Fueling Your Business With Live Events with Tradeshow Bootcamp founder Katie Hunt

Interviews, Show Notes

Fueling Your Business With Live Events with Tradeshow Bootcamp founder Katie Hunt
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The Nitty Gritty:

  • Why live events are where it’s at
  • How the sales and promotion cycle of a live event is different than other sales cycles
  • Why it’s important to add to your team to allow you to focus on the tasks in your wheelhouse
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We dig into the nitty-gritty details of live events in this week’s episode of the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast with my guest Katie Hunt, founder of Tradeshow Bootcamp, a business dedicated to educating and supporting creative entrepreneurs and small businesses. Katie also hosts the Proof to Product podcast. She takes a lot of pride in the events her team creates, and on that podcast she shares a lot of wisdom about what it takes to create events that offer attendees a great experience for learning and having fun, too!

Live Events are Where It’s At

Introverts of Profit. Power. Pursuit., go to live events. It’s completely worth it.

— Tara Gentile

What was to become the live event known as Paper Camp began in 2011 as a teleconference, and the first in-person Paper Camp Conference happened in 2012 once Katie knew there was a demand for this type of curriculum. Katie wanted to build a strong community where people were not just learning something, but they were connecting with others and building strong relationships. She knew that would be much more impactful at live events. Events are a really powerful tool, and although they aren’t right for everyone’s business model, they are hugely successful in helping Katie build the community that she sought to create.

Organization, Sales and Promotion of a Live Event

There’s a lot more that goes into their decision making {to attend an event} than ‘can I afford this and do I want to go.’

— Katie Hunt

Katie and her team work 6 to 8 months in advance to prepare for their next live event. She suggests if you’re doing a live event for the first time, send a survey to your audience to determine the best time of year for them to attend a live event. In the podcast, Katie walks through the steps her team takes to organize a live event, but keeping it simple and streamlined for her attendees and speakers is always paramount.

Since a live event is a higher-level program and higher expense for attendees, it’s important to start the sales and promotion process early since there is a schedule you have to maintain and people need the time to prepare to be away from their families and businesses. As soon as they close registration on one Paper Camp, they begin sales for the next one; however, there are promotional spikes in a three-month period where most of the sales happen. Through the course of the sales cycle, Katie and her team are nurturing their audience through case studies, alumni stories and more to help potential attendees see how their life would change if they attended the event and give them a taste of what they will learn, who they will be engaged with and to highlight the speakers they will interact with and learn from.

Event Teams

You can grow your team organically and in small batches.

— Katie Hunt

Katie has a small, but mighty team of virtual independent contractors, several who are Boot Camp alumni, that take care of the event details so Katie is free to work on the content and higher-level stuff that’s in her wheelhouse. Hiring people to do the work that needs to get done strengthened the content that is offered at the events.

I hope you listen to the entire episode to hear more about Katie’s team, how she manages cash flow when she has fairly large expenses to cover, why she believes in paying herself consistently and how she has turned some of her live events into online courses.

If you liked what you heard on this episode, I invite you to subscribe to the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast on iTunes today! Every week I talk to small business owners who share some of the secrets to their success as they build their businesses.

Creating Systems for Efficiency & Productivity with Indie Shopography founder Emily Thompson

Interviews, Show Notes

Creating Systems for Efficiency & Productivity with Indie Shopography founder Emily Thompson

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The Nitty Gritty:

  • How purchasing a tanning salon when she was 18 set Emily on a track for entrepreneurship
  • Why extremely detailed process management will help you feel more productive
  • How Emily balances the demands of running two businesses
Listen On iTunes & Subscribe!

This week, my guest on the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast is Emily Thompson, founder of Indie Shopography and co-host of Being Boss, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want to up their game. At Indie Shopography, Emily helps creatives build and run online businesses from the design and development of their business websites to marketing and education products. Emily and I talk about the time she bought a tanning salon at the ripe age of 18, why her extremely detailed process management helps her feel more productive and how she balances running two businesses.

Lessons from owning a tanning salon

I remember thinking this would not be my last relationship with business.

– Emily Thompson

When Emily was 18 she worked at a tanning salon one night a week in exchange for getting to use the tanning beds herself. Even though she had never taken a business course and was young, she could tell the business was in trouble. Then, thanks to a combination of moxie and mettle she made a call to the owner and ended up buying the salon and owned her first business at age 18. During our conversation, Emily shares insights about this opportunity and although it was a relatively short period of time, she credits it with giving her the bug to be a business owner. Today, she is very intentional about building a business that really allows her to do work that works for her.

Detailed {often painstaking} to-do lists for optimum productivity

My trick for myself is breaking down those tasks so minutely that sometimes I can check off 5 things in 5 minutes because I really broke them down that small.

– Emily Thompson

Whether Emily is designing a website or developing a new educational product, her process is very much the same. She outlines her entire process in the podcast and emphasizes the power of her detailed to-do lists that break down tasks into bite-size chunks. Once she has that very detailed plan, she schedules it out by using Asana. Even though her to-do list may seem super overwhelming for every project, she knows that tackling each of those individual tasks—that are small and manageable—she will ultimately get to the end of it. When those to-dos are marked off, the end result is a new product or website has been created.

Secrets to juggling two businesses

I don’t have to wear too many hats. They’re the same hats, just different colors.

– Emily Thompson

In the podcast, Emily shares her experiences and thoughts about how to juggle being the boss for two different businesses. She loves that she doesn’t have to put all of her energy into one thing, and that makes having more than one business appealing to her. The two businesses give her enough structure to not pigeon-hole herself creatively into one creative endeavor. She and her partner at Being Boss put together a very detailed marketing calendar annually so that they have a clear view of what’s happening in all three of their businesses so nothing gets lost.

In the full episode, we talk more about Emily’s passion for Asana, the structure of her team, as well as what’s on the horizon for both of her businesses, plus a book launch next spring! I hope you’ll tune in to receive all her valuable insight.

Learn from today’s most innovative and inspiring entrepreneurs every week by subscribing to the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast on iTunes when you want to know how small business owners really manage their time, develop outstanding products, build their teams and get new customers.

Why Marketing Campaigns Fail with CoCommercial Founder Tara Gentile and Media Strategist Brigitte Lyons

Interviews, Show Notes

Why Marketing Campaigns Fail with CoCommercial Founder Tara Gentile and Media Strategist Brigitte Lyons
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The Nitty Gritty:

  • What four big-picture reasons cause marketing campaigns to fail
  • Why it’s important to have a willingness to explore the reasons for failure
  • What are some of the common tactical points of failure
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On this week’s episode on the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast I tackle the question, “Why Marketing Campaigns Fail” with Brigitte Lyons, founder of B, a marketing and PR agency that works primarily with small organizations to hone their marketing message and market positioning. We discuss some of the main challenges business owners in this new economy face every time they go out and market a new product or service. There are so many predictable reasons why marketing campaigns fail and we examine these roadblocks in this discussion so you can avoid them in the future.

Four Big-Picture Reasons that Cause Marketing Campaigns to Fail

The marketing should be baked into the product that you’ve developed and that requires you starting with your audience.

– Tara Gentile

So often, businesses only want to focus on their successes and never want to look at the reasons something fails. In our opinion, this is a missed opportunity. All the answers you need about your marketing tactics should be answered in your marketing strategy. Too often business owners question if they are posting on social media enough (or too much) or if they should amp up their content marketing. This focus on tactical efforts is always a clear signal that a business hasn’t thought through the strategy of a marketing campaign or really put a road map into place.

The most common reasons that Brigitte and I see for marketing campaigns to fail include:

  1. You put your needs ahead of the needs of your audience.
  2. You don’t set crystal-clear expectations around what success is and don’t run the numbers around what that will take.
  3. You save marketing for last (but it should be first).
  4. You don’t use your failures as an amazing learning opportunity.

Be Willing to Explore the Reasons for Failure

Sometimes it requires a little creative thinking to match your needs with theirs.

– Brigitte Lyons

When you start feeling like you need to convince your customers or they are very excited about your message yet have a very big BUT that holds them back from purchasing, these are red flags that you have a problem. It might be a marketing, communication or messaging problem; perhaps you have a position, product or format problem. Whatever it is, you need to reach out to your customers, preferably in person or on the phone to uncover what they don’t like. It is important to get curious to explore what the underlying problem really is.

Common Tactical Points of Failure

Listen to the full podcast to learn the six common tactical points of failure for a marketing campaign that include relying on social media to sell your products or services and your follow-up (or not following up) and to hear all of our takeaways for why marketing campaigns fail and how you can avoid those issues.

Our discussion is a great intro to a class I will be doing on CreativeLive, “Create a Marketing Plan to Grow Your Standout Business.” If you tune in on August 1 and 2 you can watch and learn for free. RSVP today!

You can also find me {most} Mondays (and sometimes Brigitte joins in, too) on my CoCommercial Crowdcast channel where I talk about the ins and outs of growing a small company you love.

Disrupting a Very Old Market with Cora Co-Founder Molly Hayward

Interviews, Show Notes

Disrupting a Very Old Market with Cora Co-Founder Molly Hayward
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The Nitty Gritty:

  • When there is a need and an opportunity for a better product, you should not be deterred by the magnitude of the industry you’re going up against
  • How to go about entering an old market with a new product
  • Why strong customer service, including a free trial program, and flexibility with the subscription system is crucial to Cora’s success
Listen On iTunes & Subscribe!

Molly Hayward, co-founder of Cora, a premium organic tampon company that provides a month’s supply of pads to women in need for every month’s supply of tampons purchased, is my guest this week on the Profit. Power. Pursuit podcast. During our inspiring conversation, we talk about the genesis of Cora, disrupting the traditional market of women’s period products and how exemplary customer service has been crucial to their success. There is so much value in this conversation, I hope you tune in!

Disrupting a Traditional Market

I was aware, but undeterred by the magnitude of the industry that was I was going up against.

— Molly Hayward

The concept of creating a premium organic tampon for women that would also help women in need around the world better manage their periods, first came to Molly when she was on a humanitarian trip to Kenya with a non-profit organization. On the trip, she noticed that some of the girls would go missing from school and when she inquired about their whereabouts she found out they stayed home when they had their periods because they didn’t have products to manage it in public. It was a lightbulb moment.

Molly starting thinking about other companies in other industries such as Toms or Warby Parker that were successful with the one-for-one model and felt there was an opportunity to connect the purchases women in America make every month and supply women in need at the same time. Sustainability and organic products were also important to Molly, but she realized that there was no one in this space that was offering products that met her standards. She set out to design a better-for-you and better-designed product than what was offered by the traditional companies in the industry who were fearful of change.

I was so convinced that there was an opportunity here and a need for a better product experience for both women here and women in developing countries so I forged ahead and started.

— Molly Hayward

What It Takes to Change a Longstanding Industry

And so as I began to dig into the industry and look at what it would take to offer a better product to women here.

— Molly Hayward

When Molly came back home, she started research. She began to dig into the industry to look at what it would take to offer a better product to women here. First, she realized there was not a brand that represented all the values of most modern women today. Once she determined that she wanted to offer an organic product, she had to find a manufacturing facility that could do what they wanted. That translated into more research time on Google and factory visits. Molly and her team floated the idea of the one-for-one model to a lot of different people and questioned if people would accept it or just roll their eyes. Had it been overdone? Would the market react to it?

Molly’s instinct was this product category, maybe more than any other type of product category, would hit a personal chord with women. We have all had the experience by our own error of not having a product when we needed it. And, it’s a crisis. Imagine going through that every single month and have it derail your life.

Customer Onboarding and Exemplary Customer Service

Giving women options and the ability to customize their orders was a big piece of what was integrated into our model within the subscription.

— Molly Hayward

Since most women have treated their periods reactively, the Cora team built flexibility into their subscription model so that women could alter the products they receive without any weird friction or penalties as they learn more about how much and what types of products they need or as their bodies change. They also implemented a free trial program that has been crucial for getting women comfortable with testing out a new product. Perhaps the most important element underlying it all is Cora’s exemplary customer service where customers can email, text or call in to get support.

Listen to the Full Episode

There is so much more to experience with the full episode, including the reasons why the design of the product and packaging was super important to the Cora team, how customers are responding favorably to Cora’s social mission and what’s next for the business.

I invite you to join me every week to hear the honest truth directly from entrepreneurs who are in the trenches building businesses. You learn the nitty-gritty details about HOW these entrepreneurs develop their business ideas, build teams, manage their time and more. By subscribing on iTunes  you will never miss a single episode.

Creating Luxury Brands with an Emphasis on Impact with Alicia Johnson

Interviews, Show Notes

Creating Luxury Brands with an Emphasis on Impact with Alicia Johnson

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The Nitty Gritty:

  • How big brands are changing to embrace the way their consumers are believing
  • What brands should do in response to these new “woke” consumers who use their purchasing power to make an impact
  • Why the need to change rather than just a desire to change is the true motivation for a brand to update their strategy
Listen On iTunes & Subscribe!

I had the privilege of talking to Alicia Johnson this week on the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast about the current shift by big brands to be more transparent about the values behind their company. She and her husband and business partner Hal, a media artist, have spent the last 20 years at the helm of Johnson + Wolverton, a brand boutique that focuses on brand turnarounds. They have completed projects for BBC America, Jaguar, Cadillac, Comedy Central and more.

Brands Communicate Their Core Values

I started to see that happening—a big brand changing to embrace the way their consumers are believing.

– Alicia Johnson

In her work with a number of luxury brands, Alicia has noticed a shift, especially in the last six months, with people coming together around what they believe in. Consumers started to literally define their impact through their purchases. In one example, brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Lexus pulled their advertising from Fox News amid the charges of workplace sexual harassment by Bill O’Reilly. It wasn’t until consumers started pushing on the brands that advertised on the show that the network had to deal with it. People are using their money to support what they believe in and the brands that believe the way they do.

Brands and Business Leaders should be Genuine

You can’t put a face on something that isn’t real.

– Alicia Johnson

Business owners and leaders should be clear on what they value and confidently move that forward, just as several brands did in this year’s Super Bowl ads that were super aggressive positioning around values, ethics and choice.

The most important thing a brand or a person can do is be genuine, because “you can’t put a face on something that isn’t real.” However, Alicia counsels brands to be very conscious of whether or not they desire to live in a political space as a business. As a company, if you don’t believe that you want to be there, you need to take a step back and look at some decisions you are making.

“My recommendation to clients is that they’re more thoughtful and move more slowly,” said Alicia. Even for fast-moving brands, reaction time needs to be much more measured. You are better off just taking a breath. It’s when you step back and get into product development or long-term campaigning, that it’s important to look at the shifts in overt alliances to ethics.

Brand Strategy Shifts when there is a Need to Change

When I’m creating strategies, I’m creating an outline for a brand story.

– Alicia Johnson

Change is really hard on an organization, so Alicia and Hal are typically only brought in to help guide a new strategy for brands when something really is not working.

In looking at making a big change for a brand you need to look at WHY and WHAT do we have permission to do? Oftentimes, brands just like people, get lost. They forget about what’s really awesome about themselves and what got them going in the first place. Sometimes it’s just coming back to the core. But sometimes the business that was started doesn’t exist anymore. So, they have to reinvent themselves.

To hear the entire conversation I had with Alicia, tune in to the full episode. We delve further into this unique time we’re living in, how she and Hal learned to take time off and preserve time for personal projects and her own creative project, Positano, a multimedia novel.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast on iTunes to hear all the nitty-gritty details and conversations I have with my podcast guests about entrepreneurship.

Making Your Business a Force for Good with The FruitGuys Founder Chris Mittelstaedt

Interviews, Show Notes

Making Your Business a Force for Good with The FruitGuys Founder Chris Mittelstaedt

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The Nitty Gritty:

  • How “necessity being the mother of invention” guided The FruitGuys into the B2B space and the subscription model
  • How to think about growth or look for opportunity even in times of crisis
  • Why you should think about the meaning you want to have in the world all the time and how you drive business to align with that meaning
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My guest this week on the Profit. Power. Pursuit. podcast is Chris Mittelstaedt, founder, CEO and Chief Banana of The FruitGuys, America’s No. 1 and original office fruit provider.  He tells me about starting a biz in San Francisco during the heyday of the first dot-com wave and weathering the bust as a business owner, his learning experiences for how and when to expand business operations and how making a difference and being a force for good is at The FruitGuys’ core.

Necessity: Mother of Invention

It was a reality-driven strategy, and to be honest I often think those are the best strategies anyway.

— Chris Mittelstaedt

Although Chris moved to San Francisco in the 1990s because he wanted to be a poet, he was working in the business services department of the Fairmont Hotel as a temp in 1997 when he first contemplated the idea of delivering fruit to offices. He and his wife were expecting their first baby, and Chris needed to determine what he wanted to do with his life very quickly. He had a friend who had a coffee cart and mentioned that office workers would really like something healthy to eat. So, the idea of The FruitGuys was born. They opened in 1998, an incredible time in San Francisco, as a bootstrapped company among a venture capital, dot-com world.

Chris shares that although this B2B business was the only option at the time and some of his earliest business decisions such as to focus on the B2B space and to create a subscription model of business were born out of necessity, he grew to really understand the B2B space and over the 20 years in business so far they have developed a core competency for the higher service levels required for B2B work.

Grow Smart in Times of Crisis

Risk aversion is actually something I think about all the time. I NEVER want to be a deer in the headlights and do nothing. I always want to be in fight or flight.

— Chris Mittelstaedt

After an early learning experience of expanding that left the business with a significant loan to pay off during a downturn in the economy, all of The FruitGuys’ subsequent expansion has been variable cost expansion not fixed cost expansion. That’s allowed them to think about growth and about how they expand or look for opportunities in times of crisis in a really creative way so they don’t put themselves in more debt or more at risk.

A Force for Good

Business owners need to be empowered to talk about the positive value of business, what it gives back rather than something that can potentially harm.

— Chris Mittelstaedt

From day one, The FruitGuys has been an organization that has always thought about its impact on the community and the world. Even in their earliest days, when they had leftover fruit, they would go around and hand it out to people on the street. Today, they operate The FruitGuys GoodWorks Program, that supports the small sustainable farms that grow their food and aims to reduce food waste and give excess fruit to those who are hungry. In every way, Chris wants his business to be a positive influence.

There’s much more to learn and be inspired by in the full episode, including more details about growing a business in San Francisco among tech giants, a specific example of how The FruitGuys expanded in a safe, variable-cost way and you certainly don’t want to miss out on hearing about Chris’ passion project to write Harry Potter meets the anti-Ayn Rand.

Every week, I speak with inspiring entrepreneurs about how they started and grew their businesses. Please join us and subscribe on iTunes today!