the entrepreneurs radio show 042 sean malarkey

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 30

EPISODE #42: SEAN MALARKEY

On Episode 42 of "Diamonds in Your Own Backyard: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show, Conversations

with High-Level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business,” Travis is going to be talking with Sean

Malarkey, Twitter guru, Twixplode founder and Empact100 list member.

Travis and Sean are going to be discussing how to effectively use social media giant Twitter for the

best interest of one‟s business. Sean will also share how the lessons he has learned from the real

estate business translates to online marketing, and how Steve Jobs has inspired his platform and

decisions a great deal.

Sean Malarkey – Using Twitter to grow your business

Travis: Hey, it's Travis Lane Jenkins. Welcome to episode number 42 of "Diamonds in Your Own

Backyard: The Entrepreneurs Radio Show, Conversations with High-Level Entrepreneurs that Grow

Your Business.”

Sandra, my co-host, has been in the center of Daytona International Raceway for several weeks, as

you know. Her company and services are so popular among the race teams that she‟s been requested

to join them at Sebring track in Florida. So Sandra still can‟t join us, although that‟s the price you pay

when you‟re in demand and you‟re popular. Listen, Sandra, we miss you. Get back to as soon as

possible.

Now for our friends listening to the show, I want to ask you to be sure and stay with us until the very

end, if you can. I‟d like to share a little inspiration with you. I‟ll also reveal who I‟m going to connect you

within the next episode.

One quick reminder: if you enjoy this free podcast that we create for you, we‟d really appreciate it if

you‟d go to iTunes, post a comment and rate the show. This would help us reach, instruct and inspire

more great entrepreneurs like yourself with each and every guest that we bring on.

Now before I introduce you to our guest today, I‟ll give our new friends some perspective that just

started listening to us. Every interview is basically a conversation between four friends, me, Sandra

when she‟s here, you, and then of course our guest. Even though we‟re talking with some of the




brightest, high-level entrepreneurs and brilliant thought leaders around, this is still just as if we‟re sitting

at a table with each other, having a conversation.

Everyone that we're talking with has found success doing what it is that 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 a high-level Mastermind,

go to seminars, events, and build those relationships over several years, spending an absolute fortune

in the process. Now with this platform and this podcast, I get to share these great people with you to

fast-forward your success and your connections that grow your business.

Today, our guest is Sean Malarkey. Sean helps entrepreneurs and big brands better understand the

power of Twitter and how to maximize it to generate leads, sales, clients, press and traffic to their

website. Sean is the co-founder of Inspired Marketing, the number one company that creates digital

online training with a focus on social media.

Inspired Marketing was just named on the Impact100 list, which represents the top 100 companies in

America that are run by young people. This award is an invitation to the White House. Sean is also the

founder of Twixplode which I‟ll let him tell us more about both of those as we dive in deeper into our

conversation today.

So without further ado, welcome to the show, Sean.

Sean: Awesome. Thanks for having me on, Travis. I‟m honored to be here.

Travis: You bet, you bet. Listen, I know you‟re really busy, so I know that it‟s tough for you to take time

out of your schedule. Before we get into some of the things that you teach, would you mind sharing the

backstory of how you got to where you‟re at today and how you found success?

Sean: Sure. Many years ago, I owned a real estate company, and mainly bought and sold investment

properties. As we got into that further, we started leasing out a lot of our properties, so we did a buy-

and-hold strategy. Over the course several years ended up, I ended up selling my interest in that

business. When we did that, we had over 100 properties on our portfolio that we owned, that we lease

out. We opened up a brokerage where we sold and listed other people‟s homes for lease as well. I had

a bunch of real estate agents. My main role in that company or one of my main roles was to do all the

marketing. As a result for many years, I‟ve been really interested in marketing and I‟m just fascinated

with how marketing works and implementing ideas and seeing results. Towards the end of my run with

that company, we really started seeing a lot of traction from social media.




Travis: Right.

Sean: I became very fascinated with it. It was right in the point when social media was really starting to

rise. This is about five years ago, four to five years ago.

Travis: Yes, I was going to ask you if that was before the big bust in the real estate also.

Sean: Yes, I got into the real estate right when the bust went down…

Travis: Okay, okay. All right.

Sean: …which was great from an investment perspective. We were able to buy a lot of properties for

very cheap, and the buy-and-hold strategy became more profitable than ever, if you will.

Travis: Right.

Sean: So, yes, I had this big interest in marketing. Just great. Now with marketing, you generate these

ideas in your head and you learn. You read and you learn about other things that are working and, you

think of these ideas and implement stuff. From a measurable perspective, you can see that things are

working and or they‟re not working. I‟ve always been fascinated with direct response marketing. About

the time I made my exit from my real estate company, I was seeing that social media was really starting

to rise. I was fascinated with it. I, really, in the early days of Twitter, became addicted with Twitter, if you

will. Now a lot of people are addicted to Facebook. They spent a lot of time on there.

Travis: Right.

Sean: Many years ago, I was the same way with Twitter. I got really inspired and excited at its

potential because I was growing my following at a crazy pace in the beginning, and I was getting a lot of

amazing results from it. I started seeing results in our real estate company, and right about the same

time I ended up making my exit from real estate company, I was doing some stuff. I was working on

some real estate information stuff. In my spare time, I was spending a lot of time on Twitter and growing

it. People started to ask me what I was doing, how I was doing it, so I started a little blog. In a couple of

hours one night, I built a website, having no idea how to even really do it. I mean, I had a little bit of an

idea, but I used YouTube videos to figure out to build a website in a WordPress.

Travis: Right.




Sean: But literally in a couple of hours, I built a website and began just blogging everyday about

Twitter and what I was doing to grow my following, tools I was finding, reporting some data and stats,

and giving advice. That particular blog ended up really just exploding. I was getting, by the end of 30

days, over 1,000 tweets a day, and growing a pretty large e-mail list on that.

One of the things I ended up deciding to do is to just a write a book on Twitter which is the “Twixplode”

book you‟ve mentioned earlier. I wrote a little book on that and after a couple of months offered it to the

people that have opted to my e-mail list. I offered it for sale, and it just started selling. Twitter became

such a hot topic that a lot of other people were asking me to promote it and introducing it to their

audiences and then selling it. So on accident… My plan originally was to, after I‟d made my exit from

the real estate company, was to work in the information space real estate. Twitter just took over.

Travis: What do you mean by Twitter took over, in your life or…

Sean: No, my focus in general at that point…

Travis: Okay.

Sean: I was working on an information product with an acquaintance or friend of mine that I had on

some real estate investment strategies. That was my background. I had a lot of success and knowledge

in that, so I wanted to share that. I was working on that, and in my spare time, I was just doing this little

Twitter blogging thing. Over the course of about two weeks, I wrote this book and put it out there. All of

a sudden, I was earning $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 a month, almost immediately from selling this book,

from the sales of that book.

Travis: Nice.

Sean: Yes. About that same time, by about my second or third month I had that available and was

selling it, I met my business partner, who was literally doing the exact same thing with LinkedIn.

Travis: Right.

Sean: He had written a book. He was skinning the cat or making money a little bit different way. But he

had a book and the gross income was coming from the sales of that. We had a mutual—or a friend of

mine approached me, who was doing a lot of stuff in social media, and said, “Hey, we should do a

webinar and just teach people some of the stuff we‟re learning with social media and with Twitter and




LinkedIn.” I said, “Yes, I got a good friend who was really good with LinkedIn. Let‟s do it.” So we jumped

on the webinar and we got about 500 people on it. The idea was that at the very end of the webinar, we

would let them know that if they liked what they were hearing…

Travis: Right.

Sean: …they could buy our books for 50% discount. The webinar didn‟t go so well. We had 500 people

on it, and at the very end, we offered it, but it wasn‟t just real--it‟s was a mess how it all went down. The

person who was running the call, a friend of mine, he ended up having jump off the call real quick, and

so the…

Travis: Oh, no.

Sean: Yes, indeed. The books barely got mentioned. I literally think we generated one sale, so we

earned about 20 cents per attendee for attending the webinar.

Travis: But the learning experience is valuable. Hey, let‟s go back a little bit because number one, I

thought Twixplode was in the form of a program.

Sean: It was an e-mail or it was an e-book that I had produced, but as a bonus, right after the time I

put it out, I decided to make some videos that they could get access to in a members‟ area to show a

visual of a lot of the things that I‟ve talked about in the book.

Travis: Right.

Sean: There was the members‟ area with about a dozen videos in it, probably a couple of hours, an

hour or two of content. Once you got the book, we told you, you could go there and log in and watch

those videos.

Travis: Cool, okay. Now one of the things I wanted to add about your journey is I think the absolute

best way to get really good on something is spend your own money doing it, and your skills will get

really refined.

Sean: Sure.




Travis: What I hear in your story is you were spending your own money within your own business and

promoting your first business through that platform of Twitter, and that‟s really how you honed your

skills, right?

Sean: Yes, exactly. Here‟s the thing. Twitter is free, so it was more of a time standpoint, but I realized

early on that a lot of the properties we were selling, we were selling to the real estate investors all over

the country. So I realized that with Twitter, you could do some research and find real estate investors

based on keywords they had in their profile or other professionals in the real estate space that they

were following. It became pretty clear to me and pretty easy to find those people and get them to pay

attention to me, and as a result, generate revenue from them seeing what we were doing.

Really, it wasn‟t a money thing. We were spending a lot of money on Facebook. We were doing

advertising on Facebook, which was tremendously fruitful--advertising our properties because

Facebook has some targeting options where you can target high-network individuals and whatnot who

might be interested in real estate. So that was more of spending money, but Twitter was more of a time

thing. I think early on, for about the first six months, I literally was probably on Twitter for at least six to

eight hours a day. As a result, I just got a ton of success from that. People were saying, “How are you

doing what you‟re doing?” One of the biggest things was I was able to post a link to just about anything,

but if it was something that was relative to my audience and things that they were interested in, I can

generate 500 visits to whatever link that I posted, whatever website, in literally just a matter of minutes.

Travis: Wow!

Sean: Yes. It was interesting that when I was running my Twitter blog to post a link to a new post, and

just to watch 20, 30, 40 e-mail opt-ins to subscribe to my list in a manner of minutes. When I would

show friends that, they said, “You have to show me what you‟re doing.” That‟s where the inspiration

came to start blogging about the topic and then eventually write a book about it.

Travis: Interesting. Now you got into the real estate right after it, I guess, plummeted, and then you

stayed in that, what? Three, four, five years, or what? How long were you on that?

Sean: I was in real estate, really, for a long time. I was on the finance side doing loans and mortgages

since „97. About late ‟97, I got started on that side and I rode that way when I got into that. In the United

States here, the interest rates were at about 8 ½%. I rode that wave and basically got in and was doing

really well early on because I was just excited about the business and the rates were ridiculous.

Actually, it‟s still 8 ½ and not ridiculous but… I ended up, over the course of about seven years,

dropping all the way down to 3 to 4% range, so I rode that way down. That really fueled the growth in




real estate and the housing boom. As I‟ve sold, kind of a writing on the wall in that business, I had an

opportunity to form a real estate company where we‟re buying properties that the banks were taking

back and selling at a big discount, so I decided to make that jump. I‟m really fortunate that I made that

decision because a lot of the guys that I was working within the lending industry went from making

great money down to bankruptcy and themselves losing their home, foreclosure, because they couldn‟t

figure out a way to generate revenue because it just got so difficult.

Travis: Yes, timing is--man, it‟s always nice to have timing on your side. The difference between salad

and garbage is timing.

Sean: Yes, that‟s so true. I‟ve never heard that. That‟s a great quote.

Travis: I‟ve had some close calls like that myself. I‟m like, “Whew!” Good stuff. So you still have some

passive investments in that, and you decided to take the things that you learned and transition it into a

business. How long on your own terms based on—and I guess this is probably a loaded question

because I think almost everyone when they think, “Am I successful?” none of us want to say, “We‟re

successful,” to ourselves for fear of, I don‟t know, losing our drive or our motivation. But I‟ll ask

anyways. How long, once you‟ve made the transition from real estate to what you‟re doing now, before

you really started finding traction and getting some pretty serious success?

Sean: That‟s a great question, Travis. I‟d say that first year was not easy, but there were some really

exciting wins along the way that painted that light at the end of the tunnel, if you will. It made me

realized that this business, the more I did it, the easier the success would come. But that first year, I‟d

say, was really challenging and really difficult. Income was very inconsistent, but there were some

major wins that… I just knew I would be successful in it and I knew it would work. It was just a matter of

working hard. So about a year, by about the point about a year came, I got to that point where I was

earning the kind of income I was happy with. About the two-year mark that became a lot more

consistent, if you will. The first year was pretty tough between year one and year two. I got to a level

that I wanted to be at, but the income, if you will, was inconsistent. I have big wins and then lows, and

big wins and then lows. But the more I worked in the business, the more the success came, and the

easier it became. So, yes, about the end of the two-year mark, things really started to level out.

Travis: Be consistent? Yes.

Sean: Yes, exactly. And not level out from a success standpoint, but level out from just a consistency

in earning good revenue in that regard.




Travis: Right. Yes, it‟s like, “Man, I had a great day today. Now if I could just string five of those

together.”

Sean: Yes, exactly. Fortunately, most of those great days would pay for the other four days or five

days in a row, but it was just a matter of--I felt like it was a constant, “Okay, how are we going to get to

the next big win?” We really did some things in that second to third year that changed our business,

and maybe the revenue and the income would come in on a way more consistent basis. From that

point, it became a matter of, “Okay, now we‟ve got this. Let‟s increase it,” and so on.

Travis: Right. Well, a lot of people in the--you had a pretty good, a pretty fast ramp up. A lot of people

take much longer than that. You can take a great day, and once you divide it over the hours you put in,

you‟re making less than minimum wages, and that‟s just part of the cycle. It‟s part of the climb up the

mountain there, building your business, but it sounds like, to me, that you realized that you really

needed, rather than trying to do this yourself, you needed to partner with some other people that could

bring some things to the table in diversity. Was that part of what really started ramping things up to that

next level for you and success?

Sean: Yes, it really definitely was. One of the big attractions early on with having a business partner

was that we both had built audiences. The combination of the two audiences gave us a lot more power

and strength, if you will. If you can go from having a medium-sized audience to a large audience just by

combining two the doors really opened up in a lot of different regards. What I mean by that in my

industry and in my business, there‟s a lot of a--I don‟t know how to put this--but basically I scratch your

back, you scratch mine, so in general…

Travis: Right.

Sean: So we create trainings, online trainings, mainly for social media. There‟s a lot of other people

who do the same thing and a lot of guys at that point that had audiences that were five to ten times the

size of ours, but the size of our audience was enough to get them to work with us. We would basically

seek out the guys that we liked and the gals that we liked that had great information and great products,

and promote them to our audience, or do things to help them, really without asking for anything in

return. All it really cost us was time and energy. The majority--let‟s say 50-75%--of those individuals

that we did a lot of stuff for without asking for anything in return ended up--just based on the laws of

reciprocity--promoting our information back to their audiences and gave us the ability really to grow and

skyrocket our audience. We couldn‟t have gotten their attention if we were an individual--with our

individual list.




Travis: Right, right. You know what, I have got something going on in my site. I want to illustrate that.

Because what we‟re talking about is something that is worth dissecting for the business owners, for the

entrepreneurs, that are listening. I want them to think about this. For years, I had cut my teeth early on

with SEO for my construction company. I own a couple of companies and one is a consulting. I do

business turnarounds, help people ramp their businesses up very quickly, and then other one is a

construction company, and I‟ve probably generated 30, 40 million dollars in SEO--through SEO.

Sean: Wow.

Travis: Although SEO has changed so much that I don‟t even know what it really is anymore, to be

honest with you.

Sean: Yes, I hear you.

Travis: So my point is I used to be able to manage three or four of those platforms with a team: me and

two strategists, and my team. Now those holes, those rabbit holes go so deep and they go in so many

different directions that I don‟t have the will or the desire to keep up with it. So, really, I had to shift

things because I‟m used to having a big team behind me. I started looking for people that are experts

across different industries; Google+, SEO, LinkedIn, all of these other things, and I‟m even doing it with

this show to where we reach out and support one another. I don‟t have this big team that I have to pay

on a regular basis and we‟re supporting one another. All of them are experts in that, and the amount of

time and effort and money that goes into being an expert in SEO currently, right?

Sean: Sure.

Travis: LinkedIn and everything else is big time. So I no longer have to be the chief strategist, which is

a nightmare when you‟re trying to manage multiple platforms, when you have experts that know that

stuff and they say, “No, this is what you need to do, in fact, we‟ll apply it for you.” Do you use some of

those strategies as well, beyond just promoting?

Sean: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. We have a number of different ways that we do. I mean, in our

business itself, 99--well, not 99--but 90% of the work that we do, we use other experts. Some of them

are on our staff and others are people that we contract work to. But, yes, without that, there is no way I

could achieve the level… I mean, things have gotten--I don‟t want to say complicated, but a lot more

difficult and a lot more… As your business grows and as things change, the level of work to do of some

of the same things you used to do obviously increases big time. But just back to your point, too, about

growing—when I was talking earlier about having an audience and combining that audience and the




power it gives, I was thinking, when you were talking earlier, this show that we‟re doing now, if you think

about it, if your audience is 100,000 or 50,000 and you‟re able to partner with somebody and double

that, all of a sudden, it‟s a lot easier for you to get a lot of different experts on because they know the

reach that you have.

Travis: Right.

Sean: I‟m just relating it back to your scenario and your situation. I think it might be able to explain to

other people how that works. If you have a large audience, a lot of people will want to work with you.

Travis: Right, right. Even if you‟re in the early stages, there are some people that are in the early

stages. If you‟re laying down quality, you‟re going to attract people. The people within your industry are

going to recognize that this guy--now, of course, not when you‟re just starting out, but early on into the

process--if you‟re really producing some quality stuff, you will attract. This thing will grow and

compound. I appreciate you adding to that explanation because I want to do is a good of a job of

illustrating the importance of using, I guess, a compounding effect--maybe even a synergy would be a

good way of saying it.

Sean: Sure, absolutely.

Travis: Okay.

Sean: And back up on one more thing, too--I wanted to just touch on…

Travis: Sure.

Sean: When you have a large audience, I mean, it‟s easier. We were just saying it to just anybody you

want. I mean, in our case, we were able to do a webinar with Robert Greene recently. He had released

a new book. For him, it‟s a big deal because he can get in front of our audience and sell 300, 400, 500

copies of his book in an hour‟s time for doing a little webinar, talking about his book and the different

lessons within it. But one of the questions--in his book “Mastery,” he talks about just mastering

something. One of the questions someone said… The topic came up of having a job and wanting to

quit their job and pursue a passion. He cautioned against doing that and said, “Take your time and

become an expert before you--or as much as you can, before you depart from your current income

level and job that you have because it may make things a whole lot easier once you make that switch.”

For me, in the business that I‟m in now, I have an idea based on some things I was noticing in the

industry and the market that this is the direction I wanted to go two or three years prior to selling my




interest in that real estate company. So I started learning as much as I could and adapting a lot of our

marketing strategies to things that I‟m doing now. When I actually made that switch, I already have a lot

of skills and I had put in a lot of time and energy using them in my real estate business so that when I

actually made that switch, it wasn‟t nearly difficult as just saying, “Okay, this looks like a good thing to

do,” and jumping into it, if that makes any sense.

Travis: Without a doubt. I think a lot of people confuse the analogy of “burn all the ships” so that you‟ve

got to fight your way to surviving. The missing piece of the information is become really good at what

you‟re doing before you burn all of your ships and quit your job.

Sean: Absolutely, absolutely. Yes, I mean, I anticipated hitting success levels twice as fast as I actually

did. But I can‟t imagine, had I not have all the experience that I had prior to doing what I‟m doing now

already from my previous industry, how long that would‟ve taken. I see a lot of people doing that. They

burn those bridges. They jump into an industry or a new business or a new line of business or work,

without preparing for that properly. I think it can be a really big risk to just do that without, obviously,

doing that ahead of time.

Travis: Yes. I see a lot of people and one of the… I see writing a copy as one of the most important

skills today behind having a good product. So many people are out there presenting their product in a

very selfish me-me-me-me way and they‟re baffled as to why they‟re not getting the response. They‟re

wanting support, they‟re not giving support in social media, and they‟re not presenting their offers in the

right ways. Those are skill sets that should be… I love people that are entrepreneurs. If you‟re thinking

of making that jump, hone some of those skills before you make that jump. That‟s part of the bigger

picture of what you‟re talking about. Don‟t only have a good skill set at what you‟re going to teach, but

understand how to present it so that you can penetrate that market when you get out there.

Sean: Exactly. Absolutely.

Travis: Yes. What does 500 Million Strong mean?

Sean: 500 Million Strong is a social media training that we created three years ago now. At that point,

that was the number of users that were actively using LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook combined. As

you know, that number has skyrocketed. I think now…

Travis: Just a little.




Sean: Yes, I think now--this is pretty interesting, but now there‟s over a billion users on the Facebook

alone, so that number--we really discontinued the sale of that product and gone different directions

since then—but I think we have to be 2 or 3 billion strong.

Travis: Yes,

Sean: Yes.

Travis: Maybe 3 billion or 4 billion strong or something, so you can stay ahead of the curve.

Sean: Yes. Facebook is now a publicly traded company, so they release a lot of data every quarter in

relation to users and what not. I saw in their latest earnings call that they now have over 600 million

daily users on Facebook. If you think about that, that‟s basically one in ten people on the planet logging

in and using the site everyday. I was having this conversation with my mom yesterday or a few days

ago that I don‟t think there‟s any other service or product in existence that 1 in 10 people use.

Travis: Right.

Sean: I honestly can‟t think of anything.

Travis: Yes.

Sean: That‟s mind-blowing to me.

Travis: Yes, I agree with you. The adoption rate is just unbelievable.

Sean: Yes, and you know what, as soon as I just said that, I‟m sure Google has a similar amount of

daily users, so I take that back. Google might be the only other one, but those are the two…

Travis: Just in case someone important from Google is listening.

Sean: Yes, exactly. Or anybody who drew that same thing conclusion…

Travis: Yes, we don‟t want to anger the Google gods, do we?

Sean: Yes.




Travis: Hey, segue me into what you‟re teaching about Twitter. I know you guys teach a lot of things

related to social media, but can you tell--walk me down the path of Twitter and how you grow that and

how you get responsiveness and all those other things you mentioned and that was…

Sean: Sure. Yes, sure. It‟s really, really, really pretty simple. The idea that I‟ve implemented since day

one has generated me a lot of success and just about anybody who‟s implement this kind of strategy

is—the thought process that I‟ve always used with Twitter to… You‟ve got to figure out what your

objective is and your goal, and there‟s a million different ways to use it. There‟s a lot of people that do a

great job with networking. So if you‟re in the job market and you‟re looking to get a job, finding out

through using a tool like LinkedIn or however you figure this out, figure out who the person that makes

hiring decisions are at certain companies, or people that work at companies, pay attention to everything

that they say on Twitter, interact with them, re-share the messages that they‟re sharing, and build a

relationship that way, and it can probably make getting a job a whole lot easier. I hear all kinds of

success stories in that regard.

Travis: How does entrepreneur use it to grow their business?

Sean: It‟s really simple. Depending on what you‟re--Figuring out who your target audience is and

growing that target audience by connecting with them on Twitter can be really big. For example, for me

in real estate, we were interested in finding real estate investors. The time that I was really active in

growing that real estate investor list, all I did was find who were the big influencers in the real estate

investment education industry. You‟ve probably seen the infomercials for Carleton Sheets.

Travis: Yes.

Sean: So there‟s a lot of guys that aren‟t on TV that view this stuff on the Internet, through websites

and blogging, that do a lot of live speaking that teach this stuff. I identified about 20 of them, and then I

just went and looked at all of their followers. What I simply did was just go and follow as many people

as I could that were find- there‟s a lot of softwares and tools that can make this--to follow 1,000 people

or 500 people in just a matter of a couple minutes to do this.

With Twitter more so than any other network, following a lot of people is kind of normal… It‟s a proto--

not normal protocol, but a lot of people do it, whereas on Facebook, you don‟t go and add hundreds of

people. In fact, there‟s a lot of measures in place that Facebook will ban your account or put the brakes

on you.




With LinkedIn, you could do the same thing, but the idea, essentially, is it‟s almost like a virtual

handshake. By following people, if you have a really similar interest or—what‟s the word I‟m looking

for? If you‟re basically doing similar things and you can--when somebody looks at your profile and says,

“He‟s a real estate investor, too,” you then find things to relate to. Most often times, a lot of those

people are going to click through to your website to learn more about you, so this was a good tool, or at

a minimum, follow you back. Then once they‟re following you back, they‟ll see your updates in the

newsfeed when they‟re online and you‟re posting those updates. Early on, I would just literally---this

strategy still works well. It doesn‟t work as well as it used to because Twitter and the nature of Twitter

has changed, but I can go and follow 1,000 people a day and get 500 people to follow me back very

easily. Out of those 500 people that have followed me back, probably 100 would click through to my

website, and then 300 to 400 would actively pay attention to me on a daily basis. So if I tweeted a link

to my website, at some point they would visit it. So just by going and following a lot of people that were

interested in the same kind of things I was—and it really is not as easy as just following and then being

done. You really need to be active and engaging and responsive on Twitter for it to truly work as well as

it can.

Travis: What does that mean, “active,” retweeting them and engaging them in a conversation, private

messages, what?

Sean: Yes, exactly, and just taking an interest in people. If somebody sends you a direct message and

asked how you„re doing or whatever, taking two seconds to look at their profile and check them out a

little bit if they seem of interest to you. A lot of times, I‟ll get updates. Still, everyday, I get 20 to 30 direct

messages of people saying, “Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for the follow, et cetera, et cetera,” or,

“How are you today?” or, “How‟s life in Santa Barbara?” I‟ll take two seconds to look at their profile and

respond back and just say, “I‟m great. Thanks for asking. Santa Barbara is beautiful today. How are

things in Chicago?”

Travis: Right.

Sean: That lets them know, “Wow, this guy actually took the time to see where I lived and took an

interest in me. So if they haven‟t taken an interest in me yet, oftentimes, they‟re going to wonder who I

am. I took interest in them first, so it‟s like, okay, cool. Who is this guy?”

Travis: Right.

Sean: They‟ll come back and actually be on my website or become more active, I guess, in engaging

with me.




What I meant by being engaging is if people ask you questions over Twitter, respond, and not just in

the direct message section, which is like the e-mail, but also across the mainstream, and also paying

attention to people, and re-sharing their messages or re-tweeting, as we call it, and then if they post

something funny, engaging and responding back as well. That‟s really one strategy. I know people that

use it for jobs. I know people that use it for PR, so if they have a product or service and they want to

get—if they sell really cool furniture and they want to be featured in “Dwell” magazine or any number of

different publications, they‟ll create a list of the writers and the editors for those magazine and just pay

attention to them and re-tweet and respond to the things they‟re putting out and whatnot.

In business, we tend to do business with people that we know, like and trust. It makes it a whole lot

easier when you‟re asking for something if someone knows you and likes you.

Travis: Right, right.

Sean: So if I‟m owned a furniture company and I was sending solicitations to magazines to get

published, to feature my stuff and everything, if I don‟t have any previous relationship, then my odds are

pretty narrow, but if I build a relationship over the course of 30, 60, 90 days or six months with

somebody on Twitter, all of a sudden, it‟s really easy to say, “Hey, Kenny, I know you write for „Dwell.‟ I

love the stuff that you put out. Have you ever seen the stuff that I create? I think it fits in line with the

kind of stuff that you publish.” All of a sudden, Kenny is going to go, “Yes, let me take a look,” because

Kenny and you have been interacting over Twitter for many, many months. It can make things a whole

easier.

Travis: Right.

Sean: Really, there‟s a million different ways to use it. Those are just a few of the great ways to do it.

Travis: I had tons--I was following lots of people at one time, and this is probably the wrong way to look

at it. Maybe you can talk me down here.

Sean: Sure.

Travis: You can talk me off the ledge. I was following so many people that it was just--I couldn‟t keep

up with it, and it was driving me nuts. I like to try to stay neat and organized, so I really trimmed that

down. I hurt a lot of feelings when I un-followed people. It really trimmed my list down to something like

130 people or something. Bad move on my part?




Sean: You can look at it either way. I think a smart--I don‟t think it‟s a bad move, but I think it‟s smart to

take a different approach because I understand you hurt a lot of feelings. People were like, “Why did

you un-follow me?” I get that. Your main goal was just to get rid of the clutter and, really, you wanted to

pay attention to a set number of people, or you mentioned a 130. Is that right? Was that the goal?

Travis: Right. Yes, exactly.

Sean: So there‟s a way to do it without having to un-follow everybody. The easy way, I guess, if I

should say, to do this without having to worry about hurting people‟s feelings is to create what are

called lists in Twitter. You can go through and just add as many people as you want to a list. I‟ve got

several lists. I‟ve got one, and I think I just called it my favorite people. That‟s exactly what--instead of

deleting everybody, I just took all the people I wanted to pay attention to and put them on that list.

I use a tool called HootSuite that shows, in real simple, easy-to-follow format, all of their updates in one

column. To the left of that is all the mentions--in another column, if somebody mentions me on Twitter.

To the left of that further is my inbox on Twitter, my direct messages. It gives me ability to pay attention

to the people I want, see the mentions, and see all my direct messages on one screen. I didn‟t have to

un-follow anybody to do that.

I‟ve also created a bunch of other lists. If you‟re wanting to get PR or get a job, create a list of the top

20, 30, 40 people that potentially could be of value to you and follow them, interact with them. It makes

it really easy, I guess, just to do that. Hopefully I make sense.

Travis: Yes, it does. Okay, the majority of people that listen to this show already own a business.

There‟s some wanting—we‟re about the entrepreneurial pursuit, period. But the majority of people

already own a business. Is there certain businesses, B-to-C, that should stay away from Twitter, or is it

a B-to-B thing, or is there conditions to both of those?

Sean: It works both ways. In fact, for B-to-B, it can be a tremendous tool, so just as long as the context

and the people that you‟re looking to do business with are active on Twitter.

I always say with Twitter, you really have to set some goals and then have a smart approach about it. If

you know you‟re doing--if you don‟t know you‟re doing, it can be a big time waster and you won‟t get

many result, or much results, but if you just think about it, how you would interact in real life and engage

in real life and you treat it the same and… Yes, if you set goals and follow a plan, it can work really well.

http://hootsuite.com/




The one thing with Twitter too, is it can also--it can consume a lot of your time, so you have to be

careful on how you do it so it doesn‟t eat up a lot of time because if it eats up a lot of time and you‟re

not getting results, obviously you‟re not going to be pleased with it. You can do it in a smart fashion and

spend 10, 15 minutes a day and you have a game plan, generally, you„ll see results.

Travis: What do you think about putting in an assistant on it to help you?

Sean: I‟ve never been a big fan of that, to be honest, unless your assistant can really mimic your voice

and do a good job. I don‟t know. I‟m just a big fan of being transparent and authentic. If you have

somebody speaking for you… I take that back. If you‟re a big brand and you don‟t really have a face--so

if it‟s your personal profile, I think it‟s bad to put an assistant, but if you have a product or a service,

having somebody manage that is totally fine. That‟s normal. But the last thing, I would never have

somebody tweet for me on my personal profile and my brand and basically act as if they were me. I just

don‟t think that‟s a good practice. I think it‟s a little inauthentic, if you will.

Travis: Okay. One other thing that you were talking about is getting people to take action. I see a lot of

people not be very strategic with their messages. What are most people missing when they‟re

tweeting? I have my own opinions, but I want to get out of the way of this and let the expert speak. So

what are most people doing wrong with the messages and links and things like that on Twitter?

Sean: Yes, it‟s a great question. Here‟s a thing with Twitter; there‟s no real rules. There‟s no right and

wrong, but if you‟re trying to be effective and reach certain goals, if you will, you need to have a game

plan and you need to follow it and execute it.

It‟s not going to work for everybody. There‟s not really a percentage I could throw out there that 50% of

people are going to get success and 50% won‟t because there‟s just so many variations, depending on

what your goals are and how you go about it. The biggest mistake I see a lot of people is just having no

game plan, just thinking they can just tweet and grow their following and that‟s going to deliver some

amazing results. When it comes to actual tweets and things that people do wrong and say, it‟s just

generally they use it as more of a broadcasting tool and do not do any interacting or engaging. Twitter‟s

a very social network. If somebody comes to follow you and they see that you‟re just broadcasting

messages that are me-me-me-me, that never ever goes down well. People will see that.

A good combination of things to do would be to tweet funny, interesting things, thought-provoking

things, share great resources that aren‟t your own, so things that people in your industry or people that

are following you will be interested in that may point to other sites because what happens is if I were to

share--if people consider me good at Twitter or social media and they share an article to somebody




else‟s website that is of high value, all of a sudden, because I‟m the person that shared that, there‟s a

certain feeling towards me that‟s a very positive one, if that make sense.

Travis: Without a doubt, yes. Curator of quality content, right?

Sean: That‟s exactly the words I needed to say.

Travis: Yes.

Sean: So thank you.

Travis: Hey, this is a team thing, baby.

Sean: I hear you. You know people see that and think, “Oh, gosh, Sean‟s smart. He reads smart stuff.”

So just because--a lot of people think I don‟t want to send traffic to other people. Get over that and just

share great information and use the 80-20 rule or maybe the 95-5 rule where 5% of the time is stuff

that‟s for personal and promotional stuff, then 95% of time, you‟re just sharing other great stuff and

interacting and engaging with your audience.

Travis: Right, right. How about we pick any business of your choice and walk me down that path of an

illustration of how you would do that. Because I know that it‟s hard at times to get your hands around

examples when we‟re really not even talking about any specific business. Is there a business that

comes to mind to you that you would say, “I would do this like this, and then I would do that,” that might

be another verbal illustration of--painting that picture that we‟ve been working on?

Sean: Sure. I got this, actually, a really good case study for a client that we had awhile ago that I

thought was very interesting, an unusual business. He was able to make it work really well, just through

using Twitter.

This company sold these lipstick-sized paint markers that were for the automotive industry. They had

several hundred colors, and they essentially were for repairing small scratches and dings on your car.

So if you own a Honda Accord, beige or champagne color, they had a matching marker.

How they used Twitter was amazing. They used it basically to share great information in regards to

how-to-do-it-yourself fixes on things and communicating, interacting and engage with automotive-type

stuff. But mainly how they used it is they created a search query of people saying things like, “Scratch

in my car,” “Key in my car,” “Ding in my car,” and they‟ll really nearly spend a couple of hours thinking of




about 50 different terms that people were saying on Twitter. You have to think about this from a

conversational standpoint, as to how people would say these things, but they ended up literally creating

a list of about 50 different search queries of things that were potentially and most of the time relevant to

the product that they have. They would then--somebody said, “Wow, someone keyed my car,” or,

“Scratched my car,” and generally, there was a lot of expletives that were accompanied with those

tweets.

Travis: Right.

Sean: That accompanied those tweets. But whatever it was that--in real time, as they were saying it,

they would send them a message and just say, “Wow, super sorry to hear that someone has scratched

your car.” We sell a solution to fix those and you can have it in a couple of days for a little amount. I

don‟t remember the exact messaging that they want, but they were getting three to four people every

10 minutes saying that that they had these problems, so they just hired somebody…

Travis: To respond? Yes.

Sean: …to respond and send messages in that regard.

Travis: “Hey, for $19.99, you can fix those nicks with our marker.”

Sean: Yes, exactly. It was a tremendous tool. The person that they were paying was somewhere

around 10 bucks an hour, and they were getting 10 to 20 times the result over time, after

communicating and refining that process.

That was just a really, really interesting use of Twitter that I thought was fascinating, and, in a way, a

really great way, to use it, through just paying attention to the conversation.

Travis: Wow. To me, it sounds like they--were they the manufacturer of this product?

Sean: Absolutely, yes.

Travis: So that‟s the trend. The Internet is killing the middle man, isn‟t it?

Sean: In a lot of ways, yes.




Travis: The people that used to sell these markers and stuff--in the Internet now, a lot of the

manufacturers themselves can set up shop and just sell it direct to consumer. That‟s a brilliant example

of them going straight to the consumer.

Sean: Yes, at a time when it was most relevant for their product.

Travis: Yes, yes, timing. That timing issue again.

Sean: Prior to Twitter--well, it was just a new channel for them to do it. I was going to say, “Prior to

Twitter, they could have all those stuff in automotive stores and whatnot…”

Travis: Well, that‟s the only way they could get there, right, is to try to get organic traffic online or to

take up some prime real estate, an endcap in the automotive store, right?

Sean: Exactly, and that was it.

Travis: Yes.

Sean: But this is a way where--a new channel for them to reach their audience at the moment that

they‟re interested on the product.

Travis: Right, right. Excellent business tactic.

Sean: Sure.

Travis: How does the message change when you want someone to opt in?

Sean: Yes, if you're interested in building an e-mail list, generally, the best thing you can do is provide

a lot of value to it in the space that people are following you for. If you're into blogging about organic

foods, finding all the people through the conversation on Twitter that are talking about organic foods

and that live that kind of lifestyle, and growing your audience by following them and interacting and

engaging with them on a daily basis or every 10 to 20 tweets, pushing out articles that are of high value

that you've written on your website, where once they land on your website, there's a really simple, clean

displayed way for them to get onto your e-mail list. That's really the best strategy. If you're active in

engaging and you're in a niche where a lot of people are conversating about it on Twitter, it's a great,

great way to build your audience.




Travis: Yes, just an organic way to take them there: good content.

Sean: Exactly.

Travis: When they get to the site, make sure that you set things up so that it flows properly. Are you a

fan of--a little off-topic, but are you a fan of these pop-up things that try to capture the visitors?

Sean: I'm a big fan.

Travis: Big fan.

Sean: A big, big fan. Yes. I mean, we've seen anywhere from double to five times the amount of

people converting when they land on your website. Just for example, in my real estate business, we

had what's called an in-line opt-in or just something static on the page. It could be in the header. It

could be in the sidebar. It could be in the actual post itself, or it could be all three, or it could be any

number of ways, but the best we usually ever saw was 2 to 3%, closer to 2 most of the time, from a

conversion standpoint. So if 100 people came to our website, 2 or 3 would join our mailing list. As soon

as we started using the pop-up, it immediately jumped to 8 to 10%.

Travis: Wow. Well...

Sean: Yes. And it didn't have any impact--there's always... It's become way more common than it used

to be several years ago. You can't visit forbes.com, New York Times, or any major website without

being either shown an advertisement first or shown an opt-in to just join their mailing list. So it's become

very normal, and it doesn't... If people have issue with it, they're really in the minority, and they're going

to have a lot more people that are excited and actually joining their e-mail list---. If somebody has an

issue with a pop-up asking them to subscribe, even if they did subscribe any other way, there's a good

chance they would never become a customer in any fashion anyway.

Travis: Right. Right, right. Yes, you're going to have detractors on that, so... I mean, it just is what it is.

Sean: Exactly.

Travis: Do you set the cookie up to where it does it every time they show up, or do you have... I saw

one guy who has a six-year cookie that once…

Sean: Yes. No, no, mine's once a week.




Travis: Once a week, okay.

Sean: Yes, so if they come back more often, if they join... If they come back three times in one day, it

only shows one time, but if they come back a couple of weeks in a row, maybe by the second or third

week, they're interested in joining at that point.

Travis: Okay. Okay. Hey, we're getting carried away with the conversation here. It's good stuff, a lot of

value. Are you about ready to transition to those three questions that I sent you for the lightning round?

Sean: Yes, absolutely. Let's do it.

Travis: Cool. What book or program made an impact on you related to business that you would

recommend, and why?

Sean: I've got, really, two. If I could share two, if that's okay?

Travis: Sure. Yes, as many as you'd like.

Sean: Yes, this is a toss-up between these two, and probably the two most impact for businesses.

Number one was Richard Branson's book, Losing My Virginity -- and these are in no particular order—

but that book really made me realize that all the hard work and effort I was doing was just... That guy is

on a whole another level, and it gives you perspective on how he became a mega zillionaire, and builds

a mega-empire and stuff that‟s a lasting difference on the world. So Losing My Virginity, you'll read that

book and be so fired up. It's a very entertaining book. It's mostly stories that are fascinating. So if you

like to read stories versus "do this, do that" kind of thing, it was a great, great book. I couldn't put it

down, and when I finished, I was, "Man, I need to get to work." If I want to hit the kind of levels that I

think I can, I need to get to work. I'm barely doing anything, compared to the lives these guys led--.

Travis: Yes. Right, right.

Sean: It's a fascinating read, and just super inspiring. The other book, and for me this was a big impact

in my business—it may not be for everybody, but I'll explain what it is and why it was for me—was the

Steve Jobs Bio that Walter Isaacson wrote. A lot of what we do… So we sell online trainings, and the

one thing I really took away--there were a couple of things that I really took away from that book--was

the importance of good design. Steve was just a huge proponent in good, simple, clean design. In fact,

http://amzn.to/YMMZta

http://amzn.to/YMMZta

http://amzn.to/XKofOU




all of his products that he put out are basically... I don't know if you're aware of this, Travis, but the iPad

does not come with an instruction book.

Travis: Yes, yes, I'm aware of that. I liked it, too. Yes.

Sean: Yes, yes, and the reason why is because intuitively you know exactly what to do.

Travis: Right.

Sean: So I thought about that and just thought—that has really fascinated me and I'd lesser that back

to my business. So when I sell a training--if you buy one of our trainings, if you spend 100 bucks and

you're going to learn all about how to use Facebook to grow your business--when you buy that training,

you register and you click on a link that gives you the ability to create a username and password, and

then the next step, it takes you, once you hit submit on that, it takes you into our members‟ area. I

thought to myself, "Hey, we have a pretty low refund rate, but how much better and how much could it

reduce our refund rate, but, really, how much better of an experience could I create if, when they

landed on our members' area, it was so simple they knew exactly what to do?" So they're not buying

my training for all the bonuses and all the resources and all of this and all of that and blah-blah-blah.

They're buying it for the training, for what the training says it's going to do. And the faster I can get

somebody into the training and taking action and learning, the more value they're going to get out of our

product and the happier we're going to be with their purchase and the more success they're going to

have, and, as a result, if the laws of nature work correctly, I should be rewarded better. So we literally

went back and redesigned our members‟ area and made it so simple that a three-year-old--not a three-

year-old, but a ten-year-old--can log in our members‟ area and know exactly... My focus was I need to

get them into the training as fast as possible.

What happened is--this is interesting, Travis. I don‟t know if you ever heard the study or the saying

that—I think it was Barnes & Noble's commissioned a big study and they learned that 90% of the

people that buy a book don't read past the first chapter. Our numbers weren't quite that dramatic, but

they were similar. Honestly, they were pretty similar. So if I sold a training with four hours worth of

training in it, 75% never got past the first hour or the first half-hour, maybe.

So I thought, "How can I make this so that I can get them straight into the training as fast as possible?"

And that was through design. I looked at the design of the iPad and saw how intuitive it was. I took a lot

of the principles--how intuitive and how clean it was--I took a lot of those principles and applied them to

our members‟ areas, and as a result, our customer satisfaction… So we do surveys to our audience to

learn how they feel about our products and then we also paid attention to a lot of data and the analytics.




When we introduced this new kind of members‟ area that was really inspired by that book and also a lot

of the lessons we've learned just from looking at the iPad and the iPhone, time in our members‟ area

tripled almost immediately and has maintained that level. Refund rates dropped by about 75% and

customer satisfaction...

Travis: Wow.

Sean: We used to get, on one particular training that I‟m focusing this on, we used to get people, on a

scale of 1 to 10, people thought it was an 8. When we asked that question again after the new

members‟ area had been released and these people were spending more time in the training that

jumped to above a 10. We gave the option to put any number they want in, and people were saying

200, 10,000. Yes, really, things like that. Out of 200 people that responded to that survey initially, when

we did it, we only had 4 that were less than a 10, and all 4 were 9s. I think there might have been one

8, but... That book really inspired me to really take a hard focus on our product and in making it as good

as possible and deliver more value in doing so, and as a result--the results have heavily spoken for

themselves.

Travis: Excellent advice. I've had frustrations with programs like that, that they force me to learn so

many of their acronyms and so many of their idiosyncrasies that... I learn a lot. I learn all the time. I

have an increased capacity just from doing it, and it frustrates me, so brilliant point. Thanks for the

recommendation on those two.

Sean: Sure.

Travis: I have Steve Jobs' book. It's a gigantic book, and I haven't read it yet.

Sean: Yes. When I bought it, I was like, "Ugh, I'm never going to be able to get through this book." I'll

tell you what, if you owned any Apple products, a lot of the stories are based around Apple and

whatnot. I couldn't put it down. In two days, I finished all 600 pages.

Travis: Wow. I'm Apple across the board, everything.

Sean: Right. Well, then you'll really enjoy this, especially if you've had, if you've owned, or paid

attention to Apple products over the last few years. There's just so many fascinating stories and, really,

that guy, from a business and from a leadership standpoint--I kind of took away that he was really like a

maniac and crazy, but his style and his driving ideals that he had and what he wanted to build really left




a lot, influenced me heavily. If I'm running a business--outside of the design and the inspiration, I never

got from running a business and building a great organization, I really learned a lot. He had no room for

B players, only A players, and if you weren't an A player, you were fired. And it wasn't personal. He just

wanted to build the most amazing team he could. He was just extremely driven and determined to build

the best business he could. So, anyway...

Travis: Can I...

Sean: Yes, it's an amazing book.

Travis: Yes, I think that... I think what you're pointing out there with the B player, B team player, that's

what got him labeled as a tyrant…

Sean: Sure.

Travis: …is he didn't have a whole lot of tolerance and he wasn't very compassionate about people

half-assing anything.

Sean: No, not at all. You‟re going to be fired if you half-assed anything.

Travis: Yes, yes. That's part of also the eccentricity, being a little odd. That's the price you pay for

walking down your own path.

Sean: Sure.

Travis: I applaud it. That's what all entrepreneurs have to do, anyways. You were at a point, some day

in your career path, where you said, "I'm not going to do what everybody else is doing. I'm going to

blaze my own trail." So we all understand what that looks like, cutting your own path when there's not

one there.

Sean: Absolutely.

Travis: Yes.

Sean: Yes, and you can say what you want about Steve Jobs and hold any opinion you want, but you

cannot deny that he had changed the world and left his mark forever. I mean, any smartphone out

there... We would not be where we are. You think about the iPhone or the Android or any of those




phones, without the work he did with the iPhone originally, our lives would be totally different. If you just

think about how you actually use your Smartphone and whatnot, the iPhone was first in that space and

all of the phones really had a mimic or copy the same functionality that was originally introduced with

that. And that's just one area. You have that. You have Pixar in animation and how movies were forever

changed with the dedication he had into bringing that to life, and a number of different ways.

Travis: Right, right, and it goes on.

Sean: How we perceive music and whatever. So, yes, he definitely changed the world. If you think he's

a tyrant or you don't like him, it's fine, but he left his mark and had his vision and he made an impact.

Travis: Yes. It'd be nice to accomplish just one-tenth of what he's done.

Sean: I'd settle for one-one hundredth, by God!

Travis: Yes, yes. Yes. Hey, what is one of your favorite tools or pieces of technology that you've

recently discovered, if any, that you would recommend to other business owners, and why?

Sean: I struggle with this question because anytime I recently discover things, it's always—and I'm not

sure if it's a shiny whistle or going to be great, but I can always go back to this, if you don't mind—is

Google and Google Suite of products online. We use Google Calendar. We use G-mail. We use G-

chat. We use Google Hangouts for business. We use Google Documents and Drive. We use YouTube,

but in general, Google, for me, from a business perspective, is huge. We have, I think--I haven't

counted but--in Drive or Google Documents, we have literally thousands of documents that we created

over the years, and it's an amazing tool, just the Documents section alone, to create stuff and share

and have in one place. These are all private, I can... I have contracts. I just negotiated a pretty big

contract that was actually written on a Google Document, and both the person that I was working with

on this contract, somebody I may be doing a lot of business with, when we went over the contract, we

were both looking at it on our own computers and making live changes to that document. And that

person went and printed it off 20 minutes later and then faxed it to me, and I signed it. It's just amazing.

We use it for our to-do lists for, project management, for expenses...

Travis: Yes. Me, too.

Sean: ... for storing important information like passwords. We do a lot of data analyzation and

research, where we track a lot of different metrics and we have documents that list that out that we




refer back to, that help us make quick, easy decisions on things going forward based on previous data.

So between that; chat, e-mail's a no-brainer, hanging...

Travis: Google Hangout is really great.

Sean: Yes. We have meetings all the time over Hangouts. If you look at my Google+ stream, I think

you'll see what Lewis and I, our business partner, communicate probably every other day through our

Google Hangout.

Travis: Okay.

Sean: Anyway, yes, I think Google and their suite of tools, from a business perspective—it‟s just

unbelievable, what they can do for you and what they can offer, from a very general standpoint.

Travis: Yes, yes. I agree with you. What famous quote would best summarize your belief or your

attitude in business?

Sean: This is another one I want to struggle with because there are so many great quotes but...

Travis: It's hard to choose just one, right?

Sean: Yes. One that I've always come back to, and this is really just about going out and getting your

dreams and chasing it and not being passive. I always tell people, my best advice: just to take action. If

you sit there and analyze things too much, generally, you're going to talk yourself out of it or you're

going to lose that original motivation that inspired you for the idea anyway, in general. So, this quote

really, for me, represents all of that, and it‟s from--supposedly, Abraham Lincoln said this or something

really close to this. It's attributed to Abraham Lincoln, and it's, "Things may come to those who wait, but

only the things that are left by those who hustle."

Travis: I like it. I haven't heard that quote. I like it.

Sean: You haven't? If you think about it, it's just go, go get it and don't sit back and just wait for things

to come your way. You may get it if you just sit back and wait, but if you're going to get...

Travis: It's not likely.

Sean: ...what's left, what's left over from those that have hustled.




Travis: Right. Hey, how do people connect with you?

Sean: It's really easy. You can go to my website, or on Twitter, or on Facebook. If we're not connected

already on Facebook, just shoot me a message and let me know you heard this interview and you

enjoyed it or whatever, and I'll be glad to add you. I'm at my friend limit there, but every few days I go

through it and add some new people. So just do that, if you will, and say…

Travis: You cut the troublemakers out so that you can make more room for the great people, right?

Sean: You know what, I honestly do. As I go into my friend list, and I'm at 5,000, so just about every

time I post something, I lose a friend or two, which is fine. It's just somebody who no longer is

interested in me, so that's fine, but I'll go in and when I want to add some new people, I‟d go into my

Friends. I just type in names of--common names of people that are likely to have deleted Facebook

accounts, so I'll just type in A-B-C and I'll look down. Their picture disappears and the original

Facebook icon comes up if they‟ve deleted their account.

Travis: Right.

Sean: I just go in. I go in and un-friend them.

Travis: Okay. We've got to save...

Sean: Yes.

Travis: Man, you're brilliant. I threw you in that curve there at the last second and you saved it.

Sean: Fun.

Travis: Oh, man, too funny. A lot of excellent stuff—can you hang out for a couple of more minutes

while I wrap up the end of the show?

Sean: Absolutely. Yes. Be glad to.

End of Interview




Travis: Okay, great. Now, I want to remind you to... Well, we've got show notes down there, and

basically you'll find Sean's bio and then all of the links, and any other links that Sean has that he wants

me to share with you guys, I'm going to go ahead and place in the show notes section. That way, you

can just click on it.

So I want to remind you to go to diyob.com. That's short for 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 Dollars.” It's a candid behind-the-scenes look at what you need to know to grow your

business to incredible levels of success no matter where you're at in business or the size that you want

to build your business to. What I tell you on this guide are critical to your success, and no one's really

talking about it because it's not in their best interest financially, and it drives me nuts. So I really hold

nothing back in this “Business Owner‟s Guide.”

Also, when you opt-in, you'll become a member of the Authentic Entrepreneur Nation, which is really a

network of people, tools and resources that you can trust to grow your business. It's taken a little longer

than I planned to get all of that up, all the backend things, but as soon as we get that up and running,

we'll give you access to that as well. That's basically our private rolodex of people we use, that we

know, like and trust also.

In the next episode, I'm going to connect you with Ari Galper. Ari is the world's number 1 authority on

trust-based selling and the creator of Unlock the Game, a new sales mindset and approach that

overturns the notion of selling as we know it today--really good stuff for growing your business. You will

not want to miss what Ari has to share with us.

Today, I want to close the show with an inspirational quote from one of my favorites, which is Henry

David Thoreau, and the quote reads, “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what

you become by achieving your goals.”

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

take action and go after their dreams, too. Talk to you in a few days in the next episode. Take care.

http://www.diyob.com/

http://www.diyob.com/

http://amzn.to/YfzqSg




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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 042 sean malarkey

Small Business & Entrepreneurship