026 tommy walker by EntrepreneursRadioShow

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

EPISODE #26: TOMMY WALKER

Tommy Walker Travis: Hey, it‟s Travis Lane Jenkins, and my co host and good buddy is not with us today, Sandra Champlain. Sandra I know you are probably listening. We miss you. We would like for you to get back to us as soon as possible. Listen, welcome to a new episode of Diamonds In Your Own Backyard. Today we are talking about online marketing, which is a vague term to most people, and how it relates to your business. I think it‟s a vague term because it means so many different things. We are also going to talk about why so many businesses have a problem finding success online, and then how to get results online for your business faster, and lots more. So before I introduce you to our guest, I have a favour to ask you. If you enjoy this free podcast we create for you. Just go to iTunes and post a comment and rate the show and let us know what we‟re doing matters to you. This would be a big help for us in reaching as many entrepreneurs as possible, and helping them to get started or help existing business owners take it to the next level. So I‟d really appreciate if you took the time to do that. Now with each and every show, our objective is to give you a seat right next to us, just as if we are seating at the table. Four of us talking on the table. So you are part of a conversation with some of the brightest entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the world, and that is not an understatement. People who have found success themselves and want to help you by sharing what they know. Everyone that we‟ve talked to has found success doing what they teach. This has been for me one of my frustrations and my journey as an entrepreneur is there‟s a large number of people teaching things that they don‟t do in their own business, or they are giving critically important advice to you and your business and they are not qualified to give that advice, and that drives me nuts. So, it has taken me years and lots of money to get the access at this level to this quality of people, and now you‟re sitting right here beside us in this conversation and taken this journey with us. Let me tell you a little bit about our guest today, his name is Tommy Walker. Tommy specializes in Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Video Optimization, User experience, PPC and a lot more confusing names or confusing acronyms SEO, PPC, SEM. Basically he is a brilliant guy. He helps businesses find success online as a marketing strategist. So, without further ado welcome to the show Tommy. Tommy: Thank you for having me, that‟s a wonderful introduction by the way. Travis: Yeah, do you feel special? Tommy: I do. I feel very special. Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Travis: Alright. Tommy, one of the things, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you in the show is I watched several of your videos and I really liked the angle that you take on things. You take a little humour and apply it to the video so that it‟s not a boring, talking HD. I think that is the vernacular that you use to describe it. So many people are so serious and they try to illustrate on a board and it‟s tough to watch. So I have really enjoyed the education and the element of fun that you bring to things. How did you get started in that direction that just takes on things? Tommy: Sure, so for the longest time, for about 10 years I trained to be a career actor and I graduated from the New York Conservatory for Film and Television back in 2003. So, in my blood at this point it was really just ingrained into my system. Entertainment, being entertaining, being engaging. I was stage actor for a long time. I did movies. I have done animation, voice over type sitcoms, and a lot of my training when I went to school was really solidified in that. After I graduated from college though I had come back home and ended having a job at the gas station from there landed a job into an SEO department for the 4th largest connoisseur retail company and ended up in the marketing department over there. I fell in love in the idea of online marketing. We started with SEO and it was link building type stuff then. But what had occurred to me while I was there and something that I was consummate and refining as I go through my entire career - is a lot of what we perceive on our computer screens is not much different than the way we perceive things through the television screen. For example, we talked to a lot of branding experts, people who talk about what‟s your brand identity, what‟s your logo, all this type of stuff and the reality is a brand is nothing more than a living, breathing character. Especially with things like social media taking such a huge step forward. It‟s really the next generation of the web. Having a character behind the business is something that is very, very important. If you‟re going to have that sort of two way dialogue and create those relationships with people that turn into the brand evangelists. People who want to, people who are doing the constant marketing for you that‟s what everybody is looking for when they start viewing you online. Travis: Like word of mouth or something. Tommy: Yeah, word of mouth. Yeah absolutely, everybody wants that word of mouth, that virtual word of mouth, I want my customers to advertise my business for me. That‟s what we all want. Then I kind of got into videos. After a few years of being the marketer or so, only the marketer or so, on my own blog and my own website, I decided that I didn‟t want to do that anymore. I want to really be myself and I was really afraid to do that too, because a big part of myself is doing the entertaining stuff, and because the online marketing state hasn‟t seen that yet, I was really nervous of putting that out. Travis: Hey, let me stop you there Tommy. Because you are saying a lot of great things here and I want to savour and make sure that we are digesting them. So, number 1. You come across great on the videos, if you don‟t know that, and it‟s enjoyable. I am not saying that just to be nice, but one of the things that I want to get a deeper understanding before you share some of your brilliance on your Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

strategies in marketing, is, how did you go from acting? Is it something that you experience, a failure or how did you make that transition? Tommy: Sure. So after I graduated college, I have done the same thing that everybody does. I‟m going to go home and I‟m going to make money and after I save a certain amount of money, I‟m going to start pursuing my dreams. What ended up happening was I worked at the gas station. There was somebody who came into the gas station, one of my customers really like my personality just as a person. Even as a gas station guy, I need a point to be friendly, ready to be personable, or have people‟s order ready for them. Like if certain people have a certain pack of cigarettes for example, I make sure that I had that for them, because that‟s the only way to really enjoy that job. For 8 weeks at the gas station work is terrible. If you think about it everybody in the world also needs gas. So my thought was if I‟m going to see all sorts of different people come through this place I might as well be the best version of myself to them. And one of the employees of the company I ended up working for came in he was a regular customer, and saw me there on a regular basis and really liked my personality and thought that I would be great for the sales position within his company. So I got in there and it turns out that I was actually terrible at sales. I failed miserably. Like the average sales that the people were asking for or they wanted was like 3000 dollars a week. And it was like 600 dollars those were programs in so called that ran 600 dollars at that time. So it wasn‟t that horribly difficult to get to that point. Especially if you are making 150 phone calls a day, with inbound leads and like the leads were warm but I just wasn‟t able to close the deal. Travis: Right. So you experienced failure in that level, and the reason why I am asking that is the genesis. Because a lot of times, Tommy, when you‟re staring failure in the face it seems bigger, nastier than worst than it really is. When actually it is normally the beginning of your transition of your true calling or where you really need to be. Tommy: And that is something that I‟ve really kind of learned to embrace in the past. I mean especially last year or so by 2004 it was kind of a rough year. That is something that I‟ve really learned is that the more you are on to doing something great, the more the universe is going to try to stop you from doing it. Or resisting something, the universe wants you to get there but resisting is trying to hold you back just to test your mettle and your commitment or whatever it is that you are trying to do. Actually in my film, I have an episode on that. Travis: 13? I believe. Tommy: 11. No, it‟s Episode 11 where it‟s overcoming resistance and talks about that specifically. So I was on the sales floor and they saw that I was working hard, right? We see you putting your numbers and dials in, you‟re on the phone people quite a bit but you are not just making deals. Perhaps there are these other department that are going to work out better for you and they ended up putting me in

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

the SEO department and they said, “You got 2 weeks to make your own money, if you don‟t make your own money, then you‟re gone”. Travis: Right. Tommy: I started making my own money within the first week because at that point I was doing just link building and it was easy enough to look at people‟s website and say how I am going to put this email together in a way that it is going to standout to them and ask for a link. And basically, help build the business that I am in. so all what I had to do that was kind of the early genesis of doing market research and that type of stuff when my acting career came in was reading the stuff that‟s on the person‟s website really allow me to kind of pull it apart as it is for script and do character analysis and learn a lot about that person publishing. Now I was able to go into the email and really have a better idea how to standout to them, without being just another person who‟s asking for a link. Travis: Right, right. Well I think it is funny how life has a way of letting your past experiences add up to the sum total of your future success. I had something very similar in my life to where I grew up in construction and then I went in the sales, I learn sales and I become very good at sales. Then I went in to customer service and then become very good at customer service. I didn‟t know it but I was acquiring all the skill sets for my business. It wasn‟t obvious to me until I decided to go into business and I thought, “Wait a minute I have all the skills and it sounds to me like that acting and that failure and acting or acting not coming to fruition and the basics training of SEO and everything actually is what shaped you to move in to your true passion and your business and your career path now, right? Tommy: Absolutely, absolutely. I believe that I‟ve always been a big believer in it‟s an idea that is bigger than you are than the experiences that you go through up into a certain point are developing your readiness to be able to handle that idea. Does that make sense? Travis: Yeah, it does. Tommy: You got to master that idea because I think that‟s a part where a lot of people kind of miss the boat. A lot of entrepreneurs specifically is like, “Oh I have this really a great idea for business.” But then, maybe not necessarily know how to handle certain aspects of that and can get bogged down in those areas and then the entire idea that just get off the entire idea which is really sad because there are really good ideas that don‟t flourish because of that. Travis: So what‟s the way to overcome that? Tommy: There are two ways. One you are either patient and learn all of the different ways that are learned in different areas of running that particular or running that business yourself. Or you really get passionate about what is it you are really doing and find the right people and develop a team that can

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

get just as passionate behind that. One of the things that I found a brilliant at a Time Shares company for example is the CEO, right? The CEO is probably one of the most inspiring, honest, business people that I‟ve ever met. You get really, really fired up about the mission that he was on and what he was doing. A lot of people, you talk to someone in the coming publicly like Time shares, he was like there are people out there who are trying to get rid of these things and I want to help them. I want to help people who are looking for discount vacations or cheaper vacations. Find a place that‟s better than just a hotel room and really start listening about this guy talk about what it is that he is doing. You can really buy into that mission, right? Travis: Right. Tommy: Even if you might not care about the product in the first place, what he is really getting at and I think what a lot of people, with a lot of big ideas you get at is that it‟s really about helping someone fix the problem. I think it‟s in human nature you want to be able to fix problems and if you have a certain skill set and somebody else is really passionate about that skill set that you need it‟s much easier to get them on board again, yes it‟s the big thing so that‟s how I go about that anyhow. Travis: I think you have tapped into it there because you could be in a type of business that maybe some of the elements of the business you‟re not passionate about but you can get behind the leader‟s desire to be the best, to be excellent, to make a difference to help people. So really your widget, whatever it may be your service, your business, whatever it may be your secondary. The excellence, the commitment, the everything else is what becomes a driving factor, right? Tommy: Absolutely, absolutely. Travis: Yeah. I agree with you. Tommy: As a business owner myself, I am not like super passionate about accounting. For example, my goal right now is to find somebody who is, and then get them fired up of what I am doing because it matters that like everybody needs to be on that same page otherwise you are going some, “I run my own business too, I have a job and I am trapped by it”. One of the saddest things in the world I think is when an entrepreneur gets really bogged down by their own ideas and they start to hate themselves for even coming up with it in the first place. Travis: Right. Tommy: Becoming afraid to your own business is terrible, terrible, terrible happens. Travis: I agree with you. Unfortunately I have had failures where I‟ve been there. Tommy: I think we all do. Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Travis: Normally, it‟s when I‟m going at it alone Tommy. Being an entrepreneur is a lonely position anyways which I find ways spending a lot of time thinking and writing and all that other stuff. But there are other times I have a deep desire for a connection with people that understand where the heck I am coming from. And fortunately that what the show does now it connects me with a lot of this brilliant people. Let‟s transition real quickly into success; I know I talked about a little bit in the introduction. There are so many people out there that are selling business opportunities, SEO, they‟re selling all kinds of things and they‟re the modern day versions of snake oil salesman in my opinion. I am a positive person, I like to stay positive, I like to think positive, I like to be positive and so I try never to harp or hover on the negative but the fact is there‟s a lot of people out there that are presenting services and tools that are useless and I really pray on helpless business owners that need results to stay in business, right? Tommy: Yeah. Travis: Part of the show is connecting fellow entrepreneurs with people that can do that. Let‟s talk about, I know that you‟ve either wrote or talked about some of the same things going on. Tell me what your position is with SEO in every corner and a lot of the erroneous services people are offering. Tommy: Sure, the truth is, is that a lot of the snake oil people as you put it which I think it‟s wonderful way to coin them. I would like to say people who like to bring the entire industry down is that they know just enough to get in front of the people. They know how to target the super long tail keywords for example on Google for someone like, “How do I get more people into my webinar?” Travis: Right. Tommy: And create this which are totally legitimate funnels for themselves, but then sell garbage products in order to make money. The problem with that is that, no matter what industry they‟re in, that‟s going to exist in certain industry that‟s kind of egress more than others, right? I think that the solution to that like instead of saying like, the old all scam artist should just rot in the fire which I think they should. But instead of taking that route I think the more important thing with what I am trying to do with myself is mainstream some of these concepts so that the public knowledge is the baseline for public knowledge is a little bit more accessible. Something that when I explain to people who question me what I am trying to show, I explained it this way, for a long time we would all forward bad emails to each other, right? Like when email started to become a main stream thing we would all forward spammy, spammy bad things, “oh download this thing?” Then the computer would just get destroyed and it would continue to get forwarded. But at a certain point, there were enough people who said “Don‟t do this anymore.” “Don‟t forward me, Stop forwarding me garbage, I don‟t want forward, don‟t forward me anything” because they are bad. Eventually the public awareness of that sort of that system came to a point where you know how to identify a bad thing when you see it. A lot with what I do with

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

my show is to make that information. Online type of information landing pages and SEO tactics and all that kind of stuff, to make that more accessible to sort of bring that public consciousness up so at least that you see a bad opportunity or you come across a bad vendor, you can identify very quickly whether or not they were investing any of your money timely, right? A lot of these guys will say all sorts of stuff, a lot of them will do this “the talk over your head game” in order to make themselves sound more impressive. The truth is they are just talking over your head so when they say fork over your money you‟re in such a daze that you‟re like “Okay.” Travis: Right. Tommy: Instead of, if someone is like “Oh you‟re doing an interval on an H1 tag on your site and you had no idea what an H1 tag is?” for example, you‟re going to be like “Oh, that‟s what I need, okay you‟re going to do that for me? They can tell you that they‟re going to do stuff and totally legitimately do what they say they‟re going to do, but then they are misrepresenting the service. Travis: Yeah. Well I think a lot of people don‟t time to learn all of that stuff anyways. Now there are some people, there are two different groups; there are some people they want to learn, there‟s other people just want it done, and so I think connecting and building a network of trusted people that you can connect them to, I think is one way around that. Then the people that do want to learn and grow are probably excellent prospects to watch your show. Your show are they all 5, 6 minutes? Tommy: Yes. The longest one we have I think is quite around 9 minutes but we also have a clip from, 20 at the end of it. So I think that‟s the longer one but yeah I think the longest story is 9 minutes. Travis: Let‟s talk about some actionable strategies or let‟s give some advice here for the business owner that wants to start getting some results online for their businesses as quickly as possible. What are some of the lowest hanging fruit that you would recommend and would like to talk about? Tommy: Hmm, low hanging fruit well that‟s kind of difficult question because I don‟t believe that there are any real super low hanging fruit. I don‟t believe in the magic wand type system. Travis: Right. Travis: What I can say is that the best thing you might be able to do is to start a conversation with a business that is similar to yours. But now we have overlapping customers. For example if I were a farmer and I specialized in apples, right? Then I would try to look for other farms that specialize in oranges, right? We are not looking for apple to oranges here but what we are saying here is that, I‟m just coming out on top of my head. Travis: Right.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Tommy: What I would say is that if you were the apple farm then I would reach out for the orange farm through either email or in person or whatever. And say “Hey is there a way we might be able to work together?” Usually this can be done in a form of a guest blog. We both have blogs, “Hey, can I write on your blog and talk about how apples and oranges go well together in fruit salad” right for example. I think it‟s a bad metaphor. Travis: No, no, no. It works. It‟s just like finding like-minded business partners. Tommy: Yeah, basically I mean you find a like-minded business partners and you start or beginning that sort of relationship. This is something that I am certain to take a lot more seriously now. I am reaching out to other online marketing websites and I am writing guest posts for them right? I‟m talking about different concepts that are relevant that also bring a lot more value to their audience and by proxy, hopefully, bring some of those people to the whole idea of marketing in the first place. Travis: Right. Tommy: By doing that what I hope to do is some of these people is then leverage not to do things like if the post goes well and say, “Alright well this group went on really well. What if we talked about this on a webinar? Or and if you don‟t know what a webinar is, what about an online seminar. What about an online seminar or teleseminar or something that brings the interaction just a little bit more personal. Text from the screen is great but you can scroll through it. People listening through this podcast right now, all want it fast-forwarded, right, do you know what I mean? So bring it to another media format kind of requires a little bit more attention share. Something I‟m doing a little bit more of right now is taking some of those partnerships that I have built in the past and I‟m bringing them to a live stream format. Where I do a Q&A interview style with 3 different people, and by doing that, that gets them really invested, it gets my guests more invested into the project too. Which in turn they get to spend and share with their audiences, which is what I‟m going to do once this system is in publishing. So it‟s this big network and it‟s the best in really establishing your network, it‟s really about establishing that network and finding people who you are going to have mutual beneficial relationships with long term. Travis: Let‟s back up and look at your guest post blogging, you are going to, what, 30 different blogs and guest blogging over there and write something you made free, agreed arrangement with them that you would write some good content and post it on their site, they agreed right? Tommy: Yup. Travis: Then their readers read your post like “Oh, Tommy guy is pretty sharp, this is interesting.” So they come to your site and become a follower of yours.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Tommy: Some of them. Not all of them but some of them, a good percentage to haggle, that‟s the basic strategy. But yeah, it‟s the same idea. The more traditional way of doing that is when you watch a television commercial for example, that‟s what Coca Cola is doing when it advertises its products in the Burger King commercials. Or when you have the movie science it‟s the same idea. It‟s just a multiple person thing because you are not. Most people are not huge brands; they‟re just a medium sized brand working with another medium sized brand. So, yeah. Travis: Well tell us, give us some numbers how is that working for you? How many days are you in to doing it? Tommy: I‟ve actually just got back again. I‟m sort of regaining some ground. The strategy we‟re talking about, I executed back in November as of December off to the holidays and kind of recalibrate and establish my strategy and this time in January, I‟m not actually doing a lot of guest posting right now, but I am whoever jingle, whoever jingle is a terrible thing to say. Using those relationships, yeah, using those relationships to establish a better distribution network for my work. So hard numbers, not exactly hard numbers but what that‟s resulted in the last few days of me doing that everybody started doing that since Monday, and every day so far since Monday I doubled the traffic to my website. That increased my sales about 5% or 500%, so it‟s working. It‟s a sure answer. Travis: That sounds like low hanging fruit to me. No, I don‟t want to underplay the time and effort that it takes to think out to build those relationships with, and I know you did 30 but someone could build a relationship with 3 or 4. So let‟s give an example, say, if I am a landscaper in a local community, and this other guy is a real estate agent or a home improvement company. All of those people could write for one another right? Tommy: Absolutely, and the interesting part about that too is if the landscaper had his own blog and the real estate had his own blog. The landscaper could talk about how good landscaping improves the property value of his home. Whereas the real estate agent could go to the landscaper‟s blog and talk about how to improve the property itself when you have a good landscape right? You start looking at the different types of relationships that could be infected by all of that type stuff. 2, we are no longer looking at just real estate, we can build an interior decorator into the mix, we could bring a finance expert into the mix, talking about how to save up enough money for a home or how to get yourself in the right financial path. The landscaper could talk to all these different types of people too, and just keep finding an angle where you see it kinds of where it overlaps. In excess, what I like to do is explain this very well verbally but it‟s drawn in Venn diagram. Its 2 circles, and on 1 side you talk about all the different things, you break down all the different things that you can talk about. For me, that would be things like advertising, public relations, that type of stuff. For the landscaper that would be landscaping, the different tools that you used, grass right? He can about the different types of grass, and on the

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

other side he can talk about, he can break down the different types of targets. So finance, real estate, outdoors… Travis: Remodelling Tommy: Remodelling. Yeah. That middle sort of section there you find the connections are between those two, and what the different subject lines where you can really do that. Once you get into that exercise, once you really start doing that it‟s very, very easy to come up with 30 to 40 topics right away and it‟s just a matter of finding the right people. Travis: Right. Tommy: I can‟t take total credit for that, although I did bring that from one of my mentors John Moorer, I just want to get a shout out there due credit will do. Yeah, that‟s the idea. Travis: Now we can go deeper with that, not only, so as you sat and write this out. Because I do something similar where I bring a group of local businesses that has the same quality mindset and integrity and I have a list of 150 different types of service businesses. Most people would be surprised if you didn‟t come up with a list of 150 different types of service businesses that you would find in your local community right? Now we do the same thing but what you‟re talking here is beyond the blog posting. You said leverage that relationship that means get to know, like and trust those people, and then use that synergy. Use that relationship and that becomes a referral network right? Tommy: Exactly, and even if you don‟t like them you can still know them and trust them that they are going refer business, I‟m sorry that‟s a terrible thing to say but with a lot of that stuff because you are building a relationship with people, you are not going to like everybody, right? You might not believe in their total philosophy. But if you know that they operate at a certain level of integrity, that‟s where you start to separate the business from personal feelings. Travis: I want to qualify that. Because I think there‟s a level of like where you get together in a barbecue with them or there is a business like right? Tommy: Because for me, I can‟t refer anybody if I don‟t like them from a business standpoint. Now if they are not in my type of person to get together and barbecue with I can still refer them. How about you? Tommy: Yeah! Absolutely, absolutely. If I know that they do a good work and they are going to be respectful to the person I refer them to, then that is the most important thing to me. Travis: Right, that might be a little corky.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Tommy: Yeah, worst case scenario then I‟ll manage the project. But for the most part you get a referral in working with people that you know its okay to do business with. Travis: Yeah, and that‟s really powerful. Let‟s take another example on that, the people that are on my show become a referral network for me. I have a very deep relationship with my guests that have been on my show as we go an hour deep that we are very passionate about and all of us care about helping people in making a difference. So that in itself is another way to view a network, and I‟m going to tell you it‟s really powerful when you have a network of people that you can rely on. So we talked earlier, how it‟s easy for entrepreneurs to get stuck. Because you„re trying to do everything, and you‟re trying to be everything to everyone. I can tell you that I used to handle the SEO, the PPC, the regular advertising and everything and now those rabbit holes go so deep that it‟s just enough to blow your mind. Tommy: Quite frankly trying to keep track of it all. Travis: Yeah. It‟s a constant moving train. So that‟s great value by guest blogging that grows into a referral network of people that you know like on a business level and trust, right? Is there any other technique, we‟re getting close in time and we still have 3 questions that I did send to you, we need to allow 10 to 15 minutes for that. Are there any other simple techniques that you feel like business owners could use to find success online faster? Tommy: Sure. A lot of us when we get customers, we kind of ignore the customers. There was a brilliant commercial for a bank 2 years over. There was a bank that said “hey, free ice cream for a new customer.” right? And what about the old customer? The old customer was like, “hey, wait a second.” So I think a lot of businesses, before, I suggest this to a lot of people that they work with is that before you start looking at your outreach look at your in reach, I guess, I don‟t even know what to call that. But look at the customer first that you already have and how can you make those relationships stronger. A lot of people, sometimes people will find that their customers are doing it, there are still customer that have habits. But if you can start a conversation with people, what ends up happening is you can more strengthen your relationship with people who have been with you for a long time. But then too, if you had a bad customer, for example, someone who is not really utilizing the service but they are still paying for it, that‟s not really a good customer because it puts you in the position of either having you do returns and with bad customer service complaints, or things like that are down the road. If you are able to separate that out, you can dramatically improve your relationship with your customers. Something that I found fascinating when I was researching for my show, is that Zappos spends about 80% of their marketing dollars, or is it 80 to 85% of their marketing dollars on customer satisfaction. They do things like, surprise the idea upgrade where just overnight shipping the next day. For me what kind of turn me on with a company was they tend to follow up with email after a year I got a pair of shoes. It‟s like “Hey, we just wanted to check and ask how the shoes were.” If I‟m being honest with you guys the shoes fell apart after a few months. They were like “Oh, woah. Don‟t even worry about Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

returning them here‟s a credit for the amount that you spent. Go ahead and get yourself a new pair of shoes and by the way we just upgrade you to VIP status.” I‟m like, you are going in my show. Like, I‟m going to talk about you for a very long time. Travis: And be a loyal customer. Tommy: And be a loyal customer right? I haven‟t bought a new pair of shoes since then but its like, if it comes down to shoes I‟m not going anywhere else. Because nobody treats you that well, so I think that for the real low hanging fruit, just look internally, and talk to the people and find out what kind of program you can put together for your existing customers and a lot of that can keep going with just a survey from a monthly survey. Survey monthly you get to call and get together a quick survey of what people have to say and go from there. Travis: I call it customer reactivation. So, I have a great we miss you letter and we send it out. It basically says, “Tommy it‟s been a while, and I have not done a good job of keeping in touch with you. Basically I want to say we miss you, and I apologize for not following up with you. I would like to make it up to you. Here‟s a gift card for $125. If you use it in the next 3 weeks, I‟ll triple it. Thank you very much for being our client. It says a little more than that but it is powerful help, and how strong that works. Travis: Let‟s segue into the 3 questions so that we keep this thing under the proper time limit. What book or program made an impact on you related to business that you would recommend? Tommy: There are 2, the first one is “The Flinch” by Julian Smith it‟s free on Amazon so anybody can get it, and the reason that made a huge impact on me was because it challenged the ideas of what it was that I was doing in a way that was kind of in your face but also like people hold themselves back for very silly reasons or no reason at all. It gives exercises like “Take a cold shower.” But before you get in to the shower, notice how tense your body gets. There‟s nothing that‟s going to happen to you. You‟re going to be cold but that‟s not going to kill you. That‟s your fight or flight response activating for no good reason. So the idea behind the whole concept, behind the book is realizing that fight or flight moment and then kind of roll in and take that energy and sort of re-channelling it to do the things that you want to do instead of having them pull you back. It was because of that book that I ended up doing my show. After reading it, I said, “I can no longer hide from doing this. I have to do it.” It was one of the most motivational books that I‟ve ever read. Actually, if you subscribe to my email, I have an interview with Julian about that which is halfway the interview, because it reveals a lot about of his purpose behind creating the book. Tommy: The program, what‟s that? Travis: Sorry about that sorry about interrupting you there. Spell flinch. “The Flinch.” Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Tommy: Yeah, F-L-I-N-C-H Travis: Okay okay, alright. Tommy: The program that I would recommend is John Moore guest blogging program. A lot of what I have learned about outreaching and getting in touch with other like-minded businesses owners and being in a mission and, a lot of that stuff can just be appealing and be a good writer, and be attractive to the right people. I learned from that program and it got me popular. That program alone got me confident enough to put my first guest post out which was what I called pro-blogger. So that was a very transformative program for me. Without these two things, without these two programs, or without this program and this book my career would never be where it‟s at right now. Travis: Wow. Interesting. I consume a lot of books and programs. I‟ve never heard either one of those, so, thanks for that. Tommy: Oh no problem. Travis: What‟s your favourite tool or piece of technology that you have recently discovered if any that you would recommend to other business owners and why? Tommy: Sure, and I have become a big fan of both BufferApp and Social Flow for different purposes. But what both of these tools are optimized publishers. Basically if I write an article, and it‟s about landing pages for example, I throw it into the optimize publisher. I put it into the Social Flow. What it would do is publish it and not just at the time all if not most of my followers in Twitter and Facebook are online but also at a time when they are talking related to what it is I‟m putting out there. So in Buffer, I like, they don‟t use the contextual publishing but what they do is they have as much Flickr management system for everything. So I find that both of those tools are incredible and I highly recommend them. The other tools that I use are on a regular basis now is the SEOMOZ Pro. That do all sorts of research of who am I going to reach out to and then my keyword research that finds out the articles that I want to rank for and all sorts of SEO type stuff. But I find those tools are very easy to use and records the pages it‟s extremely comprehensive. Travis: Tom, is that Rand Fishkin. Tommy: Yes it is. Travis: Yeah, I‟m about to have him on the show. Tommy: Oh nice. He‟s very cool. Travis: What famous quote would summarize your belief or attitude in business?

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Tommy: I don‟t know if it‟s famous or who said it but I did receive it on a button when I was 12 years old from my aunt. It said “Decide what you believe in, and live it like you mean it.” Travis: I like that. I like conviction. Tommy: Yeah. That alone was able to really power a lot of my decisions. Because it was a matter of my set codes it said in one of the speeches, to rush early, right? Figure out like don‟t rush that final move before something that‟s going to be released do all your rushing ahead of time and then decide what you are going to do is worth the time and effort, and then really go through with it. Decide what you believe in. Is that what you believe in then live it like you mean it. It kind of allows you to take real ownership of the thoughts and ideas and the failures and everything else that come along with being a business owner. So if I fail, and I fail very publicly, part of the problem is that it didn‟t come close to reaching its goals. If I were a different man I would consider that a huge public failure. But I learned a lot from it and I decide what I was doing and I believed in what I was doing. Instead of saying this was a huge failure. I look at what happened and this is what I learned from it and this is where I need to improve. Travis: Right, right. Tommy: It allows for a much guilt-free lifestyle. Travis: Tommy you look like you‟re a young fellow, how old are you? Tommy: I‟m 27. Travis: 27, wow! Well that mindset from your quote, and also from all the things that you are reading you‟ve done are critical to your, obviously have to be critical to your success. To have found success at such an early age, I commend you there for, you end up working a job and dream of one day doing what it is that you do every day and so I commend you for that. Tommy: Thank you I‟m happy to say that as of the 21st of this month I am going on my 4th year of totally unemployed, totally self employed. Is there‟s a fine line between unemployed and self employed Isn‟t it? Travis: Yeah there is. You got to be careful about it. No. I‟m going to my 4th year in totally being self employed. It‟s actually really cool I‟m living in at a house in my own halfway to the beach and it‟s a vacation area, it‟s beautiful. Travis: Once you make the leap, could you ever imagine going back?

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Tommy: It‟s weird, the answer is yes. I mean, I could totally see myself working with the company and the reason for that is because there are a lot of lifestyle things that happen when you‟re an entrepreneur. I have a family. I have a 2 year old son and I have wife. I have another kid along the way. There are a lot of lessons involved. I think working for a company that your job doesn‟t have much stricter ending for today. Which is nice. But the other part of that is I was kind of thinking about that. There‟s a part that really nice for me is I am able to, I‟m never afraid of not being employed. If I am to work for a company and things just didn‟t work out after a while. I could very easily pick up my own stuff again. That‟s a very liberating feeling, there‟s no need to be afraid. Travis: As time goes on Tommy, you‟ll get to where you bring things into control and the schedule is more of a choice of yours. Tommy: Yeah. That‟s something that I really am working on right now. So it‟s nice to be able to get there. Travis: What‟s the best way for everybody to connect with you. I‟m going to put your links up on our site in the show notes. So what‟s the best way to link with you? Tommy: Sure, so my website is tommyismyname.com; my Twitter handle is “Tommy is My Name” ; my Facebook page is “Tommy is My Name” and my YouTube channel is Tommy is a strategist. Travis: It sounds like quite a story going on behind the scenes there. I‟ll let that one lies since we‟re getting close on time but I‟ll plug those links in so that everybody can come to you direct and let me go ahead and wrap up the show. I want to personally say thank you for taking the time out sharing your wisdom and your field of specialty with our guests, and so thank you so much for being part of the show. Tommy: No. Thank you for having me it was a pleasure. Travis: So listen, I want to remind you that we‟ve created an area called show notes and that‟s basically going to be down below where you see Tommy‟s picture and his Bio. It‟s basically links to the books that he had suggested, to the programs and all of those other stuff. So what I am going to do is remind you to go to diyob.com that‟s short for “Diamonds in Your Own Backyard” enter your name and we‟ll send you the 2013 business owner‟s guide. I think you ought to do that for yourself. Tommy, there is a lot of great information it‟s „From Frustration to 70 million dollars.” It‟s a behind the scenes look at what you need to know to grow your business to incredible levels of success. I know that you already found success on your own but I think this will be a lot of information that you will agree with. Maybe there is new stuff that you are not familiar with. Tommy: That‟s very cool.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

End of Interview Travis: Yeah, so when you opt in you become a part of the Authentic Entrepreneur community, and we‟re setting up a network of people. We talked about it earlier about setting up a network of people, tools, and resources you can refer to grow your business. We‟re going to put up workshops and everything. This is basically my personal and Sandra‟s personal private rolodex that we use and recommend. Now we will have this up in a few weeks. Everything that we do is dedicated to the shortest path to the next level of success. I have personally spent $150,000 to get to know a lot of this people from mastermind events, and then those great people refer more incredible people like Tommy to me. Now, you have access and able to connect with him through our network. There are a lot of things that‟s going to be on behind the scenes after the episodes that you have access to. One other thing we‟re ramping our interviews up to 3 episodes per week, so very soon we will be with you every 2 days bringing more great strategy to grow your business. One other thing before I close the show today is something that I said the last time, and I think it‟s well worth mentioning several times. I want to tell you something that you don‟t hear very often if at all as an entrepreneur is „Thank you for being a leader.‟ Thank you for setting an incredible example of what it looks like to be brave enough to go after your dreams. Whether you know it or not most people, in all of your ability and courage to take the risk and overcome your fears and go after your dream. I know that there are a lot of people that wished that they could find the courage to do the same thing. So keep pouring your heart out, and your soul into this. I promise you it well worth it. We need as many great entrepreneurs like you and Tommy as possible. So take care and we‟ll talk to you on the next episode.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

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"

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