story and manages to be real and relatable enough so it can also be your customer’s story. 

For example, if you have a diverse background, use it to connect with more audiences. 

 

Articulate the story

Storytelling is a big piece of marketing you can add to your website or content. Yet, it’s a huge opportunity often underutilized by entrepreneurs who tend to focus on the features and solutions they offer.  

People love stories. And they crave a genuine connection with brands. It’s like making new friends or having a new family. Think of your favorite restaurant or bank branch: people know your name, your favorites, your birthday… and you love it. The reason for that is the human connection. 

Think about how you convey your story to form that human connection. 

Once you piece your story together, see where your offering fits into the story. Know the purpose of the brand, and make sure it supports your mission. If you want a powerful brand story, form a sense of purpose beyond what you offer. 

 

Tell your why

Stories are impactful and memorable. According to cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner, we are 22 times more likely to remember a fact when it’s in a story. 

Use your story to share information about your brand or your offerings with your customers.

For example, product description pages simply describe the product and materials. However, customers want to see why the products will matter to them. 

Why are your products designed the way they are designed? 

Why are you trying to solve this specific problem with your tool or service?

Your “why” can be inspired by your personal experiences. When customers have associated your products with your brand’s values and your motives to theirs, they are more likely to connect with you and choose you over your competitors. 

 

Base your product on your story

Use storytelling to your advantage. Digitally native brands are crushing it these days because they know their stories. They didn’t build the products for the sake of building products. They built the products around their stories.

Use the story to advance your ultimate goal, but don’t get stuck in the story. Keep providing real value to your customers. 

Find out about the customers you are selling to. What makes them tick, and what can you say—along with what you do—to connect with them? 

 

What’s your brand story?

Stories are powerful. It’s how we evolved as a civilization – through story-telling. Stories remain a big part of digital marketing today. Your story sets your brand apart. If you can identify the “why” of the product, it will be easier to integrate and create the “what” and “how.”

In the end, it’s not simply about selling to the customer. It’s reassuring your customers through your story that the products or services you offer can contribute to their lives in a positive way and solve their problems.

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Posted on May 27th, 2021

Don’t Miss These 5 Red Flags of Crappy Prospective Clients

  • #transform
  • Business
  • Business Goals
  • Business Growth
  • Entrepreneur
  • Goals
  • Leadership
  • LinkedIn
  • Mindset
  • Strategy

Do you encounter crappy clients? If yes, welcome to the club.

That’s one ugly aspect of business hardly anyone ever talks about – the crappy clients! Forgive the foul language, but I’d rather be precise with my terms than polite. The term is a really good way to describe those clients who make your life difficult.

We see the glamorous lifestyle many entrepreneurs flaunt on social media. It’s all Lamborghinis and Teslas and enthusiasm everywhere. But that’s not an accurate picture of business. Business can be tough and ugly.

I’ve had my share of experiences with crappy clients in my journey as an entrepreneur in the last eight years. I’m sure you all can relate to this because you have also experienced it yourself.

What I learned is you need to recognize those crappy clients as soon as possible and let them go.

I’ve identified five red flags you need to look for when considering working with a client. Once you recognize these red flags, you can cut all ties, nip things in the bud – insert any idiom you wish here to stop your suffering – and never deal with them again.

These red flags are gold! If you see these, make sure to hit the road.

1. Disorganized clients

If a business or a person seems disorganized and can’t plan ahead, that’s a big NO for business!

What is a sign of a disorganized client?

If you encounter a prospective client that needs to get stuff done yesterday, that’s a red flag.

Some clients are notorious for doing this. They’re always late! For everything! They need to get things done now because they hadn’t planned any of it and are now scrambling. This haphazard approach would take them nowhere and would sink you too.

If you say yes to them, you will be caught in their chaos, and your business will suffer.

2. Disorganized business

That leads me to red flag #2 – disorganization in your client’s business.

What are the signs of a disorganized business?

The red flags are: lack of clear strategy, no clarity on the makeup of the team, not clear who is responsible for hiring, and lack of clarity about their operations.

Typically, this means they don’t know what they’re doing, and they’re involving you in the process of not knowing what they’re doing. At the end, it will all fall to pieces.

3. Not knowing the what, where, and how’s of the business

Red flag #3 is not knowing what’s going on in the company. It echoes point #2, but it reflects the state of disarray inside the business – not knowing where things are.

For example, a crappy client I just fired didn’t know where their Google Analytics was. Google Analytics should be an easy thing to set up and monitor on a regular basis. They didn’t even know if they had set up Google Analytics. In fact, nobody in the company knew. Not the marketing person, not even the leader of the company.

If you see the client has trouble answering the basic questions about their business, you have both flags #2 and #3.

4. Passing the responsibility on to another

Red flag #4 is passing the buck. By that, I mean when the client blames someone else for their failures. This is a very bad quality in businesses, and I see this all the time.

“Well, I don’t know about that because the person who set this up is no longer here, and they didn’t tell me about it.”

If you see this in a client, don’t engage.

The responsible person should have figured it out by then. It’s their responsibility to their business. Even if they outsourced or delegated the setup, they should have figured things out. It’s part of being an entrepreneur and doing your job well.

5. Beating up vendors!

Red flag #5 is being cheap toward and bad-mouthing those who help the business. In other words, beating up vendors. I hate that. That’s one of the most not just annoying but venomous things a company can do to its vendors.

Vendors help the company and the brand. And beating them up is one of the worst things clients can do. If they speak badly about the tools, platforms and other agencies they use, blaming them as described in red flag #4, you can bet they’ll do the same to you. Most likely, they’ll lowball you and not appreciate your work.

“Well, I don’t know… Am I really getting everything I need for what I paid?”

Don’t take that crap. Run the other way.

Listen to your gut

When choosing your clients, keep in mind the five red flags described in the article.

If you see any of them, stop engaging with the client. Bad clients can trigger negative thoughts about your worth and value.

If you feel your current or prospective client isn’t the right fit for you, don’t go through the rigmarole and the negativity. Avoid constantly thinking about this unfit client whose problems are keeping you up at night.

You may start feeling as if you were drained by a vampire, once you start losing your sleep and peace of mind. Crappy clients suck the life out of you. That may lead to you doubting yourself, thinking you’re not at your optimal speed and competency, even questioning whether or not you are cut out to be an entrepreneur.

You don’t need that in your business. You should be growing and looking for new clients.

 

You’re an entrepreneur, and you deserve getting back what you put into your business and your clients. Don’t let other people mess it over for you.

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Posted on April 19th, 2021

Get A Team: How Mine Grew From 0 to 10 Employees

  • #transform
  • Business
  • Business Goals
  • Business Growth
  • Entrepreneur
  • Goals
  • Leadership
  • Mindset
  • Strategy

So many entrepreneurs are solopreneurs. They don’t have a team. With this blog post, I hope to encourage you to consider getting a team. 

I’ll share my story. 

I recently hired a personal assistant to help me with the day-to-day things: my email, scheduling, and some of my social media. 

I already had a team of 10 people who took care of a lot of my business’ operations, but this personal assistant was more for the personal things that I needed help with items such as inbox management, scheduling and travel arrangements. 

Hiring my new personal assistant made me recall my experience in building the team I have now. 

I’ve had my business for seven years. Two years in, I started thinking I needed someone to help me. 

If you want to scale, you need to hire

Back when I made my first hire, I went to local colleges where I live in Denver and hired a couple of interns. One of them actually stayed with me for several years. 

In order to scale, move forward, gain more clients, free myself from having to do the day-to-day operations in my business, and most importantly, to be happy with what I do, I realized that I needed people who can help me with all of these projects. 

With all the background tasks taken care of, I can focus on the big picture: finding new clients, being the face of the company, business development, speaking engagements, strategy, new projects, and new businesses. 

For a proficient team, use a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)

But to scale your team, you first need to train your team. And training requires a process.

I use a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in my business so all tasks are documented and all new staff go through the SOP before working on any projects.

Our Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) posted in Trello. That’s also been a critical point in growing my team, because before I had standard operating procedures, I couldn’t really train people or do it very effectively.

A lot of entrepreneurs don’t have standard operating procedures, which makes it very difficult to train new hires. 

Without an SOP, you have to take time out of your schedule to individually train each and every new hire. With an SOP, it’s so easy to onboard someone. Everything’s spelled out in one cohesive source. They can get started immediately and just consult the SOP when they run into a question they need answered.  

Your SOP can be a document or a collection of videos and demos that serve as instructions for the new person to reference with regarding their new role or tasks.

SOPs are very useful when your team is growing, people leave or you have to hire a new person.

Be intentional about delegating

Delegating is not, “Oh, let’s delegate because I don’t really feel like doing stuff.” 

It’s more about what you want to do and how you want your day to look. This gives you insight on what to delegate. 

Ask yourself these questions:

  • What do you want to do?
  • Where do you want to take your business?
  • How can you make it all happen? 
  • And on which parts of that process do you want to personally focus?
  • What drains your energy?
  • Where do you see yourself, and also what are the things you wish you had more time for? 

That’s what it was for me. I decided that I don’t want to be doing the day-to-day operations of my business. I wanted to be doing more podcasts, strategic projects, and bringing in new clients. I wanted to focus on sales and business development. I wanted to do speaking engagements and creating content and courses. 

These are the tasks that I decided I wanted to do. This is how I wanted my day to look.

So if you want to scale, start with hiring a team!

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Posted on April 14th, 2021

Are you Using A Project Management Tool in Your Business?

  • #transform
  • Business
  • Business Growth
  • Strategy

Are you using a project management tool in your business? If not, you should. 

Of all the tools, this one makes or breaks a business. It gives you the opportunity to assign projects, set deadlines, and get status updates on the progress of your project. It keeps you focused on your tasks so you can stay in sync with your team without drowning them and yourself in endless emails.

If you are already using a project management tool, see how my recommendations stack up against your experience.

Here are three project management tools I recommend you try. 

slack-app-banner

Slack

Slack, my number one choice, has a cool name and a cool interface. It’s similar to an instant messenger, but it’s super organized. You can have channels for every project, every task, and every team. You have complete control over privacy and the assignment of members to each channel. 

For example, if you hire freelancers to work on a specific assignment, you can add them to only those pertinent channels, restricting their access to your other projects, team members and information. 

Likewise, you and your executive team (your project manager, your executive assistant, etc.) can have access to all channels without being bombarded with irrelevant messages. You can visit each channel as needed when you need to review something or talk to specific people within that channel. 

I love the visibility and accountability the platform offers. As team members communicate with each other within each channel, you can see how well they interact and collaborate with each other. 

You can add any attachment to every message: docs, sheets, images, video, gifs, etc. 

Slack offers a free version. If you need more functionality, such as more storage or access to older messages, you can upgrade to the paid tiers. 

 

trello-app-banner

Trello

Trello is a free project management tool that I also like. It uses boards to help you organize your projects. Every project has a board; every board has cards; and every card has lists. For example, you can drag and drop a card from an In Progress list to a Done list when it’s, well, done. 

You can assign each card to a particular person. To further organize your project, you can add to it due dates, checklists, and files. You can also add other people who might be responsible for other tasks in the project. It’s a wonderful visual and tactile tool. You can see the project as a whole as well as every task, every person, and every due date. 

 

basecamp-app-banner

Basecamp

Basecamp is like a SaaS product and similar to the other two I described above. 

Once you create a project, you can then assign people to it, add due dates, and have a discussion about the project with your team members. 

Basecamp is offered as a free, lighter version and a paid, business-oriented version. 

Between Basecamp and Trello, I prefer Trello because it’s very easy to use. The visual organization is straightforward, and the drag-and-drop functionality of the cards is very user-friendly.  

 

Move on from emails

To manage your projects via email is to waste valuable time and compromise efficiency. Employ a project management tool instead. It’ll improve the quality of communication with your team, add clarity to the project structure and flow, and declutter your inbox, freeing you to do the tasks that actually move the needle for your business. 

 

What project management tool do you use?

 

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Posted on March 31st, 2021

The LinkedIn Strategy That Will Grow Your Business With Rhonda Sher

  • #transform
  • Business
  • Business Goals
  • Business Growth
  • Entrepreneur
  • Goals
  • Leadership
  • LinkedIn
  • Mindset
  • Strategy

The advent of Linkedin allowed professionals the world over to network in a new way. LinkedIn offers unprecedented access to key decision-makers, movers and shakers, potential business partners, service providers and clients. You find someone you like on the platform, and if you want to get to know them, you connect with them and have a call. Sometimes that leads to you joining groups, getting speaking engagements, or invitations to join podcasts.

In one of my podcast episodes, I got the chance to talk with Rhonda Sher, a LinkedIn expert. She’s been helping entrepreneurs, professionals, and businesses create visibility, credibility, and profitability on LinkedIn. She is also the author of the book The ABC’s of LinkedIn, Get LinkedIn or Get Left Out. 

rhonda-sher-portraithttps://www.rhondasher.com/

Rhonda shared some of her proven LinkedIn strategies that can help you grow your business, and I am sharing them with you.

Professional banner

The banner on your LinkedIn profile is one of the first things people see. As you know, first impressions are everything. The banner is the blue space above the rest of your profile. Make sure your banner reflects your message and your brand. Using Canva.com, you can create a banner consistent with your brand.

jean-ginzburg's-linkedin-banner-and-headshothttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanginzburg/

Professional headshot

Your headshot is just as important as your banner. According to Rhonda, people are 16 times more likely to interact with you if you have a professional photo. Don’t be cute with your headshot, and don’t ignore it. A picture of your pet or an avatar will not make you look legitimate in the eyes of a potential client or business partner. Rhonda sees such profiles all the time. Some don’t have any picture at all — Make sure you are not one of them.

Clear and concise headline

LinkedIn will default to giving you your job title in place of your headline. Instead, customize it, using the 220 allowed characters. Use the headline to attract the right prospects. In the headline, tell people what you do, whom you serve, and what problem you solve.

Clear contact information

If you don’t have clear contact information, how do you expect people to get in touch with you? Make sure you list your website, email address, and/or phone number. Not having any contact details is like going to a black-tie event in your running clothes. You are not dressed for the party, and you can’t connect with people the way you would in proper attire. 

Touch 10 people before 10 AM

One of the ways you can increase the efficiency of your time on LinkedIn is by employing Rhonda’s 10 before 10 method. Rhonda asks her clients to make a habit of engaging with at least 10 people before 10 AM. The results might surprise you. For instance, one of her clients gained a 30% increase in business because of this system.

LinkedIn is a platform for serving, not selling

To utilize LinkedIn effectively, first you need to understand what it’s for. It’s not a selling platform. It’s a networking platform, where you can connect with prospects so you can build relationships with them, eventually benefiting from those connections. To help her clients get the most out of the platform, Rhonda teaches them the 3Ps: present, prospect, and profit. It’s a simple system she shares with her clients to generate appointments, share content, interact with other people’s content, engage with prospects, foster connections and profit from them.

 

Connect with Rhonda Sher if you want to learn more about her LinkedIn trade secrets.

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Posted on March 22nd, 2021

Retire or Not Retire: That Is the Question

  • #transform
  • Business
  • Business Goals
  • Business Growth
  • Entrepreneur
  • Goals
  • Leadership
  • Mindset
  • Strategy

For a long time, retirement has been regarded as the ultimate goal of a person’s work life. You work so you can retire in comfort. Typically, that would involve a pension and maybe a golden watch from the company you worked for. That is not my situation or the situation of many modern workers. When I think of retirement, I begin to puzzle. At what age? For what reason?

How? Where?

What are the reasons you would want to retire? I came up with these three:

  1. You don’t want to work anymore
  2. You are of age when working is hard
  3. You want to do what you have always wanted to do but postponed till retirement

I’ve tried on these reasons for size and realized that none of them fit me. What about you?

Read on, and let me know how you think of yourself at the typical retirement age and what you would want for yourself.

Reason #1: You don’t want to work anymore

Being an entrepreneur, I cannot wrap my head around the traditional views on retirement. I can’t imagine myself not doing what I love because I turn 65. How would that work? At 64, I am happy to be running a business, helping other entrepreneurs, and at 65, I would stop enjoying it? It doesn’t make sense to me that the age – a number – would dictate when I would stop working.

If you are not enjoying what you are doing, why are you doing it in the first place? It’s not for nothing people keep repeating this quote, attributed to Mark Twain: “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

If you don’t want to stop doing what you love just because you hit a certain age, what else may make you want to retire?

Reason #2: You are of age when working is hard

The age of 65 has long been regarded as the retirement age. I am sure governments had very good reasons for establishing it. The fact that we do age and our capacity to perform diminishes with age has to be accounted for. But here is where I turn to people such as Dr. David Sinclair for a different perspective. His book Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To is a hot commodity these days. It challenges the notion that by 65 most of us walk around with broken bodies and dull minds. Peter Diamandis’ conference Abundance 360 highlights the same message – we are living longer and healthier lives. If that’s the case, why would we not work longer, enjoying doing what we are doing?

By 65, you will have amassed incredible experience; you are still full of energy and vigor; and now you are wise too. I think it would be amazing to see what we can be when we are at the top of our game and still have a long way to go before we feel the need to slow down, whatever our mission.

Once you address the question of needing to retire at 65 because of old age or poor health, since neither may be true for you, what’s left?

Reason #3: You get to do what you always wanted but couldn’t

The final argument is you want to retire so you can finally do the things you want to do! Let me ask you this, then: why are you putting off doing all the things you want to do??? I want to travel now. And I do (minus the COVID situation, of course). If you want to take up a hobby, why wait? What’s stopping you from pursuing the things you want to do? True, maybe you don’t have the time to do everything you want to do right this moment, but if you plan it out over the course of some years, surely you can manage to have the experiences you crave to have before you hit 65.

The question is not whether or not you have the time. The question is how to make it work today.

Conclusion

Once I ran through these three reasons for retirement, I saw that I am not planning on retiring at all. It’s true that life happens, and perhaps I will not be as healthy at 65 as I think I ought to be. But that only ups the stakes for the need to experience life now. By the time I get to that age, it might be too late. Today is all we have, and I don’t want to miss out on all it has to offer because I decided to wait till retirement

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Posted on March 11th, 2021

How Long Should My Social Video Be?

  • #transform
  • Business
  • Business Growth
  • Content Marketing
  • Facebook
  • Social Media
  • Strategy
  • Uncategorized

“How long should my social videos be?” From all the presentations I’ve given and all the prospective and actual clients I’ve talked to, it’s the number one question I get asked. 

The answer is it depends. It depends on who you are, what you’re doing, the nature of your business, and, most importantly, whom you want to reach – your target audience and where they are within their buyer’s journey. That’s why before telling you how long your social videos should be, I need to explain what you need to know first.

Where should I post my video?

Post your videos where your audiences are hanging out. 

If your audiences are under the age of 30, TikTok would be a great place to start posting video content. 

For B2B businesses and those working with corporations, LinkedIn is the place to go. 

If your business is about entrepreneurship and you want to reach regular people thinking of setting up their businesses, Facebook and Instagram are good places to post videos. 

If you want to talk to seasoned fellow entrepreneurs, LinkedIn might be a better channel for you.

Relating video length to the funnel

Now back to the question about the length of your videos. 

Every platform has a recommended video length. If you’re on TikTok, you can’t create videos longer than a minute, for example. 

But let’s go beyond that. Before creating your videos, figure out what portion of your target audience you are trying to reach and where they are in your funnel. Their place in your funnel will determine the length of the videos you create for them. 

Top of the funnel – shorter videos

Those at the top of the funnel are people who’ve never heard of you, your brand or your offer.

For such people, who don’t know you but want to learn more about you, 1-2 minute videos work well. They would be willing to invest only a couple of minutes in your content to see what you’re about.

Middle of the funnel – 5-10-minute videos

People in the middle of the funnel are those who know a little bit about you and your offer, seen some of your content or watched some of your videos. 

These people are most likely engaging with, commenting on, and watching your videos. They may be willing to watch more of your content and of longer duration. 

I do 10-minute Facebook Live videos for my business to target people in the middle of my funnel. These audiences already know who I am and then see the specific content I create for them.

Bottom of the funnel – longer videos

And, of course, the bottom of the funnel is where conversions happen. 

You are safe to create longer videos for this portion of your target audience. These can be your courses, training, and webinars. Design those videos to prompt your viewers to take a specific action – whether it’s filling out a lead, getting on a call, or subscribing to a newsletter.

Conclusion

The length of your social videos should match (1) the requirements of the channel you are posting on and (2) where your target audience is within your funnel. Create 1-2 minutes videos for people at the top of the funnel. Create 5-10 minutes for people in the middle of the funnel. And create longer videos for people at the bottom of the funnel to increase conversions.

 

If you’re not sure if you and your brand – whether it’s your personal or company brand – are getting enough exposure through video content check out THIS blog on the Best Tips on How to Get Past Your Shyness with Video

 

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Posted on January 22nd, 2021

Create Digital Marketing Content for the Entire Month in Just a Few Hours

  • #transform
  • Business
  • Business Growth
  • Content Marketing
  • Social Media
  • Strategy
  • Uncategorized

We all use content and social media. The challenge I hear from entrepreneurs is they lack the time to create content on social media.

The answer? Repurpose content. It is a key turning point for your business. There is no going back once you realize how easy it is to fill your content calendar with material that you already have. 

Repurposing content is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart; I’ve shared more than a dozen speeches about this. It’s something that’s spoken about on all my social media and in my videos because of how important content is to any business. 

Today you will learn how to create a month’s worth of social media content, in just a few hours, from one video source.

Start with a Video then Chop It Into into smaller segments

You can create a video about your niche for about 10 minutes. Remember to add value to your audiences! It’s not about you, it’s about them!

From that video, you can create enough content for the entire month. You can do that by first chopping up your video into smaller segments, like the following: 

  • 15-second segments for Instagram stories

  • 60-second segments for TikTok

  • Short 1-3 min segments you can repurpose for various platforms

You can also post full-length videos on IGTV, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. They allow for longer videos on those platforms, so if your (or your client’s) audience can be found there, definitely post them. 

Repurpose your video into a podcast

Another thing you can do is repurpose your video into a podcast episode or audio clip. 

I do this all the time. I just strip out the audio from my video and convert it into a podcast episode.

I have a separate podcast where I create audio content – Listen by Jean Ginzburg. Most of the time, I would just repurpose a video that I’ve already recorded.

You can again take that audio and chop it up into smaller segments like you did with the video and then make little sound bites from the audio. 

Create at least one blog post from the video

You can also create at least one blog post out of your source video. 

I go on a platform like Rev.com and get my video transcribed automatically. It’s super fast and cheap. 

It gives you a very good basis for creating a blog post. Typically, I can create two or three blog posts out of one video. If your blog post is around 500 words, you can break it up into one main topic and two to three sub-topics.

So, if you have at least one blog post, you can probably create two or three out of it. 

Because I have the transcription, it makes it even easier to create a blog post from the video. The words are already there; all I need to do is clean it up, organize it and edit it.

Create quotes out of the blog

Out of one blog, I can pull out 10 to 20 quotes, which can be really cool.

You can post these quotes as snippets on social media. Just copy and paste the quotes, put them on your LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram, and add an image to make it look better. 

However, what I’ve been seeing on LinkedIn lately is just plain quotes or text, no image. It seems to get better engagement.

How to make quote images?

From your quotes, you can also create quote images or quote graphics in three easy steps:

  1. Choose a nifty background
  2. Find a relevant and thoughtful quote
  3. Add in your branding

For this task, you can use Canva. It’s free (although note that some template images are not) and it’s quite easy to use. 

You just log in, pick your image template, customize it with your text, and voilà, you have a quote graphic you can download for free. Canva has preset templates for specific platforms. For example, if you want to do an image for Instagram stories, it automatically gives you the size so you don’t have to worry about your graphic being cropped because it was too big or the wrong size. 

Just pick the right template, change the background image, put in your quote, add your logo, and that’s it. Super easy. It takes only about five minutes to create an awesome, shareable image graphic. 

With all of this repurposed content, you can quickly fill your content calendar for the month! 

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Posted on January 12th, 2021

3 Handy Tips on How to Get Past Your Shyness with Video

  • #sales
  • Business
  • Business Growth
  • Content Marketing
  • Entrepreneur
  • Social Media
  • Strategy

Video is now an established part of social media. It blew up some years ago with the advent of YouTube, and it’s here to stay. But YouTube, that has been around since 2005, is no longer the only place for video. 

Facebook and Instagram started off as social networks and image platforms, but now Facebook has a dedicated video tab, and both platforms are now very big on video content, including Facebook’s Live video and Instagram’s IGTV. 

And now we also have TikTok, a whole platform for videos under a minute long. 

Billions of people use these platforms. 

The question is, are you using social video to reach those people? 

Are you and your brand – whether it’s your personal or company brand – getting exposure  through video content?

Dive into video

It’s no longer a question of “Are you doing videos?” Because you should! 

What does video look like for your brand now? Have you produced any? 

If you still haven’t, start today. Just dive right into it. Try using the Live video feature on Facebook. 

If you’ve posted your marketing and company materials on your Facebook page, you probably have at least a hundred followers. Going live means you go out to those followers via a live video stream. They get alerted that you’ve started a Live video. 

It’s easy to do. When you feel good, have something to say about your niche and have it clear in your head, just press the button and go live. 

Don’t overthink it. You might be surprised at how well you do when you just do it without worrying too much. 

It doesn’t have to be long. Just say hi, and then talk about your tip or share something useful to your audience. It has to be something valuable for your viewers. Hook them with a question they want to know the answer to, and then give them that answer. 

That’s it! 

And if you make a mistake, so what? You can laugh about it. People aren’t perfect, and people love people being people! Live-streamed video is where entrepreneurs get tripped up the most, but it’s really the easiest way of getting into video. 

And guess what? It disappears after 24 hours. So if you didn’t like your live stream much, that’s fine. It goes away! If you like it, you can save it. You can use your phone’s screen recorder to capture your live video so you can repost it if you want.

Not comfortable going live? Pre-record your video and then post it on social media. 

Record a very simple video. Just use your phone. Most smartphones now are equipped with very robust high resolution cameras. It’s quite amazing, really. You don’t even need any special equipment or any high end cameras to do a video these days. 

Just. Start. Recording. 

Get your topic and hook in your head. You might not need notes because you’ll keep your video short.

If it’s short, you might be able to do it in one take. If you do multiple takes, you can cut out the parts you don’t like and stitch the video so it runs smoothly. 

Either way, I highly recommend editing your videos. You can hire a professional, someone at Upwork or Fiverr, to edit your videos. But it’s easy to learn how to edit videos yourself with modern apps, such as Wondershare Filmora, Animoto and InVideo. 

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok all have simple editing tools, so you can easily trim your videos to the right length and even add filters to them for more flattering lighting or styles. 

Just two important elements

Although editing is important, you don’t have to fuss about it too much. Your video doesn’t have to be perfect. What’s important is your content — it’s the value you bring to your target audience. 

But for your video to be effective, it needs to have two important elements: good lighting and good audio.

Audio

If your audience can’t hear you because of crappy audio, they won’t watch or listen to your video at all. 

Invest in a lavalier mic you can clip on your top, a good mic you can plug into your phone or a podcasting mic. 

Your computer and phone mics are probably fine as well! If you’re somewhere quiet, your audio should be clear enough. 

But because audio is super important, I do recommend a microphone (although I don’t always use it myself). Your good audio will also come in handy when you want to transcribe your video so you can repurpose it as a webinar or a blog post. 

Lighting

When it comes to video content, a less than perfect image is more forgiving than less than perfect audio. If your lighting isn’t good, it’s not the end of the world, but you do risk losing your viewers’ attention. To avoid that fate, try to have good lighting and a non-distracting background, such as a wall or curtains. 

I usually use a ring light to illuminate my face in videos. A ring light with a tripod is around $35 on Amazon.

Push past your perfectionism

Often, entrepreneurs tell me they stopped producing video content because their videos weren’t great. Push through that. Keep doing videos until you’ve pushed past your perfectionism.

Believe me, when I started making video content, I sucked at it big time. You can go to my YouTube channel and find the first video I’ve ever done. It’s pretty crappy. 

There is no shame in having imperfect videos. We’re all crappy when we start. Unless you have experience with public speaking and being on camera, your first videos will be crappy. 

To get good at making good videos, you have to get through the first 50, maybe even 100, bad, mediocre, middling videos! Unless you have experience with producing video content, it’ll take some time to start making great videos. 

It took me a while to do live videos because I didn’t feel confident enough in the beginning. 

You might feel the same way, but don’t get discouraged. Keep making videos so you can get past your perfectionism and get comfortable with the camera. 

Pro tip: Try a teleprompter app. You’ll feel more confident because you pre-feed what you want to say into the app and then just read it out. I use the app when I do more refined videos for marketing or branding. 

You’ll soon get used to doing it off the cuff, like I have, but if you need some structure without having to memorize your content, try a teleprompter app. 

And you just might surprise yourself by going off-script and learning to talk comfortably on-camera! 

If you are not on the video marketing bandwagon yet, get on it today! With modern technologies, such as high-quality phone cameras and editing apps, it’s easy to do. Just make sure you have something to say, use good lighting, and have great audio.

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Posted on January 8th, 2021

Driving Your Company Culture Through Your Leadership

  • Business
  • Entrepreneur
  • Leadership
  • Mindset
  • Strategy

I want to talk about company culture and leadership. It’s something you often see discussed in webinars, conferences, and TED Talks.

I’ve come to realize what culture and leadership are for my company. Both are very specific to each organization.

How do you define and drive your company culture?

Culture can be so broad and vague. Oftentimes, I get asked the question, “How do we even define company culture?”

You want to start with your core values, your mission and vision for your company.

Those are the components that drive your company culture, and are also what determines if your company culture works.

This is why we always hear success stories of founders creating the company vision, mission and values and applying them into hiring the right people to fill the seats they needed in order to help their company grow.

The right culture starts with the right people

Do you want a fun working environment? Then you should hire people who know how to balance work with fun and warm friendliness. Do you want a driven work culture? Then you should hire people who are hungry for achieving your current goals and beyond.

A huge part of cultivating your company culture does start in the hiring phase. You want to hire people who are the right culture fit for your company.

That is particularly important because if you hire someone who isn’t the best fit for your company’s culture, it can drive down all aspects of it, affecting productivity and outcomes.

You really want to be careful about what kind of people you are hiring because you want to make sure that you’re hiring people that mesh with your existing teams and add value to your company.

Hire the right people, fire the wrong ones

That sounds harsh, but think of it as being fiercely protective of your company culture. Give everyone a probation period, and if by the end of that period you really can’t see that the new hire has chemistry with your company culture, let them go. Don’t get stuck trying to make that new hire work out.

Nobody really likes to fire people— no matter who we are and what kind of business leaders we’ve grown to be. It sucks. That’s why I think you should do your best to make the right choices with the right candidates in the first place. But even then, ensure that you are assessing to see if they mesh well with your company culture.

Be the leader who drives company culture

Company leadership also drives culture.

You may just be getting started with your business and you’re playing all roles within your company. Or you may be a bit more advanced as a business owner and you’ve stepped away from the middle of things.

No matter what stage of entrepreneurship you are in, the onus is on you to be a leader. Leadership is your responsibility as you strive to grow as a startup, or as your company reaches that middle or advanced level of enterprise with a growing number of employees.

But really, company culture remains in your hands as the business leader. All of it is driven by you. Because you’re the person who created the company. You’re the one who created the mission, vision and values of the company and ultimately you are in charge of ensuring that they are met.

Over time as your business grows, you must continue to drive your company values. Your vision and mission might change a bit to accommodate your company as it grows, but the core tenets remain the same.

As a leader, it’s your job to make sure your company culture continues to dictate the current and future goals and environment of your company.

Don’t let up. Stay vigilant.

When the leader of a company neglects the company culture, when people start trickling in whose behaviors don’t align with your company values, it’s like cancer. It will spoil your work environment and outcomes. When you’re not fiercely protective of your culture, when you let in and keep people you should actually fire, that cancer spreads and it sickens your business.

Continue disseminating your culture to every single person in your company. Every single employee should be, should work, and should behave in line with your company values. That includes you. No one is exempt.

You shouldn’t keep employees who don’t adhere to your company culture. When you fire such people who create drama or disrupt your peace, you’re being a leader, you’re making the executive decision the rest of your company needs.

Protecting your company culture rests on you as the leader. It’s better for everyone’s morale.

This is how you drive your company culture through your leadership. First, by establishing a healthy culture, and second, by protecting it.

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