Entrepreneurs In Motion

Gabby Wallace believes in collaboration, not competition. She organized a one-week "flash sale" with several other online English teachers - and not only were 400 packages sold to delighted customers, but the sale also supported an educational charity. Listen to Gabby share how she organized the sale, what she learned and changed in the 2nd (and about to be 3rd) time around, and flash-sale marketing strategies that work. Highlights: How Gabby went from idea to successful super-sale in only a month (2:00) What kept her up at night during the first sale (5:15) What she learned and changed before the second sale (7:45) How the sale also contributed to charity (10:15) Marketing strategies for a flash sale (12:00) How can you apply a flash sale in other areas? (14:15) Show notes: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/flash

E-mail marketing has been a HUGE factor in the success of my business - over 95% of my sales come from my e-mail list. I've been doing e-mail marketing from day 1, and I've evolved from a basic strategy, to an intermediate one, to an advanced and complex autoresponder today. Here are some e-mail marketing tips for entrepreneurs at all stages of business. Entrepreneurs that bite off more than they can chew (1:20) Why e-mail marketing is essential - and better than social media (2:25) Basic email strategy - how often and what to e-mail them (4:40) Intermediate level: My initial autoresponder (7:15) The super-engaging first e-mail in my sequence (8:35) Advanced: How I use "mini-series" (11:40) 3 examples of my triggered e-mails (13:07) Results from the year without launches (16:10) Show notes: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/email

Laura Petersen started a local tutoring and test prep company - and after some trial and error, she was able to find great clients and grow the business into a success. Nowadays she's involved in podcast marketing and copywriting, and has a ton of GREAT strategies to share!  How Laura started her tutoring and test prep company (2:30) The advertising idea that actually brought in the wrong clients (6:30) How Laura built relationships that led to better business (8:20) What's Laura's role now that the company has matured? (11:00) How to grow your podast and get interviewed on others' shows (15:55) Why good copy is essential to every website (20:20) Mini master class on 6 tips for improving your copy yourself (21:54) Show notes: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/lp

No matter how experienced or successful we are as entrepreneurs, we all face times when we just feel "blah" about our businesses. What should you do when your work feels like a drag, your inspiration is nowhere to be found, and you just can't muster the excitement to do anything in your business? Here are three strategies that have helped me get my motivation back. The three modes of motivations (0:45) My first major motivation plateau - and the trip that helped bust me out of it (2:30) Are you working on the wrong stuff? (5:55) Give yourself a freaking break! (7:30) You don't have to be 110% productive (9:23) Leave a comment: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/motivation

Elena Mutonono is a teacherpreneur who has successfully transitioned from 1-to-1 lessons into a more scalable business model - and now she helps other teachers to do the same. In this episode, she talks about how she pivoted her business strategy several times until finding a way to make sales while on vacation. Elena also shares tips for developing a smart e-mail marketing strategy that truly serves your audience. How Elena lost 90% of her business... and bounced back (3:30) How she faced and overcame "imposter syndrome" (6:43) Why she niched down and how she differentiated from other similar courses (9:45) The limitations of teaching online courses on Udemy (14:32) How Elena helps teacherpreneurs with email strategy (17:15) What her vacations were like before & after having e-mail automation (19:00) Elena's response to the common objection of "I don't want to bother people by emailing them all the time" (21:10) How to get to know your audience deeply (24:45) Show notes: http://www.entrepreneursinmotio

I hate when successful entrepreneurs try to promote easy step-by-step "formulas" to grow a business. What works for one industry or business might not work for another; what worked in the past may not work now. Every business is unique, and we entrepreneurs have to experiment to find out what works best for US! With that said, the "only 3 ways to grow a business" paradigm by Jay Abraham is really useful in sorting through the zillions of online business tactics and finding strategies you should use for the greatest impact in your business.  My main lead generation strategy (3:50) What I focus on when I improve my sales pages (7:00) How I use an "appetizer product" to drive conversions (8:06) 3 to increase transaction value beyond price increases (10:24) Getting customers to pay you over and over (17:15) One thing a lot of entrepreneurs forget to do post-purchase (19:00) Cutting through the noise of online business tactics (21:30) Show notes: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/ways

Entrepreneurs often struggle to find the right work-life ratio - and the way I approach it has changed significantly over the years. I'll describe the four "phases" I've gone through: Redeeming the scraps, Half and half, Workaholic (and recovering), and Finding the sweet spot. Show notes: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/time Phase 1: Redeeming the scraps (2:55) Phase 2: Half and half (7:00) Phase 3a: Workaholic (9:38) Phase 3b: Guilty/recovering workaholic (12:00) Phase 4: Finding the sweet spot (14:21)

Recurring revenue is often seen as "the Holy Grail" of business - who wouldn't want income that's practically guaranteed month after month? I launched a paid membership program that initially looked successful, but ended up being a drag. Here's how I made the tough call to shut it down, and how I communicated it to subscribers. But there's a happy ending to the story - I was able to redeem some of the material and turn it into a popular new course. Show notes: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/membership My attempt at a monthly subscription program (1:50) The GOOD results... and the warning signs (2:45) The disastrous relaunch (5:30) Two keys to a successful membership program (+examples) (7:25) Why I didn't start a community, but how you can do successfully (9:53) Why I ended it earlier than planned, and how I notified the members (14:30) How I turned a dead program into a profitable new product (16:55)

My first ever product launch was awful - just 3 sales at $9 each. At the time it was a huge downer, but looking back I can point out the exact mistakes I made. Through iteration and experimentation, I now have a product launch strategy that works very well for my audience - and although I don't believe there's a "perfect" product launch formula, today I'll share my exact sequence of launch e-mails and the rationale behind each message. Show notes and links: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/launch My first miserable attempt at a product launch (2:49) The two cardinal sins I committed with the launch e-mail (5:37) Improvements I made to my next launch (8:00) Why I don't believe there's a perfect product launch formula (11:59) The specific sequence of launch e-mails I use now, and the reason for each one (15:35) The brand-new strategy I used that made me VERY uncomfortable, but was extremely popular (22:41) What you should do if your product launch fails (28:59)

Tim Ferriss pioneered the idea of a "dreamline," an outline of your business and life goals that can help make them more achievable. In this episode I look back at my dreamlines from year 1 of my business and from 10 years ago, and see which goals I achieved (and what else happened that wasn't even on the list).  Show notes: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/dreamline My first dreamline in year 1 of business (2:10) Did I hit 6 figures? (3:00) Did I buy my husband a motorcycle and start a 2nd business? (6:00) Did I become location independent? (7:30) What else happened that I hadn't predicted? (8:30) My dreamline from 10 years ago (13:50) My reasons for NOT having a dreamline now (15:30) ...why I might want to make one (17:00) How I conquer FOMO (21:40)

The danger of too much business input (1:00) Watch out for "task fibrillation" (4:00) How to naturally find what ideas are most impactful (5:15) How I categorize my ideas (6:30) How a "business map" can help (7:30) What you, as the business owner, should NOT be doing (9:55) How to pack your year with accomplishments (11:20) Using selective forgetting (14:00) How I plan my work day (16:40) Show notes and comments: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/prioritize/

First of all, for anyone who doesn't know what a mastermind is - it's a small group of people (usually 3-6 people) who meet and talk with some frequency in order to to help each other improve and achieve goals. When I originally heard about the whole concept of masterminds, I thought they were for weak people who needed hand-holding or excessive encouragement to take even tiny steps - but boy, was I wrong. Good masterminds are about smart, driven people helping each other be the best they can be. Over the course of my business so far, I've been involved in 6 different mastermind groups - not all at the same time, obviously. Some of them have been long-term, others have been for limited periods, like a 3-month "sprint." I'm not going to talk about each one individually; instead I'm going to pull out some of the best practices from my experience. Show notes & transcripts: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/mastermind

Last week's episode was about things I did "right" in my business, which made it grow. I'm saying the word "right" with air quotes, because keep in mind that what works for one person's business might not work for another. Today I want to look at the flip side - things that failed or didn't work out like I'd hoped. I'll talk about five of them today - the first two are sort of mindset-related, and the last three are more tactical. Show notes & comments: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/failures

In your first few years of business, you’re in a phase where you’re trying really hard to figure things out – everything from your product (or service) to your messaging, your price point, how exactly you’re gonna get leads and turn them into customers, your backend systems, even your business model itself. It’s a time of intense experimentation. You’re studying best practices, you’re implementing them – you’re basically throwing a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and seeing what will stick. Some things you try are surprisingly successful, some strategies are a dead end, and others have lukewarm results. What works for someone else’s business might not work for yours, and vice versa. A lot of entrepreneurs are extremely forward-thinking, so we’re always rushing on to the next experiment. But I think it’s interesting to reflect on your business and identify what were the key strategies and tactics that moved the business forward? Show notes and comments: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/growth

Almost every online business owner, at some point, has to tame the e-mail monster. The more our businesses grow, the more e-mails we have to deal with – and processing e-mail can turn into a mentally-draining time suck if you’re not careful. I’ve got about 80,000 newsletter subscribers, and needless to say I get a LOT of e-mail. I thought I was decent with email because I usually didn’t fall behind – at least too far behind – yet it was still taking up time and energy that I could have been spending on other areas in my business. So I made five changes that have drastically improved my efficiency when it comes to email, which is what I’m going to tell you about today. The first few things are some basic clean-up, and then the last few are really significant – they’re really key ways to save myself time. Transcript & comments: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/inbox

I used to look down on "mindset" stuff. In my voracious consumption of entrepreneurial blogs and podcasts, I'd always want TACTICS, really concrete tactics and strategies, and whenever I saw a post about mindset, I'd dismiss it. I'd assume it was a superficial "positivity" message, or something generic like "think like an entrepreneur, not an employee" - and I'd just skip it. But the truth is that wrestling with your own psychology and emotions is a major part of being an entrepreneur, and the way you think absolutely does affect your business on a practical level. Click here to read the transcript and leave a comment:  http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/mindset/

  Our topic today is “single points of failure” – do you have any of these in your business, and are you prepared for a possible worst-case scenario? I’m going to ask you some hopefully provocative questions, and then tell you some of the specific things I do to head off disaster. A single point of failure is defined as part of a system where, if that one part fails, the entire system stops working. The reason I think this is important to talk about is that a lot of us entrepreneurs are extremely forward-thinking. We move fast, break stuff, put a “minimum viable solution” in place that works for now, and we keep rushing forward. We rarely take the time to go back and make sure our ducks are all in a row when it comes to disaster prevention. Read the transcript and leave a comment! http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/failure/

I’m really excited to dive into today’s topic, because how to spend your business profits is a question we all face, and it doesn’t have a clear-cut answer – but today I’m going to give you a framework for reinvesting in your business. Tell me if this sounds familiar: One year in, my business was generating about a thousand dollars a month. I still hadn’t quit my “day job,” and I was wondering what exactly to do with that money. Other entrepreneurs would constantly say things like, “You gotta reinvest in your business to grow it faster!” – but I was really unsure about HOW. What specifically should I spend this money on? I was nervous about possibly wasting the profit that I’d been working so hard to earn. To be honest, this question is still something I struggle with now. Like I said, there’s no answer that’s going to be one-size-fits-all – but I’m going to lay out six major ways to reinvest. I’ll tell you what I did, and then I’d love to hear your thoughts – you can weigh in at entrepreneursinmotion.com/pro

Today I’m going to talk about: who this podcast is for and why I created it two key values of Entrepreneurs in Motion who I am and what I’m up to Read the transcript and leave a comment: http://www.entrepreneursinmotion.com/intro/