Edward Nevraumont - Programmatic Advertising for Boutique Service Businesses

Speaker, executive consultant, and author of "Marketing BS" Edward Nevraumont joins me to talk about how programmatic advertising (e.g., Facebook ads) can be used to grow a boutique service business.Edward's Bio:As Chief Marketing Officer at General Assembly, Edward helped build and prepare the company for a $412.5mm sale to Adecco in 2018.During his five years at A Place for Mom, Edward steered the company from the brink of collapse to generating more than 30% year-over-year growth over multiple years. A Place for Mom is now the largest senior-living referral service on the planet.While Vice President at Expedia, Edward created the VIP Hotel program which is now at 4000+ hotels and generating a 22% lift in stays for Expedia’s elite customers. He also created Expedia Rewards (a points-based loyalty program), and Expedia’s first landing pages testing team (which now runs 2000+ tests/year).Prior to his executive positions, Edward worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company and in account management for Procter & Gamble. A Wharton MBA graduate, Edward honed his global perspectives by working and living on four continents, including a year in Africa.Related Links: Edward's book Edward's site Edward's mailing list

Jimmy Rose - Validating Your SaaS Idea

Jimmy Rose joins me to talk about how to validate the idea for a SaaS product and position it with the target market as a solution to a painful problem.Here is Jimmy's Twitter bio:I help people automate stuff with Zapier. Co-founder of @contentsnare which helps collect content & documents from clients. Skilled at talking to dogs.Related Links: https://contentsnare.com/ https://jimmyrose.me/ https://twitter.com/_jimmyrose

The New Boss

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

How To Prove You're Good At What You Do

You Have To Change Something

You can't make things better without changing something, and changing something requires a leap of faith. 

Selling A Feeling

Geraldine Carter - The Forensic Bounty Hunter

Business coach Geraldine Carter joined me to brainstorm how her CPA clients could price three different phases of a forensic accounting engagement. Even if you're not a CPA, I think you'll find the approaches we came up with applicable to your service business. Here's a link to an interactive transcript: READ TRANSCRIPT(It was machine generated, so it's not perfect)

Projects vs Retainers

A More Useful Definition Of Strategy

Can I Value Price X?

Good News And Bad News

Coaching Call with Animated Film Director Wayne Thornley

Connect with Wayne on LinkedIn

Becoming A Rockstar

Provenance

In the world of vintage watches, provenance is a critical component of the value of a given watch.What is provenance?Here's a good description from Timepiece Chronicle:When discussing vintage watches, especially those claimed to have been owned by notable figures, the notion of provenance should always be kept at the forefront of your mind. Far more important than condition or value, provenance is the term used to describe the legitimacy of recorded ownership for a particular item. Whilst for many vintage watch purchases it is condition and value that are of primary concern when considering watches that are claimed to have belonged to an important figure, provenance is the most important factor.So... provenance is kinda like the backstory of a watch.For example:A 1930s era 14k gold Longines tonneau-shaped wrist watch sells for about $1000.A 1930s era 14k gold Longines tonneau-shaped wrist watch owned by Albert Einstein sold for $596,000.Almost 600 times more money for the same watch!But is it really same watch? Sure, the materials and construction and design are all the same. But one is a direct physical connection to one of the greatest scientific minds who ever lived, and the other... well, it tells the time (and probably pretty badly, at that).Here's the thing...The value of a product or service often comes from intangible things like provenance or status or brand or morale or peace of mind.This is not irrational buying behavior. You prove it every time you buy a Coke or shop at Target or splurge on a pair of Nikes and tell yourself that "this one is worth more because of $reasons".Value is not an inherent property of a thing. It's a perception in the mind of the buyer.The question is, what does your ideal buyer value?Yours,—JEnjoy this episode? Here are more things you might like:Hourly Billing Is Nuts—Essays On The Insanity Of Trading Time For MoneyLearn more »The Freelancer’s Roadmap—Learn The Tools, Tactics, And Systems You Need To Transform Yourself From Commodity Freelancer To In-Demand ConsultantLearn more »Learn Your Lines—What To Say When Clients Put You On The SpotLearn more »Pigeonhole Yourself—Transform Your Marketing From Soggy To Solid With These Real-World ExamplesLearn more »

What if no one listens?

Long time reader and friend-of-the-list Scott Gould sent in this great question about starting a podcast (shared with permission):Hi Jonathan, I’m curious - my thought on producing a podcast would be “would anybody even listen to it?” What’s your take on that? Because surely that’s the most important thing to consider? Yours engagingly, ScottSure, it would be nice if lots of people listened to your podcast, but if you start out with a one-on-one interview show format (which is my recommended starting format for new podcasters), it doesn’t really matter of anyone listens.Wait, what?You shouldn’t care if anyone listens to your podcast?Yep, that’s right. Having listeners is just one of the benefits of hosting a podcast, and IMHO it’s not the most important one. Here are three other benefits that I think are more important:1) Building relationshipsHosting a podcast means you always have something to invite people to (especially, luminaries in your field). If I reached out to Seth Godin and asked, “Hey, you wanna to jump on the phone for an hour so I can pick your brain?” he would surely say no. But if I asked instead, “Hey, would you like to come on our podcast and talk about that thing you care about?” he might agree.When I dreamed up the idea for TBOA, it was specifically for the purpose of having something to invite my favorite thought leaders to. It’s nice that the audience is growing, but all I care about is getting to talk to really smart people for an hour.2) Researching your marketThis is similar to the previous benefit, but instead of inviting rockstars to come on your show, you invite people from your target market and essentially have a free consulting call with them. This is a great way to get to know the hopes, dreams, worries, and fears of your ideal buyers without the pressure of trying to close a deal. As a side effect, improving your podcast interview skills will improve your sales interview skills.BONUS: If you are currently doing execution work (e.g., coding, copywriting, illustration, video production, audio editing, voice overs, etc) and want to transition into consulting, coaching, or other types of pure advisory engagements, inviting ideal buyers onto your show is low-risk way to road test your capabilities, and to combat impostor syndrome.3) Rapid content creationHosting an interview show is a great way to create a huge amount of quality content very quickly. An hour long chat with a guest will result in about 10,000 words of content. Could you write that many words in an hour? Heck no. For very little money, you can have your episodes transcribed and then read through to pull out rough drafts for shorter written articles that you could publish as blog posts, email messages, or social media posts.I could keep going, but hopefully you get the point. There are plenty of benefits to starting a podcast even if nobody listens!Yours,—JSubscribe to Jonathan’s daily list