the entrepreneurs radio show 033 rich brooks

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur’s Radio Show of 22

EPISODE #33: RICH BROOKS

In this episode, Travis interviews Rich Brooks, the founder and president of Flyte New Media, a web

design and internet marketing company, and a contributor to successful social media and marketing

websites such FastCompany.com and SocialMediaExaminer.com. Rich is also the founder of The

Agents of Change Digital Marketing which is an event that focuses on search, social, and local, which

are the 3 biggest channels today.

Rich shares a lot of valuable information on how to grow your internet business through clever

advertising and ensure maximum exposure through strategies like SEO and patterning your website on

today’s technological trends. Through hard work and adapting with the ever-growing internet market,

Rich’s experience is very valuable for entrepreneurs who are determined to get big on their online

business and attracting potential customers through the use of clever marketing and effective means of

promoting your business.

Rich Brooks

– Search, Social & Mobile For Your Business

Travis: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins, welcome to episode number 33 of Diamonds in your own

backyard, the entrepreneur's radio show. Conversations with successful business owners that grow

your business. Sandra my co-host is still in the center of Daytona International Raceway so it's just us

three today.

Today we're talking about marketing your business, which I know is a pretty broad topic, so between

myself and our guest, we're going to drill into some specifics that will give you some real value for

growing your business to that next level.

Now be sure to stay with us until the very end if you can because I have a couple of things that I want

to share with you, and I also want to reveal who I'm going to connect you within the next episode. So if

you enjoy these free podcasts that we create for you, we would really appreciate it if you'd go to iTunes

and post a comment and rate the show. This would help us reach, instruct, and inspire more great

entrepreneurs just like yourself.

Now for some quick perspective on the show for our new friends that just joined us. I want you to think

of this as a conversation between four friends, just us sitting at a table. Even though we're talking with

some of the brightest entrepreneurs and brilliant thought leaders, it's just a casual, private, up close

conversation. Now everyone that we're talking with has found success doing what they teach and they

want to help you by sharing what they've discovered.

Normally the only way to get this level of personal access to so many high level entrepreneurs beyond

having your own show is to join high level masterminds, go to the seminars, events and just build those

relationships over years. And now through this show, I'm super excited that we get to share these great

people with you to fast-forward your success.

http://www.flyte.biz/




Today, our guest on our show is Rich Brooks. Now Rich is the founder and president of Flyte New

Media, which is a web design and internet marketing company. He is also a contributor to

FastCompany.com and SocialMediaExaminer.com, one of the most popular social media sites today.

Rich is also the founder of the Agents of Change Digital Marketing which is an event that focuses on

the 3 biggest channels today, which is search, social, and local.

Now, there's more that I can tell you about Rich, although I'm going to let him share his story with us

before we really drill into talking about some of these great strategies that we're going to apply to your

business. So without further ado, welcome to the show Rich.

Rich: Hey Travis, thank you very much for having me, man.

Travis: You bet, man I really appreciate you taking time out to visit with us. Do you mind sharing some

of the back-story of how you got started and what brought you to where you are today?

Rich: Sure, absolutely. Let's see, I've actually been doing this web design and internet marketing, I

think, for a long time like over 16 years, which in internet years is like a million six or something like that

so that I have been around for a while. I wasn't there when Al Gore actually created the internet but I

joined shortly thereafter. I have been working in sales for another company selling the equivalent of

widgets and at a Christmas party actually, they had hired a psychic to read you, and I was one of the

last to go. All my other co-workers went in and the woman with--she literally looked like that woman

from Poltergeist, this made of woman. So, it was kind of crazy because I hadn't seen her and I just went

downstairs after being--everybody else is coming up and they're like, "Oh yeah, I'm going to be

pregnant in the next 2 years." or "I'm going to get a new job." which I thought was kind of a weird thing

when you've been hired by a company to tell somebody that they're getting a new and better job

somewhere else, but anyway.

Travis: Right, right.

Rich: She was never hired again, so... But when I came downstairs it was a much different experience.

When I went downstairs, she looked at me and she just said, “You don't trust your gut. You don't have

enough faith in your own belief and you're always questioning yourself and you don't follow what you're

supposed to be doing. And the best advise", and she wasn't giving advice, "the best advise that I can

give you is start trusting your gut." And then she gave me a head massage, it was very strange.

But anyway, so that really, really resonated with me because it was something I was starting to realize

on my own and all of a sudden this woman takes one look at me and just immediately knows this about

me. And I'm not saying I believe in psychics or I don't believe in psychics, but whether I do or not it's not

important, I heard what she had to say and I said this is really true. And from that moment on I started

thinking about what do I really believe in, what am I excited about, what am I passionate about. And I'd

always been passionate about--we were selling medical supplies. I was always passionate about trying

to get people to tell me what their problems were and then figuring out the technology behind the

solution that would get there. And this was right around the time the internet started to bubble up to the

surface in terms of public awareness. I was reading articles in the printed newspaper about this thing




called the internet and I'm like, "How come these reporters know more about computers than I do."

Because I kind of fancied myself as somebody who is comfortable on computers. So I just basically

started figuring HTML on my own. I just sat down and I started doing it, and I was enjoying it, and at

one point I just realized I was enjoying it more than I was working for this company. And basically at

that point I thanked them very much for all I had learned, because I learned a lot there, it was a very

great job for me at a very ethical boss in a questionable industry. And I also had learned how to sell,

which is I think one of the most critical skills any entrepreneur can have, is the ability to sell. And I had

gained a lot of confidence from this sales ability, so I was able to start my own company, I felt good

about it and that made all the difference.

And so basically that was the beginning of what became Flyte New Media. I started doing websites for

family members to start with and for myself and then I got my first real gig, and then I just started to get

more and more jobs from that and to the point where I ultimately move to Maine, which is where I live

now, I was down in Boston, to be with my now wife. And loved it up here and of course you can do the

internet anywhere. And then as time went on, people started saying hey--clients were like, "I need to

give you more work but you can't handle it so either you hire somebody or I have to let you go." So then

I started hiring people and that was kind of interesting. It was weird; I was out of my apartment, so it

was weird, like if I had to go to the doctor, we closed down for the day kind of a thing. And then

ultimately we got some space in the old port which is the hip, cool part of Portland, Maine, and it just

continued to explode.

I'm definitely a lifestyle entrepreneur. My goal is not to make insane amount of money. It's really to live

the life that I want which is the hours that I want, doing what I want, living near the ocean, being able to

drive up to the ski mountains during the winter, that sort of thing.

So we're at about, we have 8 people right now which is about the perfect equilibrium for the type of

business I want to run. We just continue to grow organically over time and that's really been the kind of

life and the kind of business I want to run, so I'm in a very good place right now.

Travis: Good deal. So this was, the transition, it sounds like, if my math's correct, what was the

transition--what did you say, 16 years ago, so was that '96?

Rich: '96-'97. '97 was the year I quit my job and decided that I was going to do this full-time. And I

definitely had some fits and starts at the beginning, it was tough to convince anybody to get a website

right at the beginning. But it's one of those things where I stuck with it and I had some support from my

family, and that got me to a place where I was able to then become self-sustaining.

Travis: You're a really early adapter because I was running a pretty successful business during that

period and I still, I didn't really start adopting the internet or a website until '99, so you were really early

on into it. People didn't even have a deep understanding of email and really how to login, and the whole

cloud thing at that time so you really recognized the trend early on, right?

Rich: Yeah, the tools are much more difficult to use so it wasn't like you have it now where you turn on

your computer and you have Wi-Fi without thinking about it. Even doing dial-up was a real challenge,




the technology wasn't there. So, but for me I've always been fascinated by technology. We had an

Apple 2E computer early on and I used to go down to my father's office where we had it and I would

just kind of hack away and I would do some really, for an X-loop type of computer programs but it made

me feel more comfortable around this technology. And these days actually with my daughters and they

both have iPad minis and they have our old iPhones and stuff like that. Although I still balance the

amount of screen time they get, I definitely encourage them to experiment and try new things using the

computers because I know full well that these are the tools of the future. So I try and balance the fact

that I don't want them to do all of their time on screen time, at the same time I look at my daughter

playing Minecraft and creating entire worlds, and I see the future architect. So I'm totally okay with that

as long as you balance it with other activities like my daughters do soccer, and this thing called gym

dandies and other things, and skiing and snowboarding as well. It's about finding that balance for the

kids.

Travis: Yeah, I agree with you. It's a little frustrating when we sit down to watch a show, my wife, and

my daughter, she has her face on her phone, constantly playing games and doing other things that--

they've got to be constantly stimulated by multiple things, texting, games, all that other stuff and it really

kind of is a struggle for balance.

But getting back to your journey as an entrepreneur, how long before you actually started finding

success in your business?

Rich: Well, I guess it all depends on how you define success. I would say that I was making a profit

including being able to pay all of my bills probably within a couple of years but my needs were pretty

low back then. I was a bachelor, I lived in a very inexpensive apartment, and actually it was basically, I

had a roommate who only stayed there 1 night in an entire year because he was living with his girlfriend

but didn't want to admit it to himself.

So I had some things that just happened to fall into place for me, I had this really sweet apartment in

JPL by myself, Jamaica Plain, for anybody from the Boston area.

So that to me, I had very low expenses. My only expenses were my time which I undervalued and a

Mac performer computer which was incredibly slow and a couple of pieces of software. There wasn't a

lot of expenses, I had a printed newsletter back in the day, but I would literally buy a stack of blue paper

at Staples, go over to my dad's house and just print up copies and then mail them out. So maybe a little

bit of postage was about my only expense back then.

Travis: Right. So what was the turning point? The name of the show is Diamonds in Your Own

Backyard, and it's really about, a lot of times in life we think this catastrophic failure is the end of us

when more often than not it's really the turning point of some of the most turning points in your life, I

know it was for me and many other people that I spoke to, whether it's catastrophic or not for you, what

was that turning point for you?

Rich: That's a great question. I definitely, there were number, I would say there were a number of small

ones along the way and one thing was, I thought everything was hunky dory and nothing would ever




change in my business. We were doing websites using HTML and I'm like, "Okay, this is just the

building blocks, just like bricks they're never going to change. And I found very quickly that all of a

sudden, that we were losing business because other people coming along and able to do things quicker

and faster and cheaper than we were because we hadn't kept up with the times in a very fast moving

industry, and there were definitely struggles like that. Another thing that I just find still that I struggle

with is there are people who are much better with the financial part of the business where I've always

been like, I can market myself out of any situation.

Then came the big downturns and marketing was helpful but at the same time I found myself really

having to pay more attention to the numbers where money just wasn't coming in because businesses

were so scared to do any sort of business and any sort of expenses, spend any sort of money. So

those were definitely some challenges along the way. When I see those challenges, and luckily I have

been pretty adept at, when I see them making quick changes to fix those sorts of things, as soon as I

realize that we were getting under-priced by some of the competition out there, people who are like,

especially a lot of the times, in my business, it can be people working out of their garages, who had no

overhead, or out of another country entirely where the cost of living is so significantly less than it is in

America.

When that's happened then I've had to make a switch. For example I started seeing that, we used to

get a lot of business out of updates, just literally updating people's websites. But one of the things that I

started seeing is a lot more people where starting to use content management systems, Word press

was becoming more robust, some of these other things. And I saw people, we were losing business

because people want a content management systems and we didn't have them at the time. And I

remember thinking like, "God, we're making so much money off of our updates. Why would I want to tell

people that they can do their own updates?

Travis: Exactly right. Wreck your own business model, right?

Rich: Exactly, but then what I realized is someone's going to take my lunch, whether it's me or

someone else, that can only last for so long. It's time where we get paid a significant amount of our

business to do updates on websites. So what I decided is rather than do that, what I was going to do is

I would tell everybody, all of our clients that the smart thing for their business would be to change to a

content management system. We had an opportunity now and we actually gave discounts for them to

make that move even though it was killing off that part of the business.

And I also saw that the bottom line is there were services out there like I panicked, not panicked. I saw

the writing on the wall where the things like Into It was basically creating almost free products for

clients, and Network Solutions had basically a free product, and Go Daddy had a free product, and one

on ones of the world were starting to pop-up, and they have professional looking websites. In fact there

was one point where a guy called me up and we were talking and he says, "Well, I want to work with

you but I've got this company out of Russia that I'm working with, and showed me some of their designs




and their designs were great." And I said, "What are they charging you?” he said, "$3 an hour." I said,

"Well, you know what, I can't compete with that, you know, so..."

Travis: That is enough to panic over by the way Rich, it is enough to panic about, right? When you...

Rich: I decided that I needed to take some steps and so one of the things that I looked at is, "Okay if

web design is becoming a commodity, which I don't believe by the way. I believe average web design

has become a commodity. I believe that high-end custom design is still something worth paying for. But

that web design is becoming a commodity and basically updates were becoming a commodity because

anybody could do their own through something like Word press or any of these other content

management systems.

And we decided, "Well what is something that we can offer that other people can't, or that we can offer

at a higher quality than other people can." And so we took a look at our business model and we

decided one thing that--we didn't even realize we were good at until people started telling us this,

internet marketing side, I think.

People ask me questions, they're like, "Rich, how do I rank higher in Alta Vista?” which just goes to

show you how early they were asking these questions, or and now Google. And so we started figuring

that out and we would show people what to do, and then all of a sudden we realize that this is actually a

much more lucrative part of the business and a lot more growth. And so that's when we started saying,

"Well, what if we create gorgeous looking websites but we also come up with our own low-priced,

content management system for people who are like doing start-ups and just don't have the money, or

they want to dedicate more of their marketing dollars, not towards a website design, but rather towards

email marketing, or blogging, or social media, or webinars, or SEO, or whatever it is. Because really, at

the end of the day, it's not about having a website anymore, it's about having a web marketing strategy,

about something that's actually going to build your business, not just look pretty on the web.

So once we started focusing on that, and really talking about what are the end result

-------

Rich: Sorry about that, I just kicked out the microphone.

Travis: Hey hold on; let me pause you for a second because you were covering several great things.

Before we get into the things that you're brilliant at, let's go back a little bit with what you were talking

about, because there's--I'm always listening for a value. Because everybody listening is an

entrepreneur, right, and so, not only am I listening to your story but I'm listening to the important things

that we can unpack and go a little deeper on.

And so, I want to draw a parallel with what you said. So you said you didn't grow with the changes and

that was catching up with you, and I want to emphasize the importance of that because I did the same

thing. One of my companies, we were dominating with SEO and we had so many leads, we were taking

in 50 leads a day, insane. And so, I just put our SEO efforts away, this was several years ago, and quit

working on it, and just rode on it for a year and a half and saved a ton of money. And then what

happened is since I didn't grow with the changes, all my competition ended up catching up to me and




eating our lunch, just like you were saying, and I live to regret that. And so I think that's super valuable

that you're either plugged in as a business owner, an entrepreneur, you're either plugged-in to people

that are keeping up with those changes and you're keeping up with the changes, so if your field of

specialty is a home improvement contractor, or a yoga, or whatever, well you need to stay on top of that

but you need to be plugged in with experts, they're supporting you, that are staying on top of the trends

whether be marketing or business metrics or whatever, do you agree with that?

Rich: I do agree with that, and it's interesting because it was only by listening to the Rand Fishkin’s

interview that I saw that you did, like here's the big failure thing, because I don't know if I knew that that

was going to--I didn't realize the structure of the show, so I apologize for that.

Travis: Oh no, that's okay; this is just an organic thing.

Rich: Okay, so do you want to talk more about, I mean, I never had the super failure. I never had that

moment where I went bankrupt or anything like that, I've had a series of close scares especially after

the first one where I realized that wow, I wasn't paying attention, I just assume it was always going to

be like this. So now I have a number of ways that I spend a little bit more time trying to pay attention to

what's going on around me so that I don't have those big scares anymore.

Travis: Well you know, and I think the big failure a lot of times have to do with how thick-headed the

leader is, at times I could be very hard-headed and one-wayed and I was much more like that when I

was young.

Now with the format of the show, this is really just kind of an organic thing and I know that you have a

lot of wisdom to share with your many years of experience, and at times people are just faster learners.

I've gotten to where I am, I'm a pretty fast learner but early on in my career I felt like I wasn't as fast of a

learner and it sounds to me like you maybe got caught off guard for a little while but you were paying

close enough attention that you caught it and got back on track, and you avoided those major disasters,

which is just all part of growing and being an entrepreneur, right?

Rich: I would say that that's pretty accurate, yes.

Travis: Yeah, so my job is just to help point out the nuggets of wisdom that you're sharing here

because you're saying a lot of brilliant things. And then I wanted to add one other thing. I think all

services are a commodity when they're not focused on quality, do you agree with that?

Rich: Yes.

Travis: Yeah. So I just wanted to clarify that other thing that you were talking about there. So before

you fell down there, I thought something happened on my end with the connection when you kicked

that plug loose.

You were about to segue us into, I think, some of what you teach in your business, am I right, or were

you going in an another direction?

Rich: Not sure to be honest, sometimes I get on a roll, I get so excited. That's what I feel most

comfortable often doing is like I want to make sure that people get value out of listening to anything I do




including this podcast. And so I want them to go away, going, "That's something I can really use today."

So I have been heading in that sort of direction.

Travis: Yeah, so let's--this is just an organic thing and you're on a roll so I don't want to get in the way.

So you teach 3 main pillars, I know that you teach more than that, but what do you say we go in the

direction of Social. I see a lot of people using Social in a way that I don't think is maybe the best

leverage, and I sure don't have everything figured out but would you mind going deeper on social?

Rich: Yeah, do you want me to ask me a question or do you want me to just kind of talk about how

businesses should be thinking about social media?

Travis: Let's talk about how businesses should think about because I feel like a lot of times, people

view Social as a building your platform, and I feel like Social is a way to support your platform, do you

agree with that?

Rich: I think that Social is part of the mix. I definitely have talked to people who have gone

wholeheartedly into social media and they think that this is going to save their business. My feeling with

social is it's an accelerant. So it's either going to explode your business or burn it to the ground. If

you're not doing anything worthwhile and you're out on Social, people are just going to see that faster

than they would've discovered otherwise.

So Social may not be the answer for every business, I think you first need to get your business in order

but then Social certainly can do a lot of things for you. And of course there's a lot of different aspects to

Social too.

I run a B to B business, a Business to Business company, but we also work with and do consulting with

a lot of B to C's, Business to Consumers, and just that right there is a big separator, even though I

always say B to B companies are just made up of people, you're still selling to people. When I start

thinking about like--and we did this kind of consults all the time. When I start thinking about a specific

business and how they might engage Social, the first thing I always think about is that what I call the

social platforms, and the social platforms are basically the soap boxes of the Social world, and I don't

know if you've ever been to London, but on Sundays in London at High Park they have something

called Speaker's Corner, where basically anybody can get on a literal, sometimes, soap box, and start

talking about whatever they think is important and people gather around and some of them will start

yelling stuff back. And that's kind of like what a blog is. So a blog is a very social platform and in my

opinion it is the hub of your social platform.

Travis: Right.

Rich: This is where you start, you create valuable content that's of interest and value to your core

audience and you start there but the comments make that a very social piece. So blogging is one,

podcasting is another, podcasting kind of fell out of favor for a couple of years but I think there's a

podcasting renaissance going on right now, when people and entrepreneurs realize the value of getting

subscribers who literally will subscribe to your podcast, listen what you have to say, and usually doing it

when they're doing something else, but something else, that they couldn't be doing anything else. So




they're listening to your podcast when they're driving their car, or on the tread master, while they're

commuting, so they can really focus on the words and you are literally inside their heads, so podcasting

is a very powerful tool as well. And the third one is online video, specifically YouTube. Creating and I

look at YouTube the same way I look at blogging. I create YouTube videos that help my audience solve

a very specific problem. With all these, especially blogs and videos, I think a lot about the SEO, the

Search Engine Optimization angle of them as well. So that's one piece of social which a lot of people

don't think a lot about but it's a critical piece.

And then there's the social networking aspect of things and that's where you've got your Twitter, your

Facebook, your LinkedIn, possibly your Google+, and although there's some blurry lines, you might

include Pinterest there. Although that might be something that falls into another category called social

bookmarking.

So there's a lot of different ways to use these tools and Facebook for one--I talk actually about, I have a

presentation on Facebook marketing for small business, and we talk a lot about the 4 quadrants of that,

and that could be something along the lines of, there's the personal profile, the networking aspect of

Facebook. Then there's the marketing aspect which is all about your business page. Then there's the

advertising component. You really have to spend money these days for your business if you want to get

seen on Facebook. And then there's the insights component which is you need to look at your insights,

your analytics that Facebook provides and see what's working and what's not working so that you can

improve your marketing on Facebook.

Travis: So drilling into the insights, looking at the virality, if you will, of different post and dialing-in

what's working and what's not?

Rich: Absolutely, and sounds like you spend some time back there because virality is one of the

phrases they use back there. But you can kind of start to see what type of posts are most engaging in

and which ones aren't engaging in and then that tells you, that's free market research. That your

audience cares about this type of post at this type of day, but not this other type of post.

So that starts to give you some sense of, "Well, maybe I need to be posting more on the weekends, or

maybe I need to be posting more short questions, or maybe I need to be posting more photos of the

dog when he's in the office." Whatever it may be, but that gives you some sense of what's going to

engage your audience the most.

Travis: Right. And for me, now I use both personal and professional and I feel like, as far as Facebook

is concerned, and I feel like the lines have really blurred from the way that they use to be. And so I own

a B to C business and a B to B business, and I love using the Facebook fan page for my podcast

because it's just a great way for me to connect with other businesses, share great interviews like this,

and it really has a viral nature to it. And I'm really kind of surprised because very few people are using it

that way. There's a few people that produce a seminar type podcast, and when I go to their pages

they're not doing a lot of those things, I promote every post. When you and I get done and this episode




is ready to go live, I'll promote that post to everybody, and it really engages people and I'm just

surprised that people aren't using that in a more profound way.

I also see people, when they do try to promote things like this, their message is more about themselves

rather that what they're doing to solve a problem or how they're helping someone, and I think that that

would be another important element that people need to understand when they're presenting

something that provides a solution to a problem, right?

Rich: Absolutely. It's an old saw but it’s everybody's tuned in to the same radio station, WII FM.

Travis: Right.

Rich: So I think if we--it's funny because all those little sales tapes that they used to listen to when I

was getting it to sales, a lot of those nuggets are still really good ones. So when I write content or when

I talk to somebody about creating content for themselves. I look at a lot of websites and the Homepage

reads like an About Us page, and that's the dullest information possible. You should be talking, whether

it's on your website, or YouTube channel, or you Facebook page, about your audience at all times, and

really, 80-20 create-o-principle is a great ratio to use, where 80% of the time you should be providing

valuable content, perhaps it has nothing to do with you. And then the other 20% you could be saying,

"By the way I've got this great podcast, by the way I've got this free eBook, by the way I've got a new

webinar coming out." The more you can provide value for people that seems to be unrelated to what

you can make money off of, the more they begin to trust you.

And then, they're going to be more ready to say, "You know what, I noticed you also have a podcast; I

noticed you also have an e-course, so tell me more about that."

It's just like going on a date, you go on that first date, and it's been awhile for me, been happily married

for a long time. But you go on that first date, and if that other person talks about themselves the whole

time they're a bore, you don't want to be bore. It's funny because, and this is a party trick that

everybody should try. Go to a party where you don't know a whole lot of people, don't reveal anything

about yourself unless under duress, and just ask people about what they do, you know, what they do,

who they're married to, what they like to do for fun, all that sort of stuff, and everybody there will be like,

"That person was the most interesting conversationalist in the world." And meanwhile you haven't said

anything; you're just asking people questions. Social media is very much the same way. So the more

you ask questions, and the more you let other people speak, and the more you put the spotlight on

other people regardless of the platform, the more engagement you're going to get.

Travis: Yeah, I think that's a lesson that everybody needs to think on when they're writing their copy

and when they're sharing their message is the conversation that is tuned in to WII FM, so that's just a

common problem across that I see virtually everywhere.

Let's shift gears here a little bit because I see with your 3 biggest channels, search and local, what

did..?

Rich: I just wanted to correct you, because it's actually search, social, and mobile.




Travis: Oh mobile. okay, okay, because I was about to say, "What's the difference between search and

local?".

Rich: Small part of it, and local is critically important and actually--so the Agents of Change Digital

Marketing Conference, which you mentioned before, and also my new thing which is the marketing

agents. They both talk about search, social, and mobile because I think those are the 3 most important

channels, but it had a number of people say, "Why aren't there more agents? And that you should have

a local agent as well because I have characters for each one of these search, social, and mobile.

So local is critically important, It's not when I chose to talk about when I put on this conference.

Travis: Oh, okay. So let's go deeper on mobile. Mobile is obviously on the rise, it's something that

everybody's got within 2 feet from them at all times, let's go deeper on that.

Rich: Sure. From a business standpoint, we as a web design agency made a promise at the end of last

year, we would never build a website that wasn't mobile-friendly. There's more than one way to make a

website mobile friendly for sure, but by the force to research says that by 2014, more than half of the

web traffic will be delivered onto a mobile device. So another way of thinking that is by within a year,

most of the traffic coming to your website will be on a smartphone or a tablet.

So what are you doing to prepare for that? If you're building a website this year that is not mobile

friendly, then you are just spending money that shouldn't be spent. You should stop right now, take a

deep breath and figure out how you make it mobile friendly. And when I say mobile friendly, the bottom

line is with a Droid, or an iPhone, or the new Windows phone. The bottom line is you get a usable

version of any website, even if it's not been optimized. And I remember just a few years ago, before I

had my iPhone, and I saw a friend with an iPhone, I said, "Hey, do you mind if I take a look at Flyte's

website on it?", and I brought it up and I'm like, "Oh my God, it's so gorgeous" and I was able to double

click and enlarge things, and zoom, and pan, and do all these sort of stuff. But that same experience

these days leaves me completely frustrated.

It was amazing 3 or 4 years ago, it's completely frustrating now. Now I want big buttons for my big fat

fingers, I want it to be easy, I want it to be simplified, I want it to be designed for a mobile experience,

and that means different things for different types of businesses.

So one of the things we did are--we build everything on Word press, I'm a huge a fan of the platform.

So we decided to use a plug-in called WP touch, which created a mobile-friendly version right out of the

box of your website or your blog on Word press, and to be honest, we're a design firm and I looked at it

and I'm like that works great and it's completely ugly, so I had my designer work on it and he made a

really nice looking interface for it. And then I had my developer just create something we call the mobile

box which just allows me to put some content there that only appears on the mobile-friendly version. So

when somebody's on their phone and their looking at a flight, I'm like, "What do they really care about?”

well chances are their looking on their mobile phone when they're lost. So immediately a button pops-

up for contact directions which also leads them to the parking places, because there's not a lot of




parking on the street around where we are, and then a phone number because people often forget. You

can click on a link and immediately be talking to somebody by phone.

Travis: Alright.

Rich: For us what it did, and for other types of businesses mobile becomes even more critical. But

there's also a new type of way of developing mobile-friendly websites, and right now everybody is

drinking the Cool Aid on this, it's called Responsive Web Design. And that's exactly how we built out the

Marketing Agents website, which was responsive. So it's kind of neat, and you just create a--it's almost

like digital origami. You look at the best way I can describe it, because it literally folds in upon itself. The

best example that I've seen out there, besides our own, is the Boston.com, it's phenomenal what

they've done with the responsive web design.

Responsive web design, despite what everybody tells you is not perfect, there are some shortcomings

as far as I'm concerned, and there are times to use responsive, and there are times to use another

option, and I don't know how new ones you want to get here but there are--responsive web design

doesn't have a way of showing you the desktop version if you want it. So that's one of the things that I

find frustrating, because sometimes I want to see what it looks like on a desktop even if I'm on my

phone.

That being aside, it does seem like responsive design is the way forward. People often ask me, in fact

just yesterday a client said, "Can you build me a mobile app?", and I said, "Yeah, we could, but you

don't have a mobile-friendly website, so let's walk before we run." The bottom line is if you’re build--the

only reason, in my opinion, to build a mobile app is if you need people to do something that they can't

do on a mobile-friendly version of your website. So when I talked to her I said, "Basically right now, we

would have to design something that works on the IOS, the Droid, the Windows, and now Blackberry

just came out with their brand new platforms, so now we're talking about 4 different versions of the

same software, for a very small community that she already has, or we create a mobile-friendly version

of her current website, that has all the functionality of the current website." And actually in this case I

recommended WP touch, and it has a feature where you can actually download the website as an app

to your phone so you have that app-like functionality to it at a fraction of the cost. And everything that

you can do on the website, you can now do through your phone that made more sense.

So when I tell people to think about a mobile strategy, it always, in my opinion, starts with a mobile-

friendly website, whatever, whether it's Responsive, WP touch, or separate website entirely that's

specially optimized to the phone.

Start with that, and then start thinking about how we're going to drive mobile users to the site if that's

important to us, like do we need to have a QR code campaign, do we want to do SMS or text

messaging, do we have an email template for our email newsletters that's mobile-friendly because

that's actually where people spend most of their time on or the majority of their time on when they're on

their phone it's actually through email. And yet you get these gorgeous looking email newsletters that

are unreadable on your phone. And there was a recent study that said 67% or something of people who




get an email on their phone that's not mobile optimized, will not read it. So even if you've gotten past

those 3 levels of spam filters before it ends up in somebody's inbox, if they're on their phone which is

more and more likely, if your email is not optimized for their phone, there's a 2 out of 3 chance they're

not going to read it back. So it's something definitely to keep in mind that you want to create a mobile-

friendly template for your email newsletters too.

Travis: So is there businesses, do you need to be a brick and mortar type business to need this--

because like you were saying, the only reason people are traditionally looking you up is when they're

lost and they're trying to find you, right? Is it what you said?

Rich: ...more and more people are just using tablets instead of computers at their house. So they might

be doing some research and just have their tablet out and I see tablets everywhere, I'm sure you do

too. So I think, especially in the next couple of years, we're going to see people using tablets as their

main way of accessing traditional websites. So I would say that it's essential for every business, to have

a mobile friendly-website by the end of 2013. And I know from looking at some of my client's traffic

reports that many of them are already getting more than 50% of their traffic through a mobile-friendly

website.

And here's the thing, I see this all the time and it kills me. I see QR codes, and I'm curious about QR

codes so I scanned them, I may be the only person in America, I don't think so. So I scanned them to

see what the experience is going to be like and it takes me to a web page that's not optimized for

mobile.

I'm like, "Are you kidding me?"

Travis: No, that's ironic, right?

Rich: It's terrible. Where the other thing is, because at my conference last year I actually did a

presentation on how to get started with mobile marketing and one of the things that I looked into is

mobile advertising. Mobile advertising is really fascinating right now to me. And Facebook has the

opportunity where you can add advertise only to mobile users which is interesting too, and it turns out

right now it's really inexpensive.

So you can do some amazing things with mobile advertising where you show, for example let's say

you're a restaurant. You only show that mobile add to people within 15 miles of your restaurant and

then depending on the time of day it is, you can show them your breakfast, lunch, or dinner specials.

And then on top of that depending on the platform you advertise on, there may be additional information

like, if you're advertising on the Yahoo platform, they may know that this person has done a lot of

searching, or a lot of time spent on vegan websites. Well then maybe you could serve her up, an

advertising for your vegan frittata, as opposed to just your Bacon and Eggs breakfast. So there's a lot of

interesting things you can do there.

But I've seen people who go ahead and they spend a lot of money on mobile ads, but again same

problem, they send you to website that's not optimized for mobile. It just doesn't make any sense to me.




So step 1 is getting a landing spot, a home page on mobile, that works for a mobile experience and

then driving traffic to that mobile-friendly site.

Travis: I think that's a bigger picture problem across the board because a lot of businesses have very

fragmented tactics and strategies all across their marketing sphere that are not connected together. So

I think you're shining the light on a common problem, not in just one area, in an area across the board.

Rich: Yeah, absolutely--well, a lot of people--you're right, it is fragmented or their not thinking about

things, or they've done some marketing, and it's out there on the web, and then they forget about it and

their message has changed but that old web page hasn't.

Travis: Right, right. So, the who--what type of businesses won't or less likely to need a mobile viewed--

hold on, let me back-up. So one of the things that you said is the iPad or tablets, you consider that a

mobile device rather than like a laptop because I've always, and I'm pretty up to date on this stuff but

I've always viewed a tablet as, really, just kind of an iteration of my laptop. And what I hear you saying

is, as you view it as an iteration of the phone.

Rich: Yeah, that's a great point, there are aspects of both. Usually, and I hesitate to use the word

traditionally with something about mobile marketing, but tablets and phones are considered to be

mobile devices. Now you can argue that a laptop is too but I think we're talking about user experience.

The reason why, I definitely think that the tablet is a slightly different experience, there's a few reasons.

One is the fact that--we build websites for thousand by 24 wide, and then they look great, and then all

of a sudden you put them on a tablet and things start wrapping weird. So now we really do think about,

and we do testing on how this is going to behave on a tablet and do we need to create an additional

style sheet specifically for tablets. I also think some of the ways that you interact with the webpage are

different. Obviously you're tapping on the page itself rather than using a mouse. But the mouse gives

you more flexibility and more power over how you're going to navigate that page where you don't get

the same control over a tablet.

I do agree that for a lot of people the tablet experience maybe closer to what they think of as a desktop

experience. But, think about this, a tablet--and I see people going on vacations now, I live in a very

tourist-friendly environment. I see people going around vacations carrying around their tablets like they

used to carry around their phones. So they're almost using it as like a walking tablet where they can

kind of check-in with things. If you're in a tablet, there's a very good chance that you've got GPS

enabled on that, and that you've got a camera phone enabled on that so you can do QR codes, that its

location-based so you can do a lot--checking on four square or things like that.

So from that aspect, I think tablets are very much fall into that mobile umbrella, where a typical laptop

computer would not.

Travis: Right. Well, I think I fall in to the category with the majority of people to where we associate or

I've associated, and I could be wrong on this. The size of the screen is close to the size of my laptop so

I really didn't consider that mobile. And then I thought for years and I'll relate this to my own personal

experiences.




One of my businesses that is B to C is a home improvement company. Very large, successful company

and I never saw the value of going mobile on that because I'm thinking, "Now who is going to be doing

a research for home improvements on their phone?" Although what you're saying now shifts my

thinking of, "Well, there's a potential that people could be doing it on the phone because now phones

are larger." And also the fact that the tablets are viewed as mobile as well really kind of shifts my

thinking, so, I guess ultimately I'm answering my own question that there's really no company that

should be precluded from making their website mobile friendly.

Rich: No, I'm still amazed, I'll occasionally run into people who don't have a website at all, and I'm just

like, "Oh my god, how do you do business?" And their still faxing things. And they may be running very

successful businesses so I'm not making fun of them at all; it's just sometimes I forget that people aren't

living in my world.

But that being said, in the same way that in this day and age or in a few years ago everybody really

need to have some sort of website, I think by the end of this year everybody needs to have a mobile-

friendly website for the very reasons we're talking about. You mentioned that you had--and Millie, you

hadn't thought about tablets is under the mobile umbrella. But I can imagine that a lot of your potential

customers for this B to C company are sitting around on their couches, maybe with the T.V. going on in

the background, and they've got their tablet open and their doing searches for home improvement

ideas, or a local improvement companies. And so for that I definitely want to have a very--and I guess

here's where it really comes down to. You got to go look at your Google Analytics. Google Analytics will

tell you how many people or what percentage of people are coming on a tablet. And if you find that a

growing percentage, even a majority people are on a tablet, then I would say I would focus on creating

a website that looks best on the tablet, and then think about the phone, and then think about the

desktop version.

So your metrics that you're already creating and the trends that you see in there, that should be making

the decision for you, not anything I say, and not anything that you think. The raw numbers and the

direction of those numbers are what you should be paying attention to.

Travis: Yeah, great point. It's the best way to prioritize based on what's actually happening with your

numbers.

Rich: For sure.

Travis: So what do you think--we've talked about a lot of things and by the way, the value that you've

provided from several perspectives is just phenomenal, so I appreciate that.

Rich: Oh my pleasure.

Travis: What do you feel like some of the low hanging fruit for business owners is and of course I know

that I'm asking you some more very broad questions and brought questions are hard to answer, but

what is the most common problem you see with business owners, considering your extensive

background with marketing that most people could pay attention to and start getting some immediate

results, anything come to mind?




Rich: Absolutely, I have a few things, I'm going to try and keep them limited. As part of the marketing

agents side project that I do, one of the things I do is I do a weekly giveaway for a 1 hour consult with

people, and I see the same things time in and time out, so I'll share some of those.

Probably the biggest thing is if you've never really focused on search engine optimization is--take a look

at your current website, and a lot of people who'd never done any SEO, search engine optimization and

don't know anything about it, but don't know why they rank well. It's because A they're not putting their

keywords into the page, and by keywords I just mean, what are the words that you think that people

would be searching for if they were looking for your company. And there's more to it than this but--or

that you want to rank well for. So for example, it's like if you go to our website, Flyte's website, we talk

about web design and internet marketing; we talk a lot about Maine because we want to get local

business. So, those are some of the keywords that we focus on at different parts of the website.

The most important thing, the thing that will move the needle to most if you've never done this before

are your page titles. So for example, when you go to website, up at the top bar, if you're in a Mac it's

the same level as the red, yellow, and green buttons, if you're on a PC, it's where the minimize and

maximize buttons are. That's your title bar, the words that appear there are the same words that appear

as the big blue links on Google that is the number 1 thing that you can do to improve your search

engine visibility. So if every single page of your website has the same title, that's a missed opportunity.

If your homepage says something like, "Welcome to ABC Corporation," that's a missed opportunity.

What you should be putting into your titles are the keywords that your audience is searching for so for

example. My company is called Flyte New Media, F-L-Y-T-E New Media. I'm not worried that people

can find Flyte new media if they're searching for us on the web. What I want is I want those unbranded

search terms. So the title tag of my homepage, which is usually the most important page on your

website, is something along line of main web design and internet marketing for small business, then I

mention my company's name, because search engines have the attention span of a 5 year old, to say

not much. So basically, they pay most attention to the words upfront, so I always try and put my best

keywords right at the front of every title tag that I use, and the most important word right there. And then

sometimes I'll use a Collin or a pipe, and then I'll repeat it in another way. Every page on my website

gets a unique title tag that's appropriate for the content on that page. And if you've never done that and

you go through and do that today after you listen to this podcast, within a week or two, I promise you

that you will see a surge in search engine visibility rankings and traffic. The only caviar is if you're in a

very competitive industry, chances are people have already done this before, you may find that to be a

little bit of a challenge, you may need to do a few more things but that's a great first step.

Travis: Excellent advice.

Rich: And if I could say one other thing, you should be blogging. I say that to people and some people

roll their eyes, and other people say, "You know I tried blogging it didn't work for me." I've never found a

tool that's better at increasing your search engine visibility and improving your social media marketing

than a blog when it's done right.




One of the things I tell people is, "A blog will not improve your business, blogging will." It's the same

thing like you buy a nice pair of Nike running shoes, you put it in the closet, you are not going to lose

weight.

Travis: Right.

Rich: You got to fill the blog but then you've got to regularly create content that answers your ideal

customer’s biggest problems, week in and week out, day in and day out if you've got the time. But you

build up a critical mass of articles, blog posts. And here's something else to keep in mind, every blog

post is another web page, and as we talked about before every web page is another opportunity to rank

well at the search engines.

You got a question from a--I'm sure this happens to you all the time. You get a question from a client, or

a customer, or a prospect in an email, and the following response is you hit Reply and you answer.

What if you didn't hit reply? What if you took that question, maybe you had it generalize a little bit, and

you turn it into a Dear Abby style blog post. You post it up and you sent an email to that client or that

prospect and said, "That was such a great question, I'm sure a lot of other people struggle with it. So it

actually--your question was so good it caused me to write a blog post, and here's the link." You send

that off.

Not only did you make this person feel good because their question wasn't a dumb question, it was

actually a great question. You've also introduced them to your blog, so now you've got possibly a new

reader and a new subscriber. But on top of that, that one person was savvy enough to know that you

might have the answer. How many other hundreds or thousands over the next 6 months or a year, are

going to have the same question but they won't know who to turn to so they'll ask Google.

If your blog post directly answers the very question they're asking, you have a very good chance of

driving traffic to your blog and then over to your website. And that happens to me all the time.

I have a blog post that I wrote back in 2008, called "How to Use Twitter for Business", and it pulls in on

average, 3,000 unique visitors every single year who have never heard of Flyte New Media, and a

certain percentage of them sign-up for an email newsletter and a certain percentage of them start doing

business with us. That is a great investment.

Travis: Yeah, not to mention you're not having to answer that question again, you're leveraging your

time, much less the impact that you're doing with that post, right?

Rich: Right. For some people who are going to do it themselves anyway, I have given them the tools

so they can go on and succeed; a lot of people actually link to that article which increases my search

engine visibility. But a lot of people would be like, "These guys seem smart, I'm just going to hire them

to do this instead of figuring it out on my own.", and that's how we get a lot of business. And when I do

presentations it's the same thing, I don't hold back, I give out all the information I can think of to share

with people, because I know that a certain percentage of them would never do business with them but

at least I'm helping them out. And a certain percentage of them are going to be like, "You know what, I

actually am better at cutting hair, or selling tires, or walking dogs. I'm going to hire this guy or this




company to do this other thing for me." We all have areas of expertise and the more we share it, the

more we establish our credibility, that's how we get new business.

Travis: Wow, lots and lots of great information. We're getting close to time Rich, do you have anything

else you want to add there before I segue you into the lightning round, I don't want to cut you off.

Rich: Let's segue; I'm ready for some lightning.

Travis: Okay, outstanding. Now, I sent you three questions and then I've snuck a fourth in here that I'm

going to throw you a curve.

Rich: Alright, ask away.

Travis: Alright, the first question is what book or program made an impact on you, related to business

that you'd recommend and why?

Rich: There are a lot of books that I read because when I went to college I was planning on being an

English professor, I basically didn't take any business classes at all. So I've always felt, now that I'm

running my own business, that I wish I had, I wish I had learned more about regardless, so, I read a lot

of different business book.

But the business book that's probably made the biggest impact on how I am, and how I market my

business and how I act as a business person is by Dr. Robert--hope I pronounce it right, Cialdini, and

the book is called Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion. And in the book he identifies 6, what he

calls, Weapons of Influence. Ways that we have undo persuasion or influence over other people, and

also how to protect ourselves when we recognize that somebody is using one of those techniques on

us. But it's amazing, powerful tool that can be used either for good or evil, I hopefully am using it for

good, but that book in my mind is a must read for every business owner out there and every marketer

out there.

Travis: Excellent suggestion. I think that's probably one of the most common books that people

recommend a testament to how important and powerful that book is.

Rich: Absolutely.

Travis: What is one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you've recently discovered, if

any, that you'd recommend to other business owners?

Rich: You know there's a lot of different stuff that I use and this is certainly not a--well actually, okay,

I've got a new tool. I just started recently using this one and I just mentioned I love to blog, I use Word

press and I've had a number of different SEO plug-ins that I've used, but I recently tried a new one

based on a recommendation by a friend and I will never use another one again. It's called the SEO

plug-in by Yoast. I don't know if that's how you pronounce the guy's name but it's Y-O-A-S-T, and this

plug-in, if you're interested in ranking higher at the search engines is a critical tool. It's a Freemium

product, you can download it for free and make a donation, which I did, and I strongly recommend if

you tried and like it that you do that. But it's a phenomenal tool. It will give you immediate feedback on

you blog post, or article, or webpage in terms of, "Have you written the page title the right way, have

you written the metadata description the right away." It will compare and contrast, and it will make

http://amzn.to/XDDIRI

http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/






recommendations, it will give you a score on it and tell you what could be improved before you even

publish it.

So it's the SEO plug-in from Yoast, and that's specifically for Word press users.

Travis: Excellent. What famous quote would best summarize your belief or attitude in business?

Rich: I first heard this quote in the movie The Incredibles, and it is, "Luck favors the prepared.", and I

really, honestly, believe that that is so true because I've definitely have people say, "Oh you're..." Here

up in Maine I do the text segments on a local T.V. evening news program about once a month, and

they're like, "Oh you're so lucky that you got that." Well yeah, I am lucky, and I've been lucky a lot in my

life and I've had a lot of good things happen to me but I feel that everybody who's lucky, it's because

they work so hard at getting out there to that point.

So opportunity knocks but you got to be ready for. So luck favors the prepared, it's definitely true. We

all have these moments where luck is either for us or against us, but the more prepared you are, the

more resilient you are against bad luck, and the more ready you are to take opportunities of good luck,

so that's definitely one of my favorite quotes.

Travis: Excellent quote, I agree with you. Luck is kind of like a window of opportunity, it opens for a

little while and it closes, and it seems to me that you only have the wisdom or the perspective to jump

through it or take it, when you spent the time in training and you have that wisdom to recognize what's

happening.

I even had that conversation with Rand and he misunderstood me at first because a lot of times people

view even my success, your success, Rand's success as overnight success, when really they don't

know that there were years and years of heartache and turmoil or just struggle in constant work and

effort put into this overnight success, which really is perceived as luck to many people.

Rich: Exactly, and it's funny because I was on the way to work today, I was listening to that interview

you did with Rand, I was thinking the same thing. It's like, the reason, why people think you're an

overnight success is because you toiled in obscurity for 2 years before the press or mainstream media

or some famous blogger recognized you and pulled you out of obscurity, but it's really the fact that you

were doing all the right things leading up to it. So that when that window of opportunity opened, you are

ready to take advantage of it.

Travis: Right. Excellent answers to all of those. So here comes my curve.

Rich: Alright.

Travis: Now that you found success, what do you dream of?

Rich: Well, as I mentioned, I kind of launched a side project. I've been running Flyte, more or less

successfully for 16 years. We've had our ups and downs like any business, but we're still in business

for 16 years, that makes me very proud. I've got a great team around me. But a couple of years ago I

started saying, "Was I just lucky?", and that's actually when I decided to, first with some friends and

now on my own, create my own event. And this was up here in Maine and we had about 400 people

show up, the Agents of Change Digital Marketing Conference. So for me, first, it was about creating a




new event that would bring people all over but really focus on getting a nationally recognized

conference to me. That was a big thing and I was successful there, and then more recently, I realized

how much I love presenting, I love sharing information, I love educating. And that's why I launched the

side project, the marketing agents.

So I guess if I, what I dream about is getting Flyte to the point where it can continue to sustain itself. But

I get to do more or less what I want, which is--and not that I'm not doing it at Flyte but really with a little

bit more freedom where Rich Brooks gets to write about, present on, and practice web marketing and

social media. And that may sound like the lamest dream to other people but for me I find technology,

and how it affects people, endlessly fascinating. That's what I do what I do. It's not the technology, it's

how it impacts people's lives and businesses, and the more I can help any small business, but

especially those in my adopted home state of Maine, the better I feel. So I just want to be doing this and

make a living at it and really kind of share this education so that small businesses can grow to whatever

that means for them.

So just to be able to do what I'm doing but with as much freedom as I want and be able to create

content, and share that content, and make a living at it. That's my own personal dream.

Travis: I completely get that, I'm the same way, I have this wonderful B to C business that's a very

large business and I only spend 5 hours a week in that business, because I'm really not passionate, I

care about it but I'm not passionate about it. I'm passionate about helping entrepreneurs. And so I can

draw that parallel with you there, and I'm of the same mind-set, so I appreciate you sharing that with us.

Rich: Sure thing.

Travis: How did people connect with you?

Rich: There's 2 things I'd like to have them check out if they have the time. The first is Flyte New Media

because we've been around for so long, and that's Flyte.bizF-L-Y-T-E.biz, and that's my web agency,

that's the web design and internet marketing. But the thing that I'm super passionate about this

particular week is the marketing agents, and that's at TheMarketingAgents.com. It's a brand new

website, it's just been out for a couple of weeks, I'm trying to create insanely valuable content

specifically for small businesses and non-profits that are looking to grow, and generate revenue on the

web. Love to get people's feedback on it. I've got thick skin and I've got a therapist start retainer so

please let me have like--but I really would like people to tell me if it's valuable to them and sign-up and

that would be great. So that's where they can find me.

Travis: Cool. And any other links that you have I'll get from you and then we'll just post them up so that

everybody can go to you directly. By the way I've come to Maine, Kennebunkport, Maine and spend a

little time there, so I love your state.

Rich: Well, thanks. And next time you come up, just come a little bit further north, and you and I will go

out for lunch, or a beer, or tequila, whatever you happen to like.




Portland, Maine, was last year or the year before, it was rated the number 1 foodie small town in

America. And although our does go to bed a little early, it's got some of the best food per capital in the

world.

Travis: Yeah, I'll definitely stop by and see you. Listen, I appreciate you being on the show, can you

hang out with us for a couple more minutes?

Rich: Be happy to.

End of Interview

Travis: Alright. So listen, now I want to remind you that there’s a show note at the bottom of the post

here that we create for the show and in that way you can directly connect with Rich through--I'll put his

Twitter and everything else, information up there and you can just directly connect with him. Remember

to go to DIYOB which is an abbreviation of Diamonds in Your Own Backyard, so it's DIYOB.com, enter

your name and we'll send you the 2013 Business Owner's Guide, From Frustration to $70 million. It's a

behind the scene look at what you need to know to grow your business to incredible levels of success.

And it really doesn't matter where you’re adding business; all of these discoveries are things that I

found that most people aren't willing to talk about. So it's really important, it's a 15-page document so

it's something to read, but it's essential to your journey as an entrepreneur. Also when you opt in, you

become a member of the Authentic Entrepreneur Nation, which is really a network of people, tools, and

resources that you can refer to grow your business. Again this is our personal roll-a-decks that we use

and recommend. And we'll have this up for you in a matter of weeks.

I know one of the biggest challenges in growing your business is finding people that you can trust,

people that can actually follow through on their promises. And so now you'll have access to a group of

credible people that you can connect with, they're highly competent through our network that will help

you with whatever you may need.

Today I want to close the show with reminding you how important entrepreneurs our to our community.

Entrepreneurs are a living, breathing model of what it looks like to go after your dream and take action

no matter what, even in the face of fear and uncertainty. So whether you know it or not, you're an

inspiration to those around you, and I want to encourage you to keep it up, no matter what size your

business is, what you’re doing matters. You're a piece of the bigger picture puzzle of entrepreneurship

as a whole.

So in the next episode, I'm going to connect you with lifestyle entrepreneur, Scott Fox. And when I say

lifestyle entrepreneur, that means you design your business around what makes you happy regardless

of the who, what, or where conditions of your life, so you definitely don't want to miss that next episode.

This is Travis Lane Jenkins, signing off for now. To your success, may you inspire those around you to

go after their dreams just like you. Talk to you in the next episode.

http://diyob.com/




How We Can Help You

We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called

gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That’s exactly

why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at

a fraction of its normal cost.

Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive

deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever!

We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses,

Opportunities and Threats within your business.

This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons

are.

As the 'Business Owner' it’s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you’re in the

middle of a daily management.

And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial.

This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn’t matter if you are a one-man army, or

an army of 150, the problem is still the same.

Travis Lane Jenkins

Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist

Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show

“Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"

http://www.rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com/biz-accelerator

http://theentrepreneursradioshow.com/

the entrepreneurs radio show 033 rich brooks

Small Business & Entrepreneurship