• www.kblee007.blogspot.com •: 2018-05-27

Saturday 2 June 2018

These 3 Simple Steps Will Help You Expand Your Network in Your Base City

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You don't need to look toward the coasts to grow your network.

June 1, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In today's startup world, it's easy to feel left out if you're not in Boston or New York or Silicon Valley or Seattle. That's where the talent often migrates, where the media spotlight is centered and, most importantly, where the money is: According to a data analysis by Richard Florida and the Martin Prosperity Institute, the vast majority of venture capital money still flows primarily to the startup hubs on the coasts, and very little trickles to the cities in between.

But great amounts of money don't automatically produce great businesses. One of the most recent examples is the high-end tea infuser brand, Teforia, which shut down operations last October after dismal sales. Despite huge venture capitalist investments, this $1,000 internet-connected tea-maker never caught on with consumers.

Even still, you may assume your own business is at a disadvantage based on its location. So where does that leave those of us who are growing businesses outside of California or Massachusetts or New York? Luckily, successful founders and CEOs between the coasts can look to their own roots to help them grow.

Building a local network

Every city in America has opportunity, even those in so-called "flyover" states. Seizing that opportunity is what's important. Forget the startup mythology in movies such as The Social Network: Investors hardly ever go begging, no matter how good the business idea is. Investors, partners and vendors are generally secured only when entrepreneurs pick up the phone, type out an email or pound the pavement.

Luckily, there's never been a better time to be an innovator or entrepreneur. Startup ecosystems are developing in nearly every city in America.

In my own city, St. Louis, for example, weekly Venture Café events give our local entrepreneurs a chance to congregate in person. At the University of Missouri-St. Louis, we host programs such as the Ameren Accelerator, which connects a large corporation with customers, students and startups in the area. And in 163 communities around the country, the coffee-themed program 1 Million Cups seeks to "educate, engage and connect entrepreneurs with their communities."

Even cities without dedicated entrepreneur programs have opportunities for creating connections. Visiting your local chamber of commerce is always a good start. Rotary International, which has clubs in nearly every city, has been bringing philanthropically minded business people together since 1905.

Also consider manufacturing associations, marketing associations, luncheons and so on -- all happening in even the smallest communities across America.

Forging connections that last

Networking in most cities means entrepreneurs learning from one another. No matter where you are, once you find a networking group or event, the rules for making strong, profitable connections are the same. Here are my top three tips:

1. Comb your hair.

Everyone knows it, but it bears repeating: First impressions matter. They're powerful, and they're formed in less than half a minute, according to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

When you go out to network, you are the brand. Whether you like it or not, people will judge your business by what you wear and how you carry yourself: A study by Great Business Schools found that 72 percent of people it polled said they were influenced by looks and handshakes when networking. Mark Zuckerberg built his personal brand on the notion of comfort over style, and now he's known for his t-shirts and hoodies; regardless, I'm a firm believer that overdressing will never hurt your image. Don't buy into the idea that outward appearances don't matter. Put some effort into your wardrobe and grooming.

2. Don't let your business card haul go cold.

It's exciting to meet new people at networking events, especially when there's a strong personal connection. But an initial conversation is just like a blueprint -- informative but useless on its own. On the other hand, repeated follow-up is like pouring a foundation for a building: It's something solid that a profitable relationship can be built on.

Attending Rotary club meetings and trade shows won't change anything if you don't follow up with the people you meet. Thirty business cards aren’t an impressive haul when they all go cold. Just make sure that you act quickly. In one analysis in the Harvard Business Review, researchers found that people are seven times more likely to forge a strong connection with a lead when they reach out within an hour. You might not always be connecting with potential customers, but it's clear that a proactive approach yields results.

After 25 years with my company, I wanted to give back to my entrepreneurial community, so I reached out to the dean of the UMSL College of Business, Charlie Hoffman. We weren't familiar at the time, so I made an introduction via email and then followed up by phone. I did so because I wanted to show him that I was intentional about catalyzing future entrepreneurs. Thanks to my follow-ups, we formed UMSL Accelerate with the senior leadership team's help.

3. Be a gift to somebody.

If you are looking for great business partners, clients or investors, you must first become a great one yourself. No matter who you are or where you're from, you can be a "gift" to somebody. What this means is that when you're engaging, stop talking about yourself and, instead, understand how you might help that person. Ask questions that go beyond the surface and listen to people's responses. According to studies analyzed in the University of California-Berkeley's Greater Good magazine, curious people connect better with others and ultimately cultivate more meaningful relationships.

Let me illustrate: In March 1988, I walked into an event and didn't know a soul. I told myself: "I'm going to meet five people, and one person is going to become a friend." That summer, I went back and did what's called a Two-Minute Forum and secured an investor through it. Because I focused on forming a relationship rather than just finding someone to fund my business, I gained not only a lifelong friend, but also a happy investor in my company.

It's easy to assume you need to pack up and head for the coasts to forge connections that can help your budding venture grow. But that's a misconception. To create a thriving startup ecosystem, you just have to start watering the seeds that others are already planting in your own community.

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How I Overcame Losing One of My Biggest Customers

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When Starbucks pulled my product, I had to scramble to find a replacement.

June 1, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

As an outsider in the beverage industry trying to find a way to reach more consumers, landing my product in Starbucks stores was a huge win. It also seemed like a natural fit, as Starbucks at the time was looking for healthier bottled drink options.

The partnership was initially planned to start with a limited launch of our blackberry flavor in 500 stores, which would have been significant for us at the time. But, shortly before launch, Starbucks decided to go even bigger, placing our product in 11,000 stores across the country.

I was ecstatic, but we had a major operational hurdle to overcome: Before selling to Starbucks, we had to actually produce the product and get it ready in time for each major shipment. That also meant we had to pay for each large order up front.

It was stressful, but we were eager for the opportunity to share hint water with a wider audience -- so the team and I rolled up our sleeves and made it happen.

The difference one call can make

Things were going great as new consumers began to discover and enjoy our product for the first time. We had set up weekly sales goals that we consistently surpassed. This is how it went for about a year, and I felt like we had settled into a great rhythm.

Then, as we were preparing our next huge order for shipment, I got the shock of a lifetime. Starbucks called and said that it had shifted its business strategy and would begin filling its cases with more food and fewer beverages. Our product would be removed from stores within a week.

I'm not one to cry very often, but this seemed like the right occasion to make an exception. We had a warehouse full of product we had paid for, with no idea what we were going to do with it. To say that it was a scary moment is an understatement. While logically I knew this was something that was completely out of our control, it felt like a failure. Starbucks was a huge platform for us that was performing very well, so to lose that partnership was devastating.

Once I had the chance to collect myself, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that all was not lost and I still had a great product that consumers loved. I firmly believe that when one door closes another door opens, so while the task of finding a home for the Starbucks shipment that amounted to six months worth of product seemed daunting, I knew we could do it. I was determined not to give up, and immediately began looking for alternatives to our partnership with Starbucks.

Just a couple weeks later, I got another call -- this time, from Amazon. The ecommerce site wanted to sell hint water and requested a large product order within just a few weeks. As fate would have it we happened to have a lot of blackberry hint on-hand and ready to ship. When I asked the buyer how he knew about us, he told me he had seen hint at Starbucks. This brought everything full circle and made it clear that everything has its purpose, and while the relationship with Starbucks may have been short-lived it had a very big impact.

Finding light in adversity

Selling on Amazon worked out great, and continues to be big piece of our business. Our customers loved the online access to our product, and a few years later it led us to launch our own direct-to-consumer business, which has been a huge revenue driver. It has also helped us foster even closer relationships with our customers, which informs every decision we make, since at the end of the day we are here to make our customers lives better.

Starbucks was great for sales, but it was even better for broadening our awareness. While the short-term "failure" of losing that deal was hard to swallow, ultimately it opened up so many doors and pushed us to try a new way of doing things.

This experience reinforced my belief that everything in life is connected and happens for a reason. When something bad happens, you have to hope to find the light in it and keep moving forward until you discover why things happened the way they did. Every fall is an opportunity to get up and try something new and better.

I learned that when things get challenging as an entrepreneur, don't give up on your dream -- instead, find a way to see the opportunity in the chaos and challenge of a difficult situation.

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Where to Spend and Where to Save

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Bootstrap, and be scrappy. If it's cheaper to do it yourself and you're capable, why not give it a shot?

June 1, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Building a company from scratch is no easy task. I know: I've done this successfully a handful of times.

I also know that I've learned a lot about the many expenditures you have to account for, from office space and employee salaries to taxes and marketing. But, thankfully, you don't have to do all of this alone -- which means that the main question you face is, exactly where should you spend your money? And, what are the best resources you can turn to, to help build your business without breaking the bank before you even start?

Here are a few tips regarding the areas where you can save, and where you would do well to spend.

Getting started

Initiating your business is the first and most important step. To do this, you'll need cash. I like to bootstrap (build without investors) or first build enough value to bring on investors later. But, there are times when a loan can be a good option. Many people go to banks they are familiar with, but that process can take weeks.

Meanwhile, there are other, and faster, lending options for entrepreneurs, especially for those with a healthy credit history. Examples include Currency Capital, The Entrepreneur Fund and Kabbage. These companies streamline an applicant's approval and funding process by getting a more complete financial picture at the beginning of the application process. The applicant submits basic information so his or her business-credit worthiness can be assessed.

"Hopeful borrowers receive approvals within a few minutes 60 to 70 percent of time, Currency Capital’s vice president, Jared Takeuchi, said in this Nerd Wallet article.

Currency Capital is a platform of multiple lenders, each with his or her own respective criteria, so it connects applicants with a best-fit match. Not only is the process quick, but loan amounts can range between $5,000 and $2 million, with competitive APRs.

Establishing your brand

Visuals are imperative to your brand. This means a strong logo: Even without their full company names printed out, McDonald's’ signature "M" and Starbucks’ two-tailed mermaid are familiar to just about everyone. A strong logo grants you legitimacy and the ability to “stamp” products or services as verifiably yours.

How do you get a good logo? You don’t have to hire an expensive graphic designer or go through a boutique agency to achieve the desired result. This is one area where it’s best to save money rather than spend it. Even though a logo will (hopefully) last for a long time, there are online tools that make it a snap to build a unique logo on your own. Deluxe Logo Design is inexpensive and easy to use, and you can experiment with its numerous templates without paying a dime until you’re satisfied.

Planning for accounting

Depending on your passion, you’re likely starting a business because you want to pursue your interests more than because you love finance and accounting. Accounting is still a crucial aspect of any company, though. So, should you hire an accountant from the start, or do it yourself?

Odds are you will need an accountant eventually, especially as your business grows. While your company is still in its infancy, however, accounting software may fill your needs. As Investopedia says, about taxes: “Good tax preparation software walks you through the process very quickly and easily. For those who have only a few deductions, sources of income, or investments, there is little need to sit down with an accountant to sort it all out.”

Ultimately, the decision to hire an accountant or not will depend on how complicated your business model will be. If you need extra help, another pair of eyes -- belonging to someone with experience -- will be worth the cost; but if you don’t have a complicated finance system, inexpensive software is probably fine.

Setting up an office

This is the digital age, so a significant amount of work can be done online. Construction companies may not have this option, but ecommerce ventures and other services that do business on the internet will likely find rented office space unnecessary.

Many companies are actually becoming entirely remote, using employees from around the world. I run three of my own companies remotely, thanks to various tools and cultures focused on results.

If you (and your potential team) can work remotely, there are online project management and workflow platforms like Slack that can streamline communication and productivity. Online businesses also have a much broader pool of talent to choose from, since offices require hiring locals or relocating people; but distributed teams are open to anyone.

Planning for marketing

Marketing is an area where if you can avoid costly advertisements, you should. An Entrepreneur article on saving business costs suggested that splitting costs with fellow business owners can be a benefit. “Split advertising and promotion costs with neighboring businesses," the article advised. "Jointly promote a sidewalk sale, or take your marketing alliance further by sharing mailing lists, distribution channels, and suppliers with businesses that sell complementary goods or services.”

Online businesses, in particular, should work on social marketing. They can cultivate their social media channels, which audiences are often more likely to find organically than the business's website, and they can do so in a way that promotes their efforts and willingness to listen to customers.

If you are just starting a business, then, don’t feel compelled to spend vast amounts of money every step of the way, believing that those expenditures will result in increased ROI. If it’s cheaper to do it yourself and you’re capable, why not give it a shot?

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Teens Are Increasingly Ditching Facebook. Here's How Entrepreneurs Should Respond.

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The percentage of teens using Facebook has dropped 20 percent in just three years.

June 1, 2018

3 min read

“It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?”

The answer: probably not on Facebook, according to a new Pew Research Center survey on teens, social media and technology.

In just three years, the percentage of teens using Facebook dropped 20 percent, reaching 51 percent in 2018. And though Facebook was the most-used online platform for teens in the Pew Research Center’s 2014-2015 survey, it’s now lagging behind. Three other social media platforms now lead the way for individuals ages 13 to 17: YouTube (85 percent), Instagram (72 percent) and Snapchat (69 percent). (It’s worth noting that YouTube wasn’t a response option in the previous survey, and it’s now snagged the top spot.)

In the same three years, the percentage of teens reporting they use the internet “almost constantly” has nearly doubled, reaching 45 percent in 2018. In fact, about nine in 10 teens go online multiple times per day. One driving factor here is the growing universality of smartphones, as 95 percent of teens currently have or have access to one.

How should entrepreneurs respond to this? By refining their brands before jumping onto new platforms. Aim for authenticity in showing what your product or business is all about, its mission and what makes it stand out from the crowd.

“That’s your true north,” says Joseph F. Delaney III, founding partner and managing director of Zero Studios, a design agency focused on brand-building. “That’s your guiding light. Everything you do comes through that lens.”

With a strong brand, you won’t have to worry as much about the shift in online platform popularity. More of your audience will likely follow you if you switch to or start posting on new platforms, and knowing who you’re trying to reach and why will help you decide which platforms are worth it when it comes to representing your business.

“Think really hard about who your audience is when you’re making these decisions,” says Kathleen Booth, vice president of marketing at IMPACT, a specialized digital marketing agency.

Although data suggest younger audiences are moving away from Facebook, the platform still has value for older professionals, she says. But entrepreneurs should also consider how they’re using Facebook to spread the word about their product or service. Booth says that five years ago, organic Facebook posting netted significant results, but that’s not very relevant nowadays, when company pages aren’t driving much performance. Booth has directed her company’s efforts toward Facebook groups, which have seen a resurgence in recent years and tend to have more loyal followings and higher engagement.

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3 Steps to Get Your Website On Google Faster

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If you are new to blogging, then it’s important you know how to get your website set up and indexed quickly. I know when I started out, I created a website and thought that was the only thing I needed to do to build momentum but I was completely wrong. Google Webmaster Tools has been very supportive in getting my websites indexed quickly because they essentially guide you through the entire process. They outline what’s important and how to make sure certain elements are present within your backend to ensure proper crawling. There are many factors that will help with indexing but let’s look at “3” that I find are the MOST important.

Let’s get started…

Sitemaps

These are very important because it allows Google to index your site quickly in an organized fashion. A sitemap can be created using an online tool or through a simple WordPress plug-in. Both are readily available so you shouldn’t have any problem creating a sitemap. However, I’m surprised by the amount of people who still forget to create a sitemap and I believe the importance hasn’t been addressed. Bloggers are so quick to incorporate keywords in their title, description, and content, but forget the importance of creating sitemaps. When your pages and posts are displayed on a sitemap, they are organized in a way that spiders can jump from link-to-link, understanding the structure of your site quicker.

Google Webmaster Tools is one of the best ways to be alerted of a sitemap missing and when there is an error. It shows you how to create one and tests it when it has been uploaded. Here are two things you can do right now:

First, set up a Google Webmaster tools account and secondly, follow the steps to ensure you have a sitemap in place.

Create and/or Update Content

The internet is the largest information resource and search engines have thrived by providing it in an organized manner. This is why it’s important to continue creating content and adding value. Google and others make sure to index websites more quickly when they are updated more often with content. Why? This allows people to get new and updated information more quickly, which is important to increase the user experience and engagement. As you create more content, your sitemap tends to be updated more quickly so you’re benefitting in two ways.

Over the last several months, Google introduced a series of updates focusing on the following and incorporating them will definitely help your site get indexed.

Write high quality, fresh content frequently, making sure it’s in-depth and better than your competition

Update older content so it provides the latest information

Never republish content because this simply floods internet with duplicate content. This also hurts your rankings and the value of your website.

Access and Speed

Both play a crucial role in your site being indexed more quickly. First, you have to make sure the spiders or crawlers can access your website. This means to ensure your robots.txt doesn’t have any access blocked for spiders, etc. Without access to your sitemap and other pages, Google can’t access your website and crawl the pages you have worked so hard to create. Next,

Site speed has long been considered a ranking factor and that’s because a slow loading site restricts the user experience. A site that loads slowly will means spiders take longer to crawl it and this means they won’t finish a complete crawl. You can head over to Google’s site speed check or even this one: http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/. The point is, you need to know where your website stands and what you can do to improve overall loading. This is very important for many reasons other than indexing. For example,

Better user experience when page loads faster

Higher conversions

Higher profits

Faster indexing

Increased rankings

Going forward, ensure your site can be accessed and every time you post content and/or images, check site speed because the slightest changes can increase load time.

Click Here To Download John Chow’s New eBook, The Ultimate Online Profit Model!

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3 Tips You Can Use to Start, Fund and Run a Nonprofit

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Serial entrepreneur Concetta Mantinan breaks down a few important business strategies.

June 1, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Knife Skills, an Oscar-nominated documentary, describes the opening of a unique restaurant. Edwins, a fine French dining establishment, launched in 2017 with a twist -- the restaurant doubles as a culinary arts school that only employs ex-felons. This film illustrates how so few organizations focus on teaching true marketable skills to our "fallen citizens." And just as I was inspired by this film, I met Concetta Mantinan.

Mantinan's story began with learning disabilities. When she was 17, Mantinan was diagnosed with an eating disorder, ADD and other learning impairments. As she struggled in school to learn and understand, Mantinan felt ashamed and drowned it first with sugar, then with drugs and alcohol.

"I was always in the worst in my class and had extremely low self-worth growing up, so I started cheating and lying through school, creating more shame," Mantinan says in an interview. "My anxiety reached its peak when my friends went on to college, and my drinking took off. I then graduated to meth and was an addict for 10 years. None of this was about drugs, but rather about the underlying shame tied to low self-worth and self-esteem."

Once Mantinan got sober, she started her first company, It's Perfect Malibu, a sober living facility. After getting a chemical dependence counseling degree, Mantinan then moved to San Diego to focus on building a recovery program for college students, San Diego Student Recovery. She sold that company in 2016 and now Mantinan is now building some Knife Skills of her own. She recently launched the Holistic Learning Sanctuary Foundation, a nonprofit trade school focused on providing life skills and work training for veterans, people dealing with mental illness and those recovering from addiction.

The Holistic Learning Sanctuary will provide job training for six trades, including construction, culinary arts, media, filmmaking/photography, agriculture and computer science. By the time students graduate, they will have the skills they need to pass any trade test, and if they pass, will be able to get a job.

As Mantinan built her first two businesses, she learned a number of lessons about how to start, fund and run a nonprofit. As she builds Holistic Learning Sanctuary and works to raise $150,000 in seed funding through the company's GoFundMe, she recommends these three tips toward early success.

1. Find a niche and fill it

First, Mantinan recommends finding your place in this world.

"As I've continued to build one business after the next," Mantinan says in an interview, "I've learned that I have the most success when I find a way to serve in a space no one else wants to serve."

While there is a large and growing addiction recovery industry, there may be fewer opportunities for people to find work during recovery. A study published by the Open Journal of Psychiatry reports that longer treatment breeds higher success rates in recovery, but Mantinan has learned from experience that a person needs something to do and to look forward to when they're in recovery.

"Traditional colleges are difficult for many in recovery because they don't feel that they can keep up, pushing them back into their hole and back into treatment a year later. This is why we teach people at their speed, according to where they are in recovery."

Related: How to Win on 'Shark Tank'

2. Find your tribe first

Before building an empire, a founder first needs to find a good group they can trust and turn to for help. As Mantinan explains, "Mentors are a must. I was a drug addict for so many years that I never had business mentors. I felt very lonely in my first companies, with a constant fear that someone was going to steal my idea. But, then I joined a mastermind group, the Ascension Leadership Academy, and I've gotten not only a ton of guidance from my peers as to how to run a successful company, but coaching as to how I can show up a bigger and better leader as well."

3. Start somewhere strong

Mantinan is a big believer in capturing minnows, then fish, then whales. While she intends to build a global organization to impact education around the world, she recognizes the importance of doing the first project well. "We have started with two trade lines, agriculture and culinary arts. We've gotten the land donated and are on our way to make these first trades a success."

Joshua Berglan, Chairperson of Mantinan's fundraising effort and CEO of Live Mana Worldwide, is committed to building out the Holistic Learning Sanctuary because he is a recovered addict himself. In an interview, Berglan says, "Addicts have a superhuman ability to work and a chip on their shoulder. When we give them something to care about, something to work toward, we can stop the cycle. The Holistic Learning Center is doing just that. Mantinan is building the new world's education."

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How to Find the Holy Grail of Product-Market Fit

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Even if you have the greatest product in the world, if it doesn't sell or scale, it is worthless.

June 1, 2018

9 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Every entrepreneur believes they have the product that is going to revolutionalize the world, worthy of venture capitalists bathing them in piles of cash to achieve their dream. But, venture capitalists don’t back products; they back winning business models. And, winning business models are anchored by companies that have the potential to generate lots of revenue with easily scalable, repeatable and profitable sales and marketing strategies. And none of that will be truly determined until you successfully test and optimize your product-market fit with potential customers. This post will help you learn exactly how to do that.

What is product-market fit?

Product-market fit is the point at which you have identified the best target industries, buyers and use cases for your product. Sales become repeatable and scalable, and your product is flying off the shelves. It is the holy grail for most startups -- one that dictates whether they are on the path to being the next 1-in-10 “10x” investment return companies for their investors or the next 3-in-10 flameout that crashes and burns out of business.

How to identify product-market fit.

To me, there are several distinct phases in the search for product-market fit. You need to:

Have a basic understanding of the market landscape and the key pain points being solved by your products
Research the various industry verticals and potential buyers where your product may sell
Take your product to market to validate your hypotheses, and begin to optimize your target clients, use cases, messaging, price points and go-to-market strategy
Close your first clients, and learn your conversion funnel metrics and marketing economics (e.g., CAC and LTV)
Learn user behaviors like product engagement levels, utilization rates and lost customer churn rates
Optimize the above to make your sales process repeatable and scalable in a large market vertical, including optimizing your hiring, employee training, customer onboarding and sales-to-operations handoff
Validate your ability to scale is profitable and that your churn rates are low and will result in a material size business

The right way of gathering market intelligence.

The best way of doing market research is actually talking to your potential customers -- dozens of them. And, no, not in some online survey; in an actual face-to-face or phone meeting that is more interactive so you can see how the conversation evolves in real time. Ask them what their current pain points are around your industry, products or competition, or how much they would be willing to pay for a solution. You would be amazed what great insights come out of their mouths. They’ll tell you exactly what you need to build to make their lives materially better.

In addition, seek insights from your employees, especially your sales and operations team. Your sales people are in the market everyday talking to customers, and your operations team typically sees all the problems with the product and hears complaints from your customers. Have a process to get those insights to senior management. Any customer-facing complaints need to bubble up to management and the product team so they can quickly fix them. But, worth mentioning, make sure you have a large enough data sample here. The opinion of one person, is just that, an opinion. But, hearing the same points over and over again from multiple stakeholders is something you most likely need to jump on fixing.

Test, test, and test again.

There is not just one correct answer for determining product-market fit. You need to be tinkering and testing all the inputs along the way. For example, try three different price points, and see how far you can push it before the customers start complaining or your conversion rates fall. Or, as another example, A/B test various sales pitches, emphasizing different aspects of your product, to figure out which specific feature is the one that gets your customers the most excited. Then double down on the winners after each iteration along the way.

Focus on one vertical at a time.

It is very easy to say your product appeals to many different industries and many different use cases, so let’s go out and sell our products to them all. That is a recipe for disaster. When startup budgets are limited, it is always better to have a much more narrow focus to start, and go really deep in that one narrow vertical. That will make you the clear industry expert in that domain, which will help spread the viral word-of-mouth and stimulate growth materially faster. In this case, it is much better being the master of one domain than being a Jack of all trades.

After you have built scale and profitability in your first vertical, you take those “bullets” and fire them away in the second and third tangential verticals. But, before doing do, make sure you have documented your process, learnings and framework from the first vertical, so you can apply to the next verticals. You don't want to make the same mistakes twice. And, at all times, make sure you stay focused on the long term vision. Don’t get swept up in the whims of the market that can having you chasing rabbits into unprofitable holes.

Create buyer personas, and customize accordingly.

As you will learn, the behaviors of one industry, buyer role or use case, may have a materially different rhythm than another. You can't assume what worked in one vertical will work exactly the same way in the next vertical. Everything could be different. From your go-to-market strategy, to your sales cycle, to your sales funnel metrics. For example, let’s say you are selling marketing technology. The needs of an enterprise level chief marketing officer (more strategic), will be different from the needs of lower level enterprise marketing manager (more tactical), will be different from the needs of a marketing agency serving that same enterprise client (more service oriented). So, customize your pitch accordingly, depending on who you are pitching.

Important business considerations to maximize product-market fit.

First of all, you need to calculate your total addressable market size to make sure you have a realistic chance of materially scaling your revenues. Second, you need to make sure you have a product that can withstand the onslaught of competition that will follow you into this market, if you are successful. That typically means having some clear competitive moat or customers who are not sensitive to price. For example, products related to “wisdom” typically come at premium and defensible pricing to “widgets”. And, third, think through your lifetime value of your revenue stream. You want products that are consumed frequently, to drive high repeat purchases, and solve major pain points for your customers. As I have said many times in the past, you need to be building painkillers for your customers, not vitamins to have any chance of materially scaling your business.

How to measure product-market fit.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure, and the same holds true for your product-market fit. So, you need to figure out what key data points will help you track your success here. Some of those data points are pre-transaction, like sales cycle, unit-level economics and conversion rates. And, some of those data points are post-transaction, like repeat buyer percentage, lost customer churn rates and average daily usage of your product by your customers (e.g., how sticky and engaging is the product). So, figure out what makes your business tick, in terms of product-market fit, and track and manage against those datapoints.

David Skok, the venture capitalist at Matrix Partners, wrote a terrific blog post on this product-market fit topic. It included a great list of the key questions you need to be asking yourself along each step of the product-market fit process. And, it included a great calculator template to see how you can score your product-market fit. Create a similar calculator for your own business, and you will quickly learn if you are heading in the right direction or need to retreat into a new direction.

Rinse and repeat the process.

Just because you found the holy grail of product-market fit, doesn’t mean you will keep it. You need to constantly be re-learning the market conditions and talking to your customers to learn how their needs may be changing over time. Constantly stay paranoid of losing your customers, to keep your competitive edge at all times.

Closing thoughts

As you can see, determining and optimizing for product-market fit is a really big deal. It can be the difference between a huge win for you and your investors, or a complete loss of invested capital, even with a really great product. If customers are not lining up to buy your product, or your product isn’t sticky enough to retain them, or your product creates unnecessary strains for you or your customers while fulfilling your services, it is time to go back to the drawing board, and start rethinking your product strategy.

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The Best Headphones to Tune Out Distractions and Get Things Done

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These five top-rated picks can block ambient noise and up your focus.

June 1, 2018

6 min read

In the Women Entrepreneur series Up Your Game, we scope out the best products, apps and services to help make it easier to take your game to the next level.

“Destructive interference” isn’t just a good band name -- it’s also the key to how noise-cancelling headphones work.

Flipping the “on” switch prompts your headphones to start producing new sound waves. That may sound counterintuitive for a noise-cancelling feature, but these sound waves are designed to cancel out ambient noise -- your coworker’s loud chewing, your boss’s involuntary sighing or even the nagging hum of the overactive office air conditioning. The secret? These types of headphones create sound waves with crests and troughs that are opposite those of the intruding sounds -- resulting in a reduction in ambient noise by 70 percent.

If you’re in need of a tool like noise-cancelling headphones to amp up your workday focus, look no further. Here’s your go-to guide.

Bose QuietComfort 35 Series II

Image credit: Bose | Entrepreneur

What We Love: Switch on this pair of Bose headphones, and you’ll probably feel like you’re in space. They may be pricey, but they’re a reviewer favorite across the Web -- and it’s clear why. The battery lasts for up to for 40 hours for wired listening and 20 hours for wireless, and you can adjust the level of noise-cancellation to your individual needs. Plus, there’s a dual-microphone system for phone calls and access to your phone’s virtual assistant.

What Customers Say: One reviewer writes, ‘I am an application developer and wear them at work because I am easily distracted. I don't even listen to music with them... They just cancel just about all background noise, including random chatter from the annoying marketing department.’ Another says, ‘The Bose sound is amazing. It is crisp and clean and full. I can hear so much more in the same music I have been listening to for years.’

Best Place to Buy: $349 on Amazon

Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7B

Image credit: Audio-Technica | Entrepreneur

What We Love: Ringing in at about $99.95, these are a quality option if you’re on the hunt for a budget pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Audio-Technica claims this model reduces ambient noise by 90 percent, and like most models, they have the passive ability to reduce noise pollution even when they’re switched off. Travelers should know this pair is lightweight and folds flat -- plus, it comes with a specialized airline adapter and carrying case.

What Customers Say: One reviewer writes, ‘If you're looking for a good pair of noise-canceling headphones but just can't justify paying $250+, these work well and they're from a company that knows what it's doing in terms of audio reproduction.’ Another says, ‘They cancel noise very well, have GREAT sound and are incredibly comfortable.’

Best Place to Buy: $99.95 on Amazon

Sennheiser MB Pro

Image credit: Sennheiser | Entrepreneur

What We Love: These headphones are a quality choice if your spending cap is $200. They allow people on the go to connect and switch between two different calls simultaneously, and they also offer a noise-cancelling microphone -- useful for interviews and conference calls. Sennheiser claims the battery will last up to 15 hours between charges. This model also connects to any of your devices using Bluetooth and provides a USB connection for other electronics.

What Customers Say: One reviewer writes, ‘This has AMAZING sound cancellation. I can be in Starbucks, and no one on the call knows. I can flush a toilet, and no one on the call hears it. Best headset I have ever had!’ Another says, ‘I would recommend these to anyone who sits in an office with people around them or who has a lot of background noise that needs to be cut out!’

Best Place to Buy: $171.02 on Amazon

Sony WH-1000XM2

Image credit: Sony | Entrepreneur

What We Love: The cost of this pair is comparable to the Bose QuietComfort 35 Series II, which makes sense because reviewers across the Internet are split between the two when it comes to the top choice for noise-cancellation and sound quality. Sony claims to adjust the sound beyond noise-cancellation technology by taking atmospheric pressure, face shape and even hairstyle into account. The “Smart Listening” feature detects activities and environment to adjust ambient noise levels, and the headphones also offer a touch control for tracks, volume, taking phone calls and using your phone’s virtual assistant.

What Customers Say: One reviewer writes, ‘These are top notch in terms of noise-cancellation and isolation… I could be mowing or trimming the lawn, and if I close my eyes, I’m in a totally different world.’ Another says, ‘These are the best-sounding headphones with the most potential on the average consumer flagship market right now.’

Best Place to Buy: $348 on Amazon

Bose QuietComfort 20

Image credit: Bose | Entrepreneur

What We Love: If you’re on the go and gravitate towards earbuds over headphones, Bose’s first foray into noise-cancelling in-ear headphones is a clear winner across the Internet. There’s both an inline microphone and remote for switching to phone calls, and battery life lasts up to 16 hours (although if it runs out, you can still use the headphones to listen to music). Another perk? One button allows users to enter “Aware” mode, which stops the noise-cancelling feature and allows them to hear what’s going on around them without removing their earbuds.

What Customers Say: One reviewer writes, ‘On our last airplane ride, I recorded the background noise and created a loop to play back on my hi-fi system. This gave me the opportunity to compare several earphones in a controlled environment… None could match the phenomenal quietness achieved by the BoseQC20s.’ Another says, ‘Holy @#$#$ are they amazing… I think these are the best headphones I've ever owned -- of any kind.’

Best Place to Buy: $249 on Amazon

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Protect Yourself From Attackers, From the Streets to the Boardroom

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June 1, 2018

1 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

It's always a good idea to be aware of your surroundings. That's why self-defense expert, author and keynote speaker Jennifer Cassetta is on a mission to make sure you're equipped to protect yourself whether you're at work or walking down the street. You can read more about Cassetta, and setting boundaries, in Jessica Abo's book Unfiltered: How To Be As Happy As You Look On Social Media.

Watch more videos from Jessica Abo on her YouTube channel here.

Entrepreneur Network is a premium video network providing entertainment, education and inspiration from successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders. We provide expertise and opportunities to accelerate brand growth and effectively monetize video and audio content distributed across all digital platforms for the business genre.

EN is partnered with hundreds of top YouTube channels in the business vertical. Watch video from our network partners on demand on Roku, Apple TV and the Entrepreneur App available on iOS and Android devices.

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Why Do Some People Choose to Work Past 70?

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While most people consider 65 the ideal retirement age, others are reaping both financial and personal benefits from working past 70.

June 1, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

By the time they celebrate their 30th birthday, many people are already thinking about retirement. They put in long hours, they forgo vacations and they don’t see their family as much as they would like. Work? It's a necessary sacrifice for many. A sacrifice that not all of us can easily part with.

The reason, of course, is retirement: Most people put a great deal of energy into saving for it. They work odd hours, plan carefully and stick to (strict) saving routines. Despite these moves, a recent CareerBuilder study showed that 40 percent of U.S. workers surveyed didn't think they could retire by 70. Reading this, I couldn’t help but think, “Is it really that bad?”

And, who said you have to retire by the time you’re 70 anyway?

In fact, some people have chosen to remain optimistic about their longevity and work well beyond “typical retirement age” (65); that way, they know they'll enjoy the associated benefits and have time to truly relax once they do retire. For those of us who wonder what benefits they're thinking about, studies and recent findings have revealed the actual advantages that working later in life can bring.

“With workers staying in their jobs longer, employers are adjusting hiring needs, but also reaping the benefits of the extra skills and mentoring abilities of mature employees,” Rosemary Haefner, chief HR officer at CareerBuilder, told HR Watchdog.

Of course, "mature employee" could be anyone past, say, 55. But what would a worker gain by staying past 70? While Americans' life expectancy has dropped for the second year in a row, we’re living longer than we did in the 1990s, for instance. Apart from older workers possibily enjoying the opportunity to share their skills and mentor young minds, there are several more reasons why some people find it beneficial to work past 70.

1. Health benefits

Did you know that working longer might actually prolong your life? A study conducted by Oregon State University showed that working past the age of 65 can help you live longer.

The OSU researchers found that working just one extra year (to 66) gave healthy adult respondents an 11 percent lower risk of death from all causes, including demographic, lifestyle and health issues. Not to stop there, the study also warned that retiring early might be a risk factor for early death. Wow!

For many Americans, the reason to work isn’t tied only to monetary gains. Work is a social outlet where adults meet like-minded people and people they share interests with. At the very least, work helps them maintain their professional strengths, leaving them more psychologically energized than than they might be otherwise.

On the other hand, for those who leave work earlier and can’t comfortably fund post-retirement recreational activities, boredom may become their cruel companion, due to a lack of money to travel, pursue hobbies and mingle at places that take their minds off things. Activities like these are benefits people can enjoy for free as long as they work -- the exercise connected to job commuting being just one more.

So, the next time you think you’re too unhealthy to work longer, maybe give it a second thought. The OSU study found that even adults who described themselves as unhealthy were likely to live longer if they stayed at work.

2. Social Security benefits

Want to make the most of your Social Security benefits? Work longer, Maurie Blackman has said on The Motley Fool.

For every year you delay Social Security, Blackman says, you increase your benefits by 8 percent until you reach 70. This means that if your retirement age is 65 and you decide to delay leaving work by five years and don't collect social security until age 70, you’ll have increased your total benefits to 140 percent of what you would have gotten at 65.

You can also start Social Security at age 65 even as you continue working and still see your benefit check rise (albeit at a lesser rate) because of that Social Security contribution still coming off your paycheck.

On the other hand, retiring before full retirement age cuts your benefits by almost 7 percent for the first three years, after which the rate goes down to 5 percent.

3. A bigger nest egg

As a general rule, most financial planners will recommend that you save enough to last 25 years after retirement. Meaning, if what you have left after spending your income (including Social Security and pension) is $30,000 per year, the rule suggests that you put away $750,000 for your retirement.

Some workers, even after reaching their recommended target, decide to save even more. Those who decide to keep working after their retirement age point out the desire to build a bigger nest egg as their main goal. For instance, by working longer, not only do they postpone using their savings, but they also keep fattening the account. And, even if they don’t manage to save a penny more, the account still gains from tax-deferred growth.

For those who have an active pension, working longer has an added advantage. Organizations calculate pension amount based on the pay and years of service. Some base it on the past couple of years while others base it upon the entire time you’ve had the plan.

Either way, working longer typically grows the pension amount.

In conclusion

While most people believe retiring before 70 is ideal, these are some of the benefits that may make a worker think twice about early retirement. Will you be working past 70? It’s time to enjoy the silver lining.

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My April 2017 Monthly Income Report

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Welcome to my April 2017 Monthly Income Report! As always, I create these reports to share the latest happenings with my online businesses, including the wins, the failures, the lessons learned, and the income generated along the way.

If this is your first time stumbling upon these reports, check out the income report page to see my income history dating back to October 2008, which is when I first started to monetize a website (InTheLeed.com then; now GreenExamAcademy.com) dedicated to helping people pass an architectural industry exam.

Since then, I’ve created many more websites, brands, and products ranging from courses to software to books. And, as always, I’m happy to share the inside scoop on what I’ve learned so you can be better prepared for your own online business journey.

Without further ado, here’s the April 2017 report.

Latest Goings-On

As shared in last month’s income report, March was an all-time record month. The total profit was $212,117.33—a 74 percent increase from the month before.

What accounted for the huge boost?

The launch of two brand new online courses.

Smart From Scratch came out of its beta period and experienced its first public launch, and a beta version of Power-Up Podcasting was sold on stage at a live event.

(Note: A HUGE thanks to David Siteman Garland for helping me through the creation of these courses. David is the founder of Create Awesome Online Courses, and this week we are both putting on a free live webinar to help you through the course creation process.)

Smart From Scratch and Power-Up Podcasting are the first two courses I’ve ever produced for the Smart Passive Income audience, and the experience definitely verified what everyone else has been saying about online courses: they can be extremely profitable. More than that, though, the results I’m seeing from existing students is unlike anything else. New businesses have been formed (some already having their first set of customers), and new podcasts are already up on iTunes.

The month of April was all about taking care of the new students, planning for future courses and launches, and reflecting on exactly what took me so long to do all of this.

Let’s start with that last point.

The feedback and the praise I’ve received for putting these courses together, and holding people accountable, confirms that this is something I should have done much earlier. It took me eight years to finally start producing my own online courses.

What took me so long?

I had a lot of mental roadblocks to overcome. The biggest one was this: Because I was already making good money by providing free content and generating significant affiliate income by promoting other people’s products and courses within that content, I thought that adding my own courses on top of that would come across as greedy and unnecessary.

I had spent so much time building trust and credibility with my audience, I didn’t want to risk compromising that trust simply because I knew these courses could sell. I knew these courses would make money, but I didn’t want that to be the primary reason for selling them.

It wasn’t until I had a life-changing conversation with a friend and mentor that my thoughts finally started to change. That conversation went something like this:

Friend: “Pat, when are you going to start creating your own online courses?”

Me: “I don’t know. Probably not for a while because really all the same content I’d provide in a course is free online on SPI. I don’t want to have my audience pay for something they could already have access to.”

Friend: “…”

Me: “What?”

Friend: “Dude, when you sold your architecture test study guide on GreenExamAcademy.com, wasn’t that like 95 percent the same content people could get for free on your website already?”

Me: “Yeah, but that’s a bit different. The guide was much cheaper than a course would be, and yeah it was more convenient and organized the information better than on the website, but the urge to pass an exam is so huge. People want to pay for the guide and take it with them, print it out, mark it up. It made sense to me that they’d pay for it.”

Friend: “How many complaints did you get that the content was the same?”

Me: “One complaint out of over 10,000 copies sold.”

Friend: “Okay, so having the same content packaged together didn’t seem to affect the value that you were providing. Let me ask you one more question.”

Me: “Sure.”

Friend: “Have you even purchased an online course yourself?”

Me: “Yeah, of course. Well over a dozen since I started getting involved in this space.”

Friend: “Okay. And how much did those courses help you?”

Me: “I wouldn’t be where I’m at today if it wasn’t for a number of those courses. Not all of them provided results, but the ones that did were life-changing for me.”

Friend: “In those life-changing courses, could you hypothetically find the same kind of information for free online somewhere else?”

Me: “I mean, yes, but . . .”

Friend: “Did paying out of your own pocket for those courses put skin in the game for you so you’d actually do the work?”

Me: “Yes, but . . .”

Friend: “Do you think you could create information that’s better than what you already offer on your website to help people tackle specific and urgent problems, and they would get results from that from you?”

Me: “Of course.”

Friend: “Then you must create courses to help these people. You’re not taking anything away from anybody, you’re adding to what’s already been there working for you for years. You owe this to your audience whose lives will be changed, just like your life has changed from the courses that you paid for yourself. You’re doing your audience a disservice by not doing this.”

Me: (mind blown) “You’re right.”

That was huge for me to realize. Courses helped me, and I knew then that courses I create would help others too.

And they already have.

Now I’m even more driven to keep going down this route. As with most things I’ve been doing online, I only wish I started sooner, but you can’t kick yourself for waiting too much because there’s nothing you can really do about it.

You cannot change the past, but you can change what you do now and into the future. Speaking of the future, as a result of these successful launches, my team and I got together to plan launches for the rest of 2017, and well into 2018 too.

More on those courses later. For now, another thing that’s been working well for me is live video. Specifically, something called #AskPatLIVE.

Live Streaming is HOT

As you likely already know, I have my main podcast, The Smart Passive Income Podcast, which publishes one new episode per week, and a secondary podcast, AskPat, which answers a voicemail question from my audience every weekday, five days per week.

I love producing both shows, but there’s something special about AskPat that has me so excited every two weeks when I batch-process and record ten episodes straight. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I love hearing the different voices from the SPI audience. I love being able to help a person directly (and help everyone else at the same time). It also gives me an ear on the exact problems and pains my audience has. (Note: Use SpeakPipe to record voicemail messages from your audience, which records as .mp3 files that you can use in your podcast or elsewhere!)

To help promote the podcast, I decided to experiment with a live version of the show called #AskPatLIVE, which I ran on a Friday at 1:30 p.m. PT on my Facebook Page, just to see what the feedback was, and to get my feet wet in the world of live streaming.

During the hour, I answered several questions that came in, but it also gave me an amazing opportunity to ask questions back and receive immediate feedback on a number of different ideas I had. To sum it all up, the experience was amazing, and I’ve been consistently coming back every Friday at 1:30 p.m. for #AskPatLIVE and have made it a regular show each week.

I used to do more live streaming, especially back when Periscope had first launched. But most of my streams back then were sort of random, not planned out very well, and didn’t do more than just be an amazing way to connect with my audience. That’s obviously very important, but in April I became very interested in finding out how other people were integrating live streams into their business in a more purposeful manner.

I started listening to as many podcast episodes as I could about live streaming, including this helpful introductory episode on the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I reached out to my friends and colleagues who I knew were producing more live streams on a regular basis, and one thing became very clear:

Live streaming is becoming a major component in people’s businesses.

Chalene Johnson, for example, uses live streams to help her repurpose content onto other platforms. In a podcast episode on the Social Media Marketing Podcast titled Facebook Live: Fuel All of Your Content with Live Video, Chalene walks you through exactly how she plans her content and starts with live video, but turns that into a podcast episode, a blog post, social media content, and more. Live video, for her, is her primary content platform.

Other people, like Amy Porterfield, have discussed how going live during a launch to answer specific questions that your “fence sitters” have can be the difference between a sale and a pass on your next offering. I recommend listening to her recent episode about Saving Sales and Rescuing Refunds where she talks more in depth about this strategy (and several others) to make sure people buy and stick to your courses.

Influencers like Michael Hyatt have been creating live streams to serve up valuable content as well, but also to help promote new items to his audience, such as his brand new Full Focus Planner, which just finished a massive pre-sale offer. I also know many others who use live video as a way to provide controlled access to Facebook Groups that they own. This is an amazing way to engage people in a community you already have, but in a controlled, “on my time” sort of manner.

These are all inspirational, and I look to be incorporating a mix of the above strategies into my business. But there was one discovery I learned about that sealed the deal for me in terms of why I should be doing more live video, and it relates back to the courses I’m offering now and in the future.

When you go live on Facebook, you can track to see who is watching and who is most engaged with your videos. Let’s say, for example, you have a course about fly fishing, and you go live on Facebook to teach a brand new technique you’ve learned. It takes about ten minutes to show, and it’s awesome. You don’t sell or pitch anything on this particular stream. Not only is this video content helpful (so helpful that a few people share it with their fishing buddies too), but you’re also able to track who has watched most of it.

When you create an ad on Facebook for your Super Awesome Fly-tying Course, you can target, specifically, those people who have watched 50 percent or more of your video. You can target those who watched 75 percent with a different ad. By using live video to introduce yourself and turn cold viewers into warm leads and potential customers, you’re more likely to convert someone on the other end. And the beauty of all this is that it was a ten-minute video that you created on the fly (see what I did there?). The production isn’t expected to be perfect (because it’s live), and you’ve helped a ton of people.

Do you see the power behind this strategy? Instead of spending money and sending Facebook Ads to people blindly, show them to those who you know would be interested in and benefit from the quality of content you can provide for them. If you’d like to learn more about Facebook Ads specifically, I’d recommend you listen to the latest episode of the SPI Podcast with Rick Mulready, who is my go-to expert when it comes to anything and everything related to Facebook Ads.

So yes, I’ll be doing more live videos, and I’ll be doing so in a big way.

Creating a Space for Live Video

In April, I decided to explore the option of having my own studio—a space away from home that is specifically built for live streaming and video production. With more courses coming down the line, it made sense to me to invest in a space that could be set up in a way where I could literally just walk in, hit broadcast or record, and just go. The lighting, the cameras, the software, it would all be ready for me.

I ran some numbers and explored the plan moving forward this year and into the next, taking into consideration all that might happen if I were actually to get an office space of my own and do this, and all signs definitely pointed to “yes.” So, at the end of April, I’m happy to say that I signed the lease to a new office space that will become SPI Production Headquarters! I’m working with a team over at LiveStreamingPros.com to help get it all setup properly, and my videographer Caleb and I are totally stoked about the possibilities.

I’ll definitely keep you posted and share a video walkthrough of the space, as it’s getting setup, and of course afterwards. But you can look forward to more from me, both in the world of live video, and courses (both free and paid) from this point forward.

I can’t wait!

Okay, I know you’re curious. Let’s get into the income breakdown for April 2017.

Full Disclosure: Some of the items in the list below are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase through that link, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that I have experience with all of these companies, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions I make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money on these products unless you feel you need them or that they will help you achieve your goals.

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5 Things I Learned Starting a Business in the Cannabis Industry

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A unique industry requires a unique approach.

June 1, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Starting a business isn’t for the faint of heart. There are constant highs and lows, and everything in between—sometimes all in a single day. For me, this roller coaster ride is an addiction. I love taking an idea and turning it into something that others value and desire. I’ve done it three times: first building an organic juice company, then a beverage distribution business, and now Willow Industries, which helps cannabis cultivators and infused product manufacturers produce a cleaner, safer product that is more likely to meet state regulations and stand out in the marketplace.

Having launched a business before, I thought I had a good handle on how the process might go. But the cannabis industry has its own unique challenges, making this venture different than the others. Here are five things I’ve learned along the way:

Patience Pays Off

When I started Willow Industries two-and-a-half years ago, I was on a mission to move fast. The state of Colorado was starting to test for microbials and cultivators had crops that were contaminated. We had the technology and machinery to save their plants, so I thought I needed to get our product to market as soon as possible.

But our technology and initial data supporting our concept were not enough to make growers comfortable with our offering. They wanted more results. It turned out this was a blessing. Slowing ourselves down was the best thing that could have happened.

We doubled down on our R&D and watched as state regulations constantly shifted, enabling us to adjust our technology accordingly. We redesigned our solution to both help flower pass microbial tests, and to reduce total yeast and mold, in the process providing consumers with as pure and safe a product as possible.

The added time also helped us pinpoint our purpose and strengthen our message to the marketplace. More than simply helping growers meet state regulations, our goal is to help cultivators produce cannabis that is more qualified to stand out among the overcrowded inventory on dispensary shelves.

My Advice: Start slow. The cannabis industry, while constantly changing, isn’t moving as fast as you think. Before pounding the pavement, thoroughly develop your concept and observe market trends, then adapt or adjust; and solidify your message so that your purpose and offering are clear and desirable. Your patience will allow you to pivot faster than otherwise possible.

It's a Unique Culture

Too many times I’ve had my emails unanswered, voicemails and texts unreturned, and meetings unapologetically canceled at the last minute. Early on, I also became accustomed to cryptic conversations, and a general unease about who I was, what I wanted and why. It wasn't personal—these are typical behaviors of an underground culture that operated illegally for so long.

In fairness, I’ve begun to see a shift in the industry’s collective polish and professionalism. Communication is vastly improving, as is respect for each other’s time.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day. Culture change takes time. We all bear the responsibility of becoming a legitimate industry that understands the need for transparency and the value of working together to attract customers and deliver a consistent and exceptional customer experience.

My Advice: Don’t be surprised to find that the cultural norms in the cannabis industry are much different from your previous one. This isn’t a direct reflection of how others perceive you. It is a reminder that this industry is in the midst of major change and that all of us must play our part to drive the industry forward. The more we communicate and collaborate, the faster we’ll innovate and expand.

This Ain't No Gold Rush

At the outset, Willow Industries had quite a few investors interested in working with us. In one instance, we even had a signed operating agreement. But time after time, whether because of our skepticism, their inability to follow through in a transparent manner, or their insistence on terms that were inequitable, these relationships didn’t pan out.

Too many times investors also told us that our concept was not viable and that the market didn’t exist. For now, we have opted not to invite in any investors. Today, I’m proud to say that we are flourishing.

My Advice: Don’t be fooled into believing investors are waiting in line to fund your product, even if they act like they are. Cannabis isn’t the gold rush that some have suggested it is. Try funding your business through non-traditional means. Raise a round of investment money from friends and family. Prove the concept by generating revenue. Keep a close eye on overhead and stay lean. And don’t let the nay-sayers shake your confidence. Keep believing in your purpose, your product, your team and yourself.

Don’t Get Hot and Bothered by Your Competition

Very early on in this business, I allowed myself to be emotionally affected by perceived competition. They always seemed to be one step ahead of us. Big warehouses, plenty of financial backing, a lot of press, aggressive tactics aimed at diminishing us—all these factors fed my entrepreneurial doubts.

It also forced me to lean on lessons learned from earlier endeavors: There is nothing I can do about the competition except to stay focused on strengthening my business. So, we kept our heads down, plowed ahead with our R&D efforts and remained true to our purpose.

My Advice: As in any business, see the competition in the cannabis industry for what it is—a healthy reminder that you have to stay focused and determined to achieve sustained success. While it would be foolish to turn a blind eye to your competition, allow your passion to drive you, not your fear of things you cannot control.

Related: How to Make Competition Work

Don’t Stop Believing

The current ebbs and flows of the cannabis business are challenging. The volatility has certainly tested my patience, tempted us to veer off course, and made us question whether to fold up and shut the doors (what entrepreneur can’t relate!). But we’ve kept going and no one at Willow has ever stopped believing in our purpose or each other.

My Advice: Stay the course! Challenge conventional thinking. Embrace your inventiveness and creativity. And remember, success is rarely a linear process. If you believe and if you support that belief with steady, strategic business decisions, you will prevail. You may even become a critical player in an industry at the doorstep of long-term growth potential.

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My March 2017 Monthly Income Report

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Welcome to my March 2017 Monthly Income Report. Fun fact: This is the 102nd monthly report published here on the blog. As always, I’m happy to share with you what happened during the past month, from the actions taken to the lessons learned, and, of course, the earnings report and where it all comes from.

March was an extremely busy month, but also very exciting. A lot of hard work from the past six months paid off in March, and I’m stoked to talk about the results of two course launches that happened.

Yes—two courses. 🙂

Am I crazy? Probably, but also very excited to be moving forward with the goals I set for myself and the business. With no more delay, let’s get right into it.

Important Goings-On in March

Two courses?

Yes.

Let’s start with the one that’s more well known, Smart From Scratch, which opened up for its first public launch ever.

This course was first introduced to a small segment of my email list in October 2016 to both validate the concept and hopefully gain enough interest to run a small founders group through the content. It launched successfully with about 120 students, and I had been working with that group for months to improve the content, collect feedback, and address any issues that I could fix before the planned re-opening this year in late February/early March.

At the start of 2017, a lot of work was put into the course by the entire team to have it ready for launch. Videos were re-uploaded with better design and compelling graphics, course content was re-written to be stronger and more effective, and some technical things under the hood were also fine-tuned.

On February 27, I opened up the course to the public and was excited to see all of our hard work pay off, but then it happened:

The internet died.

Well, a large percentage of it did at least. On that day, Amazon Web Services, a service that many internet tools and websites use to serve data and files, started to experience outages that affected a major percentage of websites across the globe. Many of the components that I used for the launch were affected by this downtime, such as Teachable, Convertkit, and a few others, such as our project management software, Trello.

It was a complete mess. Fortunately, I didn’t yet hit send on some of the emails I had planned to send out to larger segments of my email list. But, consequently, my numbers were not looking so good, and I had a lot of catching up to do come mid-week.

Thankfully, I was able to send highly targeted emails to the Smart From Scratch waitlist, the Will It Fly? Companion Course students, and also my “Bucket 1” level subscribers, who were segmented because they self-selected into the “I don’t have a business yet” sequence of my email list.

The power of segmentation. It works!

When the emails finally went out, the numbers started to rise, and when the cart closed on Sunday, March 5, a total of 499 new students entered the course. At a price point of $197, the total earnings from the launch was $98,303.

My goal was $100,000, and although I was short a couple grand, I’m happy to take that as a win, especially considering the Amazon fiasco at the beginning of the launch.

So far, the feedback from the new students has been amazing. One of my favorite aspects of the course are the office hours I kept, which allowed me to chat with the students live. It was great. The energy to get started in business is there, for sure, and I’m happy that my course and I can be there as a guide to help make sure the new students start on the right foot.

What’s really cool is that many of the students are stepping up and actually helping each other. Questions are being answered, study groups are being formed, and it’s inspiring me to help them even more. It’s awesome!

The next enrollment period will be in June, so if this is a course that interests you, please make sure you reserve your spot on the waitlist at SmartFromScratch.com!

Course #2? In the Same Month?

Actually, the day Smart From Scratch closed is the same day my second course opened up, and it was only available for a few hours.

Huh? What’s the course? Why only a few hours? Who did I sell it to?

Here’s how it all went down.

In the middle of February, I was asked by my friend Chalene Johnson to speak at one of her events on Sunday, March 5. I’ve spoken at her events twice before, and they are amazing for a number of reasons:

Chalene and her team always put on a great show. The care put into the event experience is unmatched, from the content to the stage setup.

Her Lifers (what she called her raving fans, because she’s there for them for life) are some of the best people I’ve ever spoken in front of. Their high energy and responsiveness make it so fun to perform.

It’s always close by my hometown in San Diego, California.

So, naturally, because the timing worked out this year, I said yes once again.

However, there were two major differences with this particular event:

This was going to be my first time speaking at her Marketing Impact Academy (MIA) event. In the past, I spoke at another event called the Smart Success Seminar. The crowd was just as big (about 800 people), but they were geared more toward marketing material rather than the more mindset/approach stuff related to business. Both are very important, obviously, but I knew I was going to have to bring something actionable for her MIA crowd.

Chalene asked me to sell something on stage.

Sell on stage? Wait a minute? Me? Sell what, exactly? Why?

At the time, I only had two things I could possibly sell: Smart From Scratch, and the Smart Podcast Player. Both of these products didn’t seem to make sense for her audience of Lifers. They already had a business in mind they were working on, and the majority of them don’t have a podcast.

Chalene and I got on a call and the first thing I asked her was: “Why do you want me to sell something on stage?”

Her response, simply put: “Because I want to challenge you.”

I smiled. I was super thankful that Chalene believed in me and trusted me to sell on her stage, and I appreciated the fact that she was looking out for me. In the past, several people who I looked up to challenged me in a similar way, to do something completely out of my comfort zone, and each time it helped me grow in ways I never thought possible.

I knew this was an an incredible opportunity, but a couple of big concerns immediately came to mind:

I don’t do hard selling on any platforms that I’m on, let alone an actual, physical stage in front of people—especially ones I’ve just met. My success has come from years of providing free value and earning trust, which takes time. The thought of being up on a stage and selling something scared me half to death. It also made me feel icky. Very icky.

I still had nothing that made sense to sell.

I spoke at an event back in 2013 where every speaker sold something on stage. All except for me. I didn’t even know it was that kind of event until it happened.

The presentations had great content, but each ended with a fifteen minute pitch to sell a product. At the end, when the price was revealed (typically with a massive discount “just for today only!”), a number of interested attendees would head to the back of the room to fill out forms and hand in their payment information.

When it was my turn on stage near the close of the event, I ended the presentation by revealing I had nothing to sell, and I had received a standing ovation for it. That ingrained, in my mind, that people didn’t like to be sold to on stage.

I sure didn’t. Because of this, my initial gut-reaction to Chalene’s request was a resounding “thanks, but no thanks.”

But, I look up to Chalene. I’ve attended her events before, and each and every attendee I’ve ever spoken to has raved about the experience. And yes, a couple of speakers sell on stage there too. Most of the time, however, it’s all content, no sales.

Chalene gave me the rundown on how she hand selects speakers at her events, and it always starts with those who can provide the most value to her audience. Most of the time, during her two to three day events, there is no selling happening at all, but when it does, the expectation is already there, and it’s always for something that Chalene knows will help.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve learned important lessons when it comes to selling. Primarily, that selling is not bad.

In fact, if you have something of value to offer, and you truly believe in it, it’s your duty to sell so that people can understand that value and benefit from what you’ve created.

Selling via my online platform is something I’m completely comfortable with at this point. I’ve learned that I can sell without selling my soul, without feeling icky about it. And I can help a lot more people too. I experienced this first hand with my recent Smart From Scratch course launch.

But on stage at Chalene’s event, I still couldn’t imagine it. I had the 2013 experience in the back of my mind. It took me some time to process it, but I soon realized that this new opportunity was a completely different situation. This wasn’t a random pool of speakers Chalene was putting together. This was a carefully crafted billing of high-quality entrepreneurs with high-quality information to share, and a couple of speakers would offer an opportunity to go much deeper into specific topics outside of the event, and her audience knew that. It was not going to be a surprise.

I realized that this could be done in an honest, legitimate way where everyone comes out a winner.

If there was ever a time to give this a shot, it was now. This was an opportunity of a lifetime for me, so, as I’ve done in the past, when I’ve felt completely uncomfortable with something that I knew could potentially help my business and help more people, I committed to it.

The big question remained: What was I going to sell?

During my conversation with Chalene, she asked me to consider not what I was going to sell, but rather what kind of information and value I might be able to offer, first to her audience in whole, and then further with a portion of her audience who wanted to continue learning more from me.

I liked that approach. After a quick back and forth on a number of various topics I knew I could help with, from productivity to web traffic, we landed on a solution that we both knew would be extremely valuable to her audience of content creators: a podcasting course.

There are a number of podcasting courses already available on the market. Cliff Ravenscraft’s Podcasting A to Z course, as well as John Lee Dumas’s Podcaster’s Paradise, are two that I’ve recommended in the past, and I still continue to recommend them both because they’re great.

For the past four years, even though I’ve pointed people toward these courses, and even though I have a free podcasting tutorial at PodcastingTutorial.com, I have had hundreds of requests for a more structured, more detailed podcasting course in my own style with a community element involved, but I had no real push to create it.

It was a course idea my team and I came up with awhile back which we’ve kept putting aside for other things, but if there was ever a reason to actually start moving on this, it was right in front of me. And it made complete sense.

Chalene’s audience already listens to her podcasts, so they know how powerful a platform it can be. Many also have businesses that shoot for more client work, and a podcast is the perfect platform to showcase your personality, how you teach, and the expert knowledge you have so that you can earn trust and generate clients from there.

If I could pull it together, it was going to work. But here’s the thing: I only had three weeks to put it together, and we were already gearing up for the Smart From Scratch launch.

I held an emergency meeting with the leadership in my team and presented the idea and the opportunity, and we all were in agreement: The opportunity was too great to pass up, so they were 100 percent on board.

Looking ahead, having two courses under the SPI brand so early in the year would be huge for helping us achieve our goals for 2017, one of which was to help even out the earnings between affiliate marketing versus my own products.

To make a long story short, in two and a half weeks, three days before Chalene’s event, a complete beta program for my new online podcasting course, Power-Up Podcasting, was ready for its first set of students. It consists of fifty-one videos, including a huge focus on pre-launch planning and marketing strategies, launch week and launch day, and post-launch automation and continued growth strategies. This is where it differs from the free podcasting tutorial that I offer, which includes mostly the technical setup portion of podcasting, although that’s obviously included in Power-Up Podcasting as well.

I’m so proud of my team for putting our heads together to make this happen in such a short time. It was almost impossible, but we had a hard deadline to get it all done, which pushed us forward. I’ll be recording a podcast episode soon going deep into the details of what it was like to sell on stage for the first time. I’ll be talking about my approach, what I said, how I presented my offer, and all of the other lessons learned during this experience.

I will that say that it was quite a surprise that when I revealed I had a course for sale, I received a huge applause from the audience, and even before I mentioned the final price, loads of people were already headed to the back of the room to purchase access to the course.

I felt like I was in a dream.

When the dust settled and the event was over, a total of 165 new students purchased access to the course. After I spoke, I wanted to thank each of them, but here’s the crazy part: All of them thanked me back. They were so excited for the opportunity ahead of them, and to see it, in person, in their eyes and in their smiles, it made me feel great about what I had just done.

I even met a couple of people who cried when we met and they said this was exactly what they needed and it made the event all the worthwhile for them. It was so incredible to hear and see such things.

Approaching the event, while doing a lot of internal gut-checking and thinking, the part I was worried about the most was that after the event was over, after selling on stage, I’d feel that ickiness of selling, first hand, like I witnessed back in 2013. I was so scared I’d feel that in my stomach and have feelings of remorse, but there was none of that. Zero. Zilch.

And the entire time on my way home, I drove with a smile. Not because I had just made a record amount of money that day from both selling on stage and closing Smart From Scratch, but because it was another example, and proof, that I can sell and be proud knowing I was helping a lot of people. That selling is not bad. That selling can be good, and that’s something I can do.

After I got home, I pulled out a sheet of notebook paper in my pocket that Chalene handed to me on my way out. In hot pink pen, at the top of the note, she had written:

From: Chalene, 3/5/17

She watched my entire presentation backstage and had written notes about the things that worked really well for me and the things I could have done to improve my talk.

Chalene wasn’t there just to help her audience grow. She was there to help me—and the other speakers—grow too. I’m so thankful she gave me the opportunity and spent time to prepare me for this uncomfortable, but incredible opportunity. Thank you, Chalene, for the push.

And a big thanks to the founding students of Power-Up Podcasting who have already provided me so much value in return. The community in that group is amazing, and many are already up and running with their podcasts on iTunes. I can’t wait to re-open the course later in the year after a few more rounds of feedback and fine-tuning.

If you’d like to sign up to the waitlist for Power-Up Podcasting, click here, and you’ll be the first to know about the next open enrollment period later this year.

March 2017. A month to go down in the history of SPI, for sure.

Let’s check out the numbers:

To Finish Off the Month of March

Besides Chalene’s event, there were two more events that I spoke at, both in my hometown of San Diego: Traffic and Conversion Summit and Social Media Marketing World.

Both were amazing.

At T&C, I connected with a lot of new people who I had never met before, which is always a great thing. I also spoke about something I call my BLP formula, which is short for my Book to List to Product formula. I shared the results of my year-long journey since launching Will It Fly? almost exactly one year earlier, and how that turned into a highly engaged email list (using my free companion course), and then finally how that turned into a paid course in Smart From Scratch.

For Social Media Marketing World, I held an event at my coworking space, WeWork, a day before it started, and about 400 people came by to hang out! It was awesome! I love bringing people together and making connections like this:

Social Media Marketing World

I’ll be doing more of these in the same space this year, so look out for more information about it on my Facebook or Twitter accounts!

Social Media Marketing World started the next day, and by far, it was one of the best run events I’ve ever attended. Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner and the event, created something amazing here. I’ve attended all five years of the event, and it just keeps getting better and better.

Hat tip to the volunteers and the team who help put it all together.

I spoke twice on the final day of the event, and I had a book signing as well. It was a smaller talk since it was niched about podcasting, but a big thanks to those who attended and left me some amazing feedback about the content.

To finish things off, I ended the night, and the event, with one of my mastermind groups at a local restaurant.

Myself, Michael Stelzner, Cliff Ravenscraft, Mark Mason, Leslie Samuel, and Ray Edwards took the time to break bread and share our thoughts about the event, and I can’t even describe how great it was for us to be together. We’re usually on a call together every Wednesday, but this just reinforced the importance of meeting in person. We all congratulated Michael on a job well done, and told stories about things that happened at the event, or what sessions we enjoyed.

It was the perfect end to SMMW, and the entire month of March, because without this mastermind group, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today, that’s for sure.

Pat Flynn Mastermind Group

April is definitely a calmer month in terms of events and launches. I’m focusing mostly on the students of Smart From Scratch and Power-Up Podcasting, and their success through the material.

Cheers, and thanks again for all of your support!

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Slide Images

Saturday 2 June 2018

Building a local network

Forging connections that last

1. Comb your hair.

2. Don't let your business card haul go cold.

3. Be a gift to somebody.

The difference one call can make

Finding light in adversity

Getting started

Establishing your brand

Planning for accounting

Setting up an office

Planning for marketing

Sitemaps

Create and/or Update Content

Access and Speed

1. Find a niche and fill it

2. Find your tribe first

3. Start somewhere strong

What is product-market fit?

How to identify product-market fit.

The right way of gathering market intelligence.

Test, test, and test again.

Focus on one vertical at a time.

Create buyer personas, and customize accordingly.

Important business considerations to maximize product-market fit.

How to measure product-market fit.

Rinse and repeat the process.

Closing thoughts

Bose QuietComfort 35 Series II

Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7B

Sennheiser MB Pro

Sony WH-1000XM2

Bose QuietComfort 20

1. Health benefits

2. Social Security benefits

3. A bigger nest egg

In conclusion

Latest Goings-On

Live Streaming is HOT

Creating a Space for Live Video

Patience Pays Off

It's a Unique Culture

This Ain't No Gold Rush

Don’t Get Hot and Bothered by Your Competition

Don’t Stop Believing

Important Goings-On in March

Course #2? In the Same Month?

To Finish Off the Month of March