#BYOB Episode 002 - Carol Benton: From Big Blue to Family time; how to make the jump and start your own business

Have you considered leaving the corporate world and starting your own business? Waving goodbye to a secure corporate role to follow your passion can, initially, seem daunting but the potential rewards can be life changing.

In this episode I’m joined by Carol Benton of Words2Win to talk about what motivated her to leave her own corporate job to become a successful business writer and communications consultant. Carol and I talk about Carol’s own catalyst for changing her career and why her network was, and remains, such a key contributor to her success. We also discuss how, by focusing on what she loved about her old role, Carol identified a new career that would both challenge and fulfil her.

Download in iTunes or get the links here - BYOB Podcast. 

If you prefer to read, here is the transcription...

[0:02:51] ANDREW:  So welcome to the podcast I’m Andrew Ford your host and today I’m very happy to have a good friend of mine and client Carol Benton from Words2Win who is going to tell us a little about her story and her journey going from a corporate employee to running her very own business.  So welcome Carol.

[0:03:08] CAROL: Thank you Andrew.

[0:03:09] ANDREW: So what I’d like to do in these episodes is to track your journey but just for the listeners out there could you just give us a quick synopsis of what you do today, what is Words2Win and where you came from before we dive deep in the background.

[0:03:24] CAROL: Sure, I’m a communication coach and a business writer so Words2Win is a business that helps clients win more business through effective communication.

[0:03:35] ANDREW: Nice pitch.

[0:03:36] CAROL: Wonder where I learnt that, thank you, so I help people to articulate their value and then to put that into a consistent message across a number of different formats, where that’s brochure, whether that's their web sites, whether that’s a great pitch, I help them articulate their value and then communicate it.

[0:03:57] ANDREW: But you didn’t always do that so give us a quick background.

[0:04:00] CAROL: No, I spent 30 years in corporate life in IBM, IBM UK and IBM Australia, in a number of roles, mainly client facing so sales, marketing, leadership roles, a little stint in operations as well so back office, so yeah, 30 years in corporate IT sales.

[0:04:25] ANDREW: And how long have you been doing Words2Win?

[0:04:27] CAROL: Just under 2 years.

[0:04:28] ANDREW: Great, So what we’re going to do now, I’d just like to delve into that background in a little more detail, so tell me about your time at IBM, so the things you loved to do, the different roles you had, just give us a synopsis of what life is like working for a big corporate, for those that have never done so.

[0:04:44] CAROL:  Sure, I joined as a graduate and the training was outstanding. I was in a marketing and sales role and IBM worked on the bases that they didn’t need people who already knew a lot of technical stuff, they wanted people who had the basics of communication skills and they would teach us the technical stuff that we needed to know, so we had excellent training.  I really enjoyed working with clients, the primary role was to understand the client's business, understand their issues and then put together solutions to help solve those issues, when I look back at it, people used to say to me you’ve got a degree in French and Spanish, how come you're working in an IT company in sales, and I’d say but you know what it’s not that different because what I’m doing is I’m taking something that the customer has, an issue, or some knowledge about their business and I’m translating that, and also taking what IBM has, and pulling the two together, I’m translating from what the customer needs into what IBM could offer and that was all about communication, that was the primary skill, it was all about communication and I really really enjoyed that.

[0:06:16] ANDREW: And this is the, I think, some people think that working for somebody else is not the right solution, most people should be out there doing their own thing, some entrepreneurs are very like that, you know I came from a corporate background, we met at IBM and I had great times in my corporate life, not always but at times, and I think for me it was, when I went off to do my own thing it was for a reason, there’s a catalyst for change, and I think the workplace has changed as well, when I started at IBM I got zero training you know the training was dried up by then, I was only there for a short period of time, but for you, you were there for a long period of time, you probably settled in you didn’t know anything else, so what was the catalyst for changing for you?

[0:06:59] CAROL:  It was interesting because I was enjoying what I was doing, by this stage, by the end, when I say 30 years in IBM in fact the last 3 years IBM sold the division that I was running and we were part of Toshiba, but very much still the same people and the same culture, and I was leading a business that manufactured and sold point of sale hardware products and I did enjoy that….

[0:07:25] ANDREW:  Give me some examples of what that is?

[0:07:27] CAROL:  So that's essentially electronic cash registers, to put it in very simple terms it's the machines that you go through at the checkout in Woolworths or Coles and all the stuff around them, the software and the maintenance to support them, and the services, so a large and interesting business and I ran that for Australia and New Zealand and I enjoyed many many aspects of it.  I’d say there were several catalysts to me moving.  The first was the sale of the business to another company and whilst we were initially given a lot of autonomy, we were set up pretty much an autonomous business under that umbrella, we the leadership of the new owners became more and more and more involved so I felt that I still had all the responsibility but I had less and less authority and control to run things that I felt I knew the Australian and New Zealand territory well and I felt that I knew how I wanted to run that.  So that was the first thing.  The second thing was that my family was getting older, I have two children and I had to travel a lot with the job as you can imagine covering the whole of Australia and New Zealand plus international travel, I was away an awful lot, and the thing they never tell you when you become a parent is that actually your children need you more as teenagers…

[0:09:04] ANDREW: Yeah, I’ve heard this from a lot of people…

[0:09:04] CAROL: So how old are yours now?

[0:09:06] ANDREW: They’re 12 and 7…

[0:09:06] CAROL: Yeah, you’re nearly there…

[0:09:09] ANDREW: I think I’m in the easy period now…

[0:09:13] CAROL:  ...we had had help at home when the kids were younger and I was away a lot and I just suddenly realised they need you more, and the problems aren't ones you can just put a bandaid on, they are problems that need to be talked about and also as they get older you think I haven’t got long left with them living at home and actually wanting to be with me, so that was the second catalyst, and the third was much more practical it was financial, there was a restructure, there was an opportunity to leave with a payout.  The new company we had a three year transition where we were still on IBM terms and conditions and as you know IBM conditions were quite generous in terms of payouts, and I left two months before the IBM terms and conditions reverted to those of the new ownership which were going to be less generous and I just thought after thirty years this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to ...there were the other catalysts and then that one made it a decision I couldn’t refuse.

[0:10:24] ANDREW: Makes it a simple decision really…

[0:10:24] CAROL: It actually made it a fairly simple decision….

[0:10:27] ANDREW: I get that a lot from our clients is that, when the values start to be eroded, so family values or other things in your life, your personal life, that makes work more challenging and then you’ve got business challenges on top, people who have the propensity to leave, but they don’t leave because it's hard to make that transition unless someone calls them for a new job or they have an opportunity to exit with some money which makes the landing softer when you get out…

[0:10:57] CAROL: So yeah, those were the three catalysts I guess for me…

[0:11:01] ANDREW: You must have been fearful I mean thirty years in the same company it must have been a big decision?

[0:11:04] CAROL: Yes, it's interesting, thirty years in the same company however part of the interest in working for a very large corporate like that is that you do do lots of different things so I didn’t feel like...I hadn’t been thirty years in the same job I had been in IBM UK, IBM Australia, back to IBM UK , back to IBM Australia, probably changed jobs every three or four years...two to four years, but even so yes I remember having a discussion with my husband saying I don’t know if I’ll know who I am if I leave…

[0:11:38] ANDREW: Yeah that identity….

[0:11:39] CAROL: It was so much a part of my identity and as you know picking up the phone to a potential new client or someone and  having that name behind you of a major blue chip corporate is very empowering, people generally take your call and is was that if I’m not that person who am I business wise who am I so yes there was a lot of fear…

[0:12:03] ANDREW: But not even just business wise, you go to a BBQ the next morning and they go oh what do you do and you're like, nothing, I used to work for IBM...

[0:12:13] CAROL: I used to work for IBM exactly right, so yes it was scary…

[0:12:15] ANDREW: And so you jumped out, you get the money, you had the nice exit and you probably took some time off I’d imaging to think about what you wanted to do so how did you start on the path to figure it out, because I think a lot of people who leave a corporate situation particularly after a while or even if they have been in many corporate but the same kind of role if they are going to go and do something different, even if it’s working for someone else but a different type of position or a different industry, it's a transition so how do you figure out, or how did you figure out what to do next?

[0:12:50] CAROL: Yeah look I had no idea when I left and the first thing I did was take two months, two months off.

[0:12:55] ANDREW: You’ve earned that after thirty 30 years.

[0:12:56] CAROL: I’ve earned that after thirty 30 years that's right so I went overseas for four weeks to see my family and then I came back and had a bit of a think about it and I assumed I’d get another ...I’d just go..I’d get another job and I had sort of thought well maybe it would be nice to be in a smaller company this time I didn’t want to work for another big IT company because I thought I’ve worked for one of the biggest and the best, I don’t want to try and replicate that, and do you know...after thirty years you know your way around a company, it’s bit like being married to someone after a long time you know their quirks good and bad, you know the way things work, you know you way around and I just thought, to start again with a new company I just thought….

[0:13:41] ANDREW: I don’t want to get re-married...

[0:13:41] CAROL: That's right, you don’t want to get re-married you know so I really didn’t know what I wanted to do and that’s why I came and spoke to you initially, it wasn’t about what I wanted to do it was about just about what do I do with my LinkedIn profile because I hadn’t updated it because I didn’t want to say looking for work, and I didn’t know what to do so I came along to one of your talks about LinkedIn and I thought oh I must re-connect with Andrew because as you say we’d worked together at IBM and I thought I must re-connect with Andrew now that he’s become a personal branding specialist and ….so my initial thought was I’ll talk to Andrew about my LinkedIn profile while I’m still looking and how do I structure my LinkedIn profile so I can use it to help me find my next job in a company...

[0:14:32] ANDREW: Whatever it is...

[0:14:32] CAROL: And then you said let's go through the process of just thinking a little bit about what it is you want to do and what sort of job you want to be able to find because that will then affect how we structure your profile and we went through that process and it was like a light bulb moment when you said to me looking at all the answers you have given me to these questions you said do you actually want to work for a company or ...I’m getting the feeling you might like to work for yourself and it was a light bulb moment and I have found that I’ve had that before in the past where you actually it's only when someone else verbalises it that you suddenly realise that oh my god that's what I want.  And I remember when I went into sales in IBM I was in marketing and I was with the whole sales team and they needed a new sales rep and my boss said to me I think you should be the new sales rep and I said sales, oh no, you know, sales is a bit scary you know, with commission ...and then I thought oh my god yeah that's what I want to do and it was just like that I thought, yes I want to work for myself.

[0:15:44] ANDREW: I think thats when people, thats why people have coaches and that's why people see other people you know consultants or psychologists or whoever to get an outside opinion because you’re often too close to it and you can’t see how the dots connect logically but other people can so...

[0:16:00] CAROL: Absolutely and the irony is that's one of things I help clients do now, they know their business really really well but they have difficulty communicating that, in the way that the market needs to hear it so yeah absolutely, I’m a firm believer that other people can sometimes see things that you can't see so then of course it was what are you going to do if you have your own business and when I left my job my team to work were absolutely fantastic and when I left one of them said to me, and I’m still in touch with all of them,  one of them said to me he said oh he said Carol when you're gone, he said, how are we going to manage with proposals, he said, because we actually worked really well together the sales reps and my technical guru, they would write the sort of the answers to the questions in the proposal and then I would executive summary that sort of pulled all the arguments together and articulated our value proposition and he said to me what are we going to do, he said you’re so good at writing those executive summary and the value proposition, I thought oh year I am actually, yeah I think I am, I wonder if anyone would pay me to help them do that and it started off as, my idea was to do proposals but then of course I realised that people don't have proposals to do every day, they only have a proposal when they have a proposal to write, so I expanded it into other forms of articulating a value proposition.  But the really interesting thing is, yes I knew that I was good at that, and I had been to a talk, I think it was one with you actually, where somebody had said, if you are finding it difficult to find what you are really passionate about, think about what you enjoyed when you were twelve.  It’s a quote from a business coach who’s name I forget at the moment, an American lady, anyway, and I thought, when I was twelve I studied languages and I loved the idea that person A couldn't talk to person B unless they had somebody who spoke both their languages. A is French, B is English, oh I speak French, I can help that person speak to that person, or I can talk to both of them and that idea of translation and communication and that's what I do. That's what I do I translate from internal language to customer language and I help people do that.

[0:18:40] ANDREW: Do you articulate that to your clients like that?

[0:18:43] CAROL: Sometimes yes...

[0:18:45] ANDREW: And do they really get it?

[0:18:46] CAROL: Yes they do, and in fact I do my own presentation and it starts with me...the very first words out of my mouth are French, I stand up and I say to them do your clients understand what you do, do they hear you, do they understand you, do they take action, and I say that to them in French, and then I say, I bet you didn't understand a word I said, that’s because I was speaking one language, and of course you always have a few people in the audience who speak French and ...oh oui, oui, you know but yes I do use that analogy with clients...

[0:19:19] ANDREW: I love that, I love that...I love the fact that you went back to the childhood to find the passion, because I know when you go into corporates you do what they tell you to do, and hopefully it hits on some points of your passion but the benefit I say with people with starting your own business is that you get to design your business around you what you really like to do and make a love list and a hate list and outsource the hate list and do more of the love list right, so now that you’ve been doing it for a while, what are the learnings and the things that you would like to say to the Caral of two years ago when you first started, what are the things that moved the needle for you, was it doing a web site or getting a coach or getting your first sell or getting your first customer, what were the things that really made the difference to get your business successful?

[0:20:08] CAROL: I think one of the big things was actually doing your course Andrew, the launch in 12 weeks and you said to us that the aim was after 12 weeks we would sign our first customer and I signed my first customer 3 days after finishing the course.  The thing about that was it gave me a structure because it’s not so much teaching you about things you don’t know, although there was quite a bit I didn’t know,  but it was giving you a structure and an a accountability that said right this week we are going to do this and next week we are going to do that so you need to prepare x y and z, and the people I met on the course and understanding different approaches to a business but I think that really really helped.

[0:20:51] ANDREW: So structure and accountability, because you know I work with Dent and obviously Social Star, and it’s not an add for those things but I think that those two elements are really important, so the structure in terms of why am I doing something, what am I doing, and how do I do it, if you know those things you can do it.

[0:21:08] CAROL: That’s right, and the hardest part of the course and I remember discussing this with you at the time I think it was about week 2 of the 12 and I think we spent the first 4 weeks on why am I doing what I'm doing, and what exactly am I doing and who am I doing it for and I wasn’t clear about that in my head and by the second week I thought I’m going to have to give this course up and come back to it later and I’m so glad I didn't because the structure and accountability forced me to think about those things and to get them, they might not have been 100 percent at the time of course it evolves but it got me 80 or 90 percent of the way there, enough to be able to then move onto the next stage which was about building your web site articulating my value proposition and then building contacts and finding clients so yes, the structure and accountability especially around the why, was super super important.

[0:22:07] ANDREW: And I think that’s the thing if you get that, like in the course we talk about setting intentions, so not necessarily goals, you know, I want to make 100 grand in the first year, by this date but it's a very specific goal but more intention of this is kind of what I want to do, this is how I want my business to be and what it represents and it vague but its more ...it's something more long term because it's not a oh I haven’t hit it by the date I feel disappointed it's more of a overarching theme of where I want to get to in my business and kind of my life in a way so I like that approach because once you get that you’ve got something to aim for, you know I want to be a successful singer not I want to win The Voice this year, because if you don’t get in it’s all over right, you want to have something that is more longer term because you’ve got to persist and the thing is...you know when you tell that story I remember that time and I think that a lot of people who don’t persist, never break through, because they are probably looking for perfection or they are looking for the ultimate outcome not progressing on the journey because the first time you sell something, that’s not going to be the product that you sell 2 years later but you have to go through that and you have to get to the first customer to get to the fifth, to the tenth, and at one hundred you would probably have a better idea but businesses are always evolving but you just have to start ...

[0:23:30] CAROL: That;s exactly right and look some of my offerings are productised now they certainly weren’t on day one and other things are sort of still evolving but that’s half the fun of it the products are whatever I want them to be and whatever I need them to be and whatever my clients...

[0:23:50] ANDREW: Want you to do...I saw a client previous to this podcast and I was saying to him that the product you start with is not the product you end with and if a customer asks you to do something in the realm of your skill set the answer is always yes at the start.

[0:24:05] CAROL: Absolutely, yes, yes...

[0:24:06] ANDREW: Because you go , yeah you got money? Because if you start working on stuff you go, you might get to the end of the project and say actually that actually isn’t what I want to do but then you know.

[0:24:16] CAROL: Exactly right...

[0:24:16] ANDREW: And then you can figure out more what you really want to do because it's a process to get there.

[0:24:21] CAROL: I’ve got one of those at the moment, somebody has approached me about a piece of work that's not necessarily what I saw myself doing but it fits in with the skill set and it fits in with what I do, there’s an overlap, so I’ve said let’s explore it further...

[0:24:36] ANDREW: Let’s explore it exactly...

[0:24:38] CAROL: Nothing to lose...

[0:24:38] ANDREW: Nothing to lose correct and because I mostly work with service professionals and so it's a bit more flexible but even products, if you go to a big product manufacturer and say I want 100,000 units of that, it's a special run, if it's big enough they’ll do it...because its business right, we are here to service a client need and if we can make a profit doing it, great, so i guess start with the end in mind but realise we are not at the end, we are at the start.

[0:25:03] CAROL: Yes, exactly right...

[0:25:04] ANDREW: And you’ve just got to take action and the action is the part that will break through those barriers not the thinking about it.

[0:25:14] CAROL: So yeah look doing that course was a big help for me, the other thing I think was, or another thing, was, I would say once of the most valuable things I left my corporate life with was my network and even now, 2 years later most of my clients, a majority of my clients, are people I already knew. So I left my corporate job with a good reputation some good relationships and although I am doing something that is quite different to what I was doing, I think that your professionalism and your integrity hold, nobody has ever said well are you any good at this, they’ve sort of said Carol tell me about what you do now or I’ve actually called them and said can I tell you about what I do now? And they have never sort of said what gives you the qualifications to do that, they trust me, and that network has been invaluable because they them of course recommend you to others that was absolutely invaluable as well...

[0:26:26] ANDREW: It’s actually a really interesting point that I think about a lot, I think about branding a lot obviously that's my trade but people think that their brand and credibility is based on the proof of what they do and case studies and those things are important and qualifications can be useful and so forth, but you hit upon the real brand essence which is do you persist, are you relatable, can I work with you, that's the reputational things are you capable, if you’ve been capable at one thing likely you're going to be capable at another thing. It’s just a new set of skills, it's a new output, so it people resonate with you as a brand what ever product you're selling they are likely to be interested in talking about right?

[0:27:08] CAROL: Yes.

[0:27:08] ANDREW: So that’s really the essence of brand, it's not...you know I do the digital part, how you look and fell on line so people can find you and examine what you do, but that's all based on what you are in real life.

[0:27:21] CAROL: Yes of course...

[0:27:21] ANDREW: It’s a reflection...you can’t pretend to be credible on line if you're not credible off line, so people forget that part of it.  So, you’ve done that for a couple of years and let’s get to the business where it is today, so we don’t want to go into details of your finance but you're making money, things are going well tell me a bit more about how the business is today...

[0:27:44] CAROL: Yeah, the business is going well, financially I’m no worse off, I’m making about the same as I was as my base salary in corporate, and there was some years where that’s all you get, oh not much more, so financially things are ahead of where...I set myself some goals and they are ahead of those goals ...

[0:28:09] ANDREW: Congratulations to you...

[0:28:10] CAROL: Thank you very much, so that’s going well, I’m getting referrals, I don’t advertise in the sense of paid advertising...

[0:28:19] ANDREW: Paid marketing...

[0:28:19] CAROL: Yep, I’m a big believer in social media and sharing your knowledge and IP and in fact only last week I had somebody call me somebody completely outside of my network, call me purely on the strength of a LinkedIn article that I published and he called me, we met, and I provided a proposal so...

[0:28:43] ANDREW: Content marketing...

[0:28:43] CAROL: Content marketing absolutely, as you would expect from somebody who is all about content, so financially things are going ok, I’m getting referrals, I’ve got business coming to me, now I’m not complacent, I still network...

[0:28:59] ANDREW: It’s not a passive sport...

[0:29:00] CAROL: It’s not a passive sport absolutely, I’ve just joined a new networking group, and I make sure I keep in touch with people but it’s going really well, I mean I’ve got longer term intentions and I can certainly … I haven’t got the detailed steps for all of them, you know for the longer term stuff yet but I can see that they could potentially be achievable yes.  And I’m enjoying it, I’m loving it!

[0:29:26] ANDREW: Isn’t that the point right, because that was the next question is how is it working with your family that you had the challenge with, how much time are you spending, are you spending as much time as you were to produce those same results you had in corporate?

[0:29:40] CAROL: You know, it's probably one of those things I need to do better is track my time, because I’m based at home, I still go out and see clients face to face, I think I’d go stir crazy if I didn't so I see clients but I’m not commuting everyday, I’m not travelling, I was away probably 2 or 3 nights a fortnight, I do make the odd trip to Sydney but it’s on my terms, so I’m at home...even if I’m working I’m at home when the kids get home from school, but I might work on a Saturday or Sunday because I want to or because I enjoy it or because I’ve got something to finish off and I can then bill a client you know, so it’s hard to know how many hours I work a week because they’re spread out differently.  But I think it’s probably fewer...for money that is not that different.

[0:30:33] ANDREW: Yeah, but you seem to be more relaxed about it in terms of...the thing that I tell people is ...you know people say that time is their most precious resource and I don’t kind of believe that because everyone has the same amount of time so you know, Nelson Mandela had lots of time he was just in prison, so to me it’s the ability to use that time in the way you wish, so if you choose to go and spend time with your family because it’s dinner time and you want to be home with them between I don’t know 5 and 7 o’clock, and then work later then you can do that because it’s your own business, you can work Sunday night because you want to get something out and then take Friday off.  It’s the freedom to do...and it's also the freedom to spend time with who you like. So if you’re doing the jobs you like to do with the people you like, when you like to do it, that’s kind of success in my book.

[0:31:20] CAROL: And look, when I travelled a lot I didn't get to exercise as much as I would like to, I go to the gym every morning now, or walk the dog or go for a run you know, because I’m there and I’m based at home so yeah look I’ve got a lot more freedom, I’ve got a lot more flexibility, being based at home gives you flexibility, and I think my husband and children will probably say I’m less stressed, hopefully nicer to be around, you now it’s interesting, I’ve learnt, I’ve had something confirmed to me that I believe I always knew about sales, and that’s that clients will buy when they need what you’ve got, sounds pretty basic doesn’t it, and yet in corporate life as you know Andrew, it's all monthly targets, quarterly targets, committing to a deal and then, you know, have got to bring that deal in this quarter or this month or this week or this day and that caused us in corporate to perform some pretty unnatural acts in terms of reducing prices or asking clients to take something they weren't ready to take all because of those quarterly and monthly targets.  In the end if clients understand what you do, and they want what you offer they will buy it when they are ready and I’ve had a couple of examples where I’ve gone to see somebody and they’ve gone, yep great understand that but we don’t need it at the moment.  In one case a year later that managing director of the client rang me and then, they’re now a client I’m actively working with them and only yesterday I had a call from an opportunity I thought was probably dead, I’d been speaking with this company and then they had sort of put it off and put it off, and then yesterday I get an email saying we’d like to go ahead now, so it just...I love the fact that I’m not having to do things that I know aren't the right way to deal with clients.

[0:33:20] ANDREW: Yeah, think it’s called integrity...

[0:33:21] CAROL: Absolutely it’s called integrity and I love that in the end when my clients choose to work with me it's because they want what I offer and the time is right for them...

[0:33:36] ANDREW: And they’re probably not like crunching you for a discount...

[0:33:39] CAROL: No I’ve never given a discount...

[0:33:40] ANDREW: Because you don’t have to because you are offering fair value and its just when they’ve got the problem they need a solution and if you position yourself well they’ll come to you.  It reminds me actually of children, talk about children because it’s high on my values but I remember reading when I was  a first time parent that kids need to eat a variety of foods and if they’re not eating vegetables and all that sort of stuff when they are young you’ve got to make them, and so when my first son Hudson was, I remember he was only about 2, and he’s in the high chair and I’ve got to feed him these vegetables because it’s important and da-da-da, and so I tried to force feed it to him. Literally, shove it in his mouth, and I felt terrible but that’s what they are telling me to do ...train him well da-da-da and he just spat it out and sat there for an hour and it was….by the end of it he was crying and I was frustrated and it’s like, no good result.  And over time, I’ve got 2 kids now, and over time I’ve realised when they’re hungry they eat, when they’re not hungry they don’t eat, and if I encourage them along the process they’ll eat all those things.  Hudson now is 12 but he will eat those vegetables, he will do those things, because it’s just part of the process right, so I think that’s the analogue of customers is don’t try and force the broccoli in their mouth because the customer is just going to spit it out and not enjoy the experience...

[0:35:02] CAROL: And you and I have both been there and seen that first hand and had to be part of that and I love the fact that I am free of that and I love the fact that if I say to a client that something will be done, by a certain date or done in a certain way, short of me getting knocked over by a bus, it will be done, where again in corporate life one of the frustrations I had was that you could make a statement or a commitment to a client and then the corporation would decommit on me and my integrity and my reputation was undermined and I love the fact now that my reputation is solely in my hands because in the end that’s all you’ve got your reputation and your integrity and your IP, the product is what I want it to be and if I say it’s going to be done then it’s going to be done.

[0:35:56] ANDREW: I love that. So there’s things you probably miss about corporate as well, because corporate has some ...or a job or working for somebody else, so is there any of those things that you think back...

[0:36:07] CAROL: I thought the other day yes, I’ll tell you what I miss, my Qantas frequent flyer has gone down from platinum to silver and probably won’t stay silver very long and when I go up to Sydney later this week I’m flying Tiger because it’s all my own money.

[0:36:20] ANDREW: I hear you….

[0:36:21] CAROL: I miss that...

[0:36:24] ANDREW: I walk past the Qantas club and I’m like hi guys

[0:36:26] CAROL: Yeah so that, I miss ...I don’t miss the travel but I do miss the perks of when you do travel of being able to jump the queues and...not that we got to fly business club but at least you got the points.

[0:36:41] ANDREW: What about being around other people….being part of a big machine...

[0:36:45] CAROL: Do you know one of the things I was most worried about along with how will I know who I am was I had all these relationships with my network that were business and friendship it was a great network and I was really worried about what my husband described as not being part of the tribe, but actually I still see a lot of those people, some of them are my clients or we still network so I think I’ve got the balance about right between seeing people you know being based at home, which is great, and getting out and seeing people so no I don’t miss that, I thought I would but I don’t really miss that because I do go and see...even things I could do on the phone sometimes I actually go and do them face to face because I can just because...

[0:37:32] ANDREW: Choice...

[0:37:33] CAROL: Yeah, choice...is there anything else, not a great deal to be honest.  Isn’t that sad my Qantas points are the thing I suppose, no look I miss my team that I had in my last job that I had in my last job were awesome but do you know most of them are based in Melbourne and we have a coffee and that’s great because I can go and have a coffee with them as a friend, not as a boss so no, not a great deal...

[0:37:56] ANDREW: So after all that you have been through now, become your own boss, if you had to give one piece of advice to someone who is sitting in corporate now, who have been there for 20 years 30 years, and they are thinking it’s grating on my values, I’m thinking about making a change but it’s scary, what would be your parting advice to them before they jump ship, or make the decision to jump ship.

[0:38:21] CAROL: Oh gosh I would probably say, going back to what we were talking about earlier that sometimes somebody else can be a bit more objective so I found it very valuable, I mean, I jumped before I did this, I would say take some guidance from a coach or whoever and use somebody else's insights to learn about yourself because you often can’t see it yourself.  And actually if I may make that two pieces of advice, so one is to use somebody external and the other is really nurture that network and don’t be afraid to then, whatever you do in your next step whether that is another corporate whether that's another small company whether that's working for yourself, don’t be afraid to keep in touch with those people and you still have the relationship it’s just a changed relationship.  I found the network to be very important, not only as a source of business but actually just a source of still feeling connected and ...part of the tribe.

[0:39:31] ANDREW: Carol, congratulations on your success and your advice and we’ll put all your details in the show notes if people want to talk to you about your business proposals and so forth and if anyone wants to connect with you what’s the best way to do that?

[0:39:45] CAROL: Probably the best way is either through LinkedIn, Carol Benton, or through my website words to win, words, number two, win.

[0:39:56] ANDREW: Thank you Carol.

[0:39:57] CAROL: Thank you.

[0:39:57] ANDREW: Ok, bye bye.

Why teach? The three things I learnt from my students this semester

Each Wednesday night this year I rushed off after work to teach a room full of uni students whose main ambition was not to do an exam and finish their degree with as little effort as possible. Little did they know that my mission was to be an intervention to their status quo and shock them into the reality of life outside of the protective University walls!

It's not easy to do this extra gig, but I fully believe it's worthwhile. I sure don't shlep myself to the outer suburbs and back again at night, when I could be finishing work, going to the gym or god forbid having a drink with friends for nothing. I definitely get something out of it (...and it's sure not for the pay...), so what's the juice?

Many people consider doing some part-time lecturing so before you sign up have a read of my insights into the three main benefits of teaching.

1) Great Contacts

Teaching at University has been a passion of mine since I finished my Masters of Entrepreneurship at Swinburne way back in 2010. I was invited to teach in the Masters of Marketing program to add a dose of reality to the student's theory as I was running all sorts of cool marketing programs at Sensis. Check out the Paint Party story!

One of the benefits was that's where I met Lynn, my partner at Social Star, and one of my closest friend which was a great bonus! We kept in touch for many years after uni as friends and 2014 she joined the company and has been our greatest asset for the last four years.

I have also picked up many clients from mature age students and their referrals.

2) It helps your Career

I believe teaching, like most careers, is a calling. You either love it or hate it. I love it. I think it's the chance to influence someone's life for the better that gives me the buzz or perhaps it's just my ego inflation from standing at the front of the room :) Either way, I enjoy the experience so take the opportunity when I have time.

This year I was invited to co-teach a very cool subject called Career Dynamics at Monash Caulfield. It's the first subject I have heard of that is an elective for the entire school and fully focussed on getting students a job when they graduate. Of course, I encouraged them to #BYOB but that's another story!

The benefit for my company is I got to test out my personal branding strategies on a group of students to see if I could engage them. Much harder than my usual clients who seek me out - great learning! Now I am applying some new techniques to make branding even easier for our clients at Social Star.

3) It Builds Your Character

Each week when I get off the train from teaching uni at Monash Caulfield, I am confronted by the frustrating sound of chillout music, sights of people drinking cold beers and smells of freshly cooked burgers and fries. Damn you, whoever put a bar along the fenceline of that platform 10!

When the weather is fine, of course, I would rather be having a few beers with mates, but I chose to help others instead because I fully believe that doing something for others, above your own needs, builds character. This isn't something business people discuss as much these days, but if you look to the leadership of the last century where your word was your credibility, you gave back because it was the right thing to do and you stood up for what was right - I feel a lack of charcter in many of our leaders.

Teaching this group of students isn't going to change the world, but if I change one of their worlds then it's all worthwhile. Just maybe I will make up for all the bad stuff I have done!

Hope you enjoyed the blog,

Andrew

P.S. If you haven't checked out my new podcast have a listen to my personal journey here.

#BYOB EPISODE 001 - ANDREW FORD'S STORY INTERVIEWED BY BELINDA COOMES

Welcome to my new podcast!

For those who prefer to read, here is the transcript...

[0:01:53] ANDREW:  Today we're going to do something a little bit different.  I've got Belinda Coomes my esteemed podcast engineer and fabulous person who is actually going to interview me, so this is going to be the first episode we want to record and it's just so the listeners out there can be understanding of my background and why I do what I do a Social Star, and how we want to run these interviews in the future to really unpack people's business journey and to see, you know, what tips and tricks we can uncover that can help you in your journey. So Belinda...

[0:02:27] BELINDA: Yes...thank you...

[0:02:28] ANDREW: Welcome to your show now...

[0:02:31] BELINDA: Yeah, no I thought it would be a great idea to get to the core of you and to have somebody interview you so that we can we can really understand your journey and how you've got to where you've got some rather than just you talking yourself. I think it's good to get someone else to get in there and pry open some things.

[0:02:49] ANDREW: Absolutely, it’s interesting because I’ve been on lot’s of other people's podcasts and often they’re fairly business-y so we talk about personal branding and I give lots of advice on digital marketing from my background but it's not often that we go into the real experience of entrepreneurship which we’ve touched on it in a couple of my other podcasts but that’s something that I think is really important and before the show we were talking about that, that is how important is the personal journey, because business is relatively mechanical, you know you sell sell stuff you make you keep your customers happy, but it's all the stuff in between your ears that causes all the problems,

[0:03:28] BELINDA: That’s right, your the problem...

[0:03:29] ANDREW:  You're the problem, and you're also the solution

[0:03:32] BELINDA: That’s right...oh good...

[0:03:33] ANDREW:  And so I'm looking forward to you asking me some pointed questions and not letting me off the hook, so let’s dive into it.

[0:03:39] BELINDA: I’m looking forward to picking your brain.  Well firstly just to get an idea of your current business and what your products are, tell us a little bit about Social Star.

[0:03:49] ANDREW: Yeah sure. So Social Star is a personal branding agency I started it part time for a couple of years while I was working in corporate marketing, and then decided to take it full time when I basically told my boss to get stuffed and suddenly was out of a job, and for 4 years now I’ve been running it with my small team and it’s been growing ever since.  We’ve had our ups and we’ve had our downs but we’ve, it’s been a very rewarding journey.  What we do essentially is help business leaders to increase their digital profile in order to attract new opportunities but also to scoop up all those referrals that they should be getting if they are good at what they do.  So the people we like to work with are people who are already good at what they do, they’ve already got a mountain of knowledge, they’ve been around in business for a while, but they probably just don’t have the digital presence that they should.  So people don’t know what their expertise is or even if the client knows it they haven’t been able to clearly articulate it so that the people who are reading their profile will go oh I get exactly what you do.  And it’s just because they are busy doing their business and they just haven’t, you know, all the time I see that they might have a little bit on LinkedIn but you know facebook’s a mess and twitter’s expired and on the web site the bio doesn’t match and there’s all these issues, and really what it does is is fractures their brand just like if Apple in America decide to come out to Australia and call them self oranges and then, you know, in Canada it’s called bananas and suddenly we don’t know what we’re talking about.  So really it’s about cleaning up your online profile but really what I like to do is to dig a bit deeper into people and to figure out really what do they want to do, what is the things that will resonate most with them, what is the things that they always dreamed about and how do we get more of that juice into their business so that they get the fulfillment because money’s great and I teach people how to make money through sales, you know, we have a great program for that but unless you're getting sales and unless you're doing delivery unless you're really heading your business in the direction that you want it to be in, that’s fulfilling at a deep level, it’s often pointless.  So we go a bit deeper than the average agency.   

[0:05:54] BELINDA: So can you tell us a little bit about the journey to get to this point to start your own business, what were you doing before and a bit about your corporate life.

[0:06:01] ANDREW: Sure, well I was born in 1970, let’s just call it 1970 something, and ahh...yeah so...look I grew up in Melbourne and, you know, did the normal schooling things, I’ve got this presentation that I give where I talk about the, sort of the, different parts of my life, so before corporate is relevant. So my Mum's a bit of a hippie, you know, if she was on Brunswick street today everyone would think she was the coolest Mum in the world, she’s a Yoga teacher, she was Vegan for a long time, we made our own food at home, growing vegetables and so forth, so you know we grew up in this quite personal development rich, very freedom hippy household.  Which all looks beautiful and wonderful from the outside but it also meant there was...well the balance of that was there wasn’t any structure or you know, people doing homework or you know...

[0:06:48] BELINDA: Only do it if you feel like doing homework...

[0:06:49] ANDREW: Yeah, you know, there wasn’t necessarily any clothes to wear in the morning or you know, those little things that you know...

[0:06:55] BELINDA: Minor details….

[0:06:56] ANDREW: The details yeah, she wasn’t detail oriented.  But because I did all of that personal development, you know, I had this quite different outlook that other kids when I was young, and then I kept all that until I was about...in my 20’s and then I just kind of rejected it all...I don’t want to be this little buddha as people used to call me, because when I grew up I had quite chubby cheeks, and women used to grab my cheeks.  And I thought oh Mum I just want to eat white bread and you know go after money and you know go to nightclubs and get drunk and chase womens and so I did that for a bunch of time, ended up getting married and just followed the corporate route, and not that it was a bad thing it was just the opposite balance, it was the counted point, you know, this happens in the world all the time, you know, people go from extremely unhealthy to extremely healthy, or from no education to extremely educated, we have these flips in our lives, so I had a flip from being kind of spiritual and holistic to being materialistic and single minded and that was good, it was very productive I did a bunch of degrees I did a bachelor of Marketing I did a started an MBA and transferred that in a Masters Entrepreneurship, I did a whole bunch of corporate work which was great, travelled the world, made a bunch of money and you know, bought property, did all those sorts of things.  But then I realised that I wasn’t very happy, which is where most people get to at a certain point in your life, you know they’re called the mid life crisis for a reason right, and we all deserve to have one of them, unfortunately I didn’t get a nice porsche or a mustang out of it, I only got a divorce and some bills to pay.  But  I went through that process and it was very cathartic and just realised that materialism it just isn't what satisfies me.  Just doesn’t turn me on, just doesn't light me up, and went back to basics and realised that I didn’t want to be a hippy and I didn't want to be a corporate junky either I wanted something in the middle.  So actually that's what I feel like I bring, I bring an element of spirituality, personal development, you know, Simon Sinek find your why type to my business, but also practical digital marketing, corporate branding methodology in degrees, in order to have that balance. So I can figure out, you know, I can help people figure out what they want to do and I can actually help them build it.  So, you know, I think that balance is, well it’s what’s probably fulfilled me in my life now, but it’s also what helps my clients and why we're different to most.  

[0:09:21] BELINDA: So can you describe what life was like in your previous corporate roles before starting your business?

[0:09:26] ANDREW: Yeah sure, so I was quite fortunate in that, you know, I’ve had a very I would say, successful corporate career in that I went from my family business, tiny business, 14 people, selling office products, and then my first job out of that I saw a, I remember it clearly, I decided that I needed a break, career break, so I went of skiing for year, or a season in Canada, came back and decided that that was it I needed to leave the family business, that they were never going to hand it over to me and I needed to spread my wings, and just saw a tiny ad in the newspaper, I was sitting in Carlton gardens, I remember it well, and there was this tiny little add saying, you know, sales person required, and I thought...didn’t even know the company, went along to the agency, ended up being at Hewlett Packard, got the job within 2 weeks and I was sitting in a 2,000 person office, you know, my boss was in Sydney and my life was about to change, I’d never used email before then.  I didn’t tell them that and just found my self, the practicalness of my upbringing in small business really aided in my getting stuff done.  So you know I was known in the corporate world for producing results, working hard, not afraid to do the hard yards and the dirty work in order to achieve the result.  And I was quite determined and disciplined.  And so I went, 8 years at Hewlett Packard, I went from selling office products into being an Asia Pacific manager running, training, marketing training for all of Asia.  And then decided to stop travelling so much, had a young family, went to work at Sensis, a part of Telstra, again applied for the add, they already had people shortlisted.  I went right in with in a week I had the job so I was quite fortunate, and it’s interesting to me and this is what I tell my clients is that it’s not just random facts, you know, I was ready for my next step in my career, when I saw this little add it jumped out of this newspaper, the old Age, the big spread, out of the other adds, it's’ kind of meant to be, I felt like it was meant to be when I went through the interviews, it was easy, I just felt like I was going to get the job.  It just all happened smoothly.  And the jobs were great, I  had some jobs I didn't like but I quickly moved, but most of the time it was great.  And the same thing when I moved to Sensis it just seemed like the right time, it felt like the right role, I went in there, you know, it was a great working environment, I really enjoyed the team, had a really successful career for 5 years, we did every digital, new digital thing under the sun coz it was the, we were flipping Sensis from Yellow pages to digital, and so we just got all this money to experiment with cool digital stuff.  We had our own agency internal, to represent NRL, AFL and Telstra websites, we were selling page take overs and things, we were doing mobile phone marketing before anybody else.  We did cool stuff, we ran parties to try and get to GenX, we just had an awesome time, and it was at that time that LinkedIn and Facebook just started.  So we were doing campaigns in MySpace days, that's how early adopters we were, and so I got on LinkedIn 10 years ago, Twitter 10 years ago and build up a big following, 100,000 followers on Twitter and built my expertise in digital.  Now you’ve got to remember that back then there was only Marketing managers, there was no digital marketing managers, there was no digital.  Web sites were fairly new, they were commonplace but people were still doubting it and they were like what is this social media thing it’s a fad, it will go away, and we really gravitated and jumped on it and because of that I kind of got known as being this digital guy, I was the digital guy, in fact before I left to go to IBM they were going to make me the first digital marketing manager that I’d ever heard of at Telstra, that was part of the opportunity there but I’d sort of done my time and I wanted to have a change, but the thing is because I’d built my brand and around a niche that was in demand at the time, people sort me out so IBM kept...was chasing me for years and I finally decided that, you know, I;d done my time at Sensis, wanted to move, and interestingly enough that’s because my boss moved and it’s funny when your team changes it really impacts how things change, we had a reorg and I was like oh it’s not quite as fun anymore and I’m ready to go, so anyway I went over to IBM and that was interesting, I’ll tell this story, it’s a bit personal but it’s kind of one of these things that happen and I don’t tell it often.  So the reason I went to IBM is one of my friends from Hewlett Packard days was there, a manager doing really well, on the escalation path to high management, and she’d just taken over a whole division, she was only young, but she was awesome, Charlette her name was, anyway so she kept trying to poach me and one day I’m having a wine on her couch and she’s like come on, it’s time to come over to join the dark side, and I’m like alright, what’s your offer and so we...I said she had to pay me lots of money so I got this nice offer, I’m like ok, so I left and I went over to IBM, now when we had that wine she had a cold, so she had the flu and so then when we were doing all the paperwork she was in bed and so someone else helped me to do the forms, by the time I got there she was actually in hospital and she was sick and by the time I was in my first week she actually passed away.  She had cancer, and so she wasn’t there, no one knew what I was supposed to be doing there and I had 16 bosses in the first 6 months, I kid you not, 16 bosses and...but I still managed to run my area and be quite productive but it was this amazing funk of wow, you know, you’ve gone to this place, my friend is not there anymore, she’s passed away, you know all the people around her were impacted and it’s just amazing how those sort of experiences just change everything for you...

[0:15:18] BELINDA: So was that really the catalyst of you questioning your meaning in the corporate world?

[0:15:25] ANDREW: It was, it was one of the things that made me think it could happen any time, she was younger than me, she was 5 years younger than me, and vivacious wonderful woman and gone.  I drive past her house all the time and still can’t believe it, in fact I see people in the street and think it’s her and then I remember that she’s not there it’s really quite scary, and so I spent another 6 months at IBM after all those bosses and I just was like, you know, it just felt tainted to me and another company came and approached me and again I was like, no I just got to IBM I’ve only been here a year it’s going to look bad on the resume you know, I was doing well.  I was doing well enough for people to want to promote me to an Asia Pacific manager and again, fly around Asia teaching about digital marketing, and then I had another half of the company want to fire me because I didn’t have that person who hired me to back me up because I was changing things, because I was brought in to make change, that’s what I do.  So I lasted a year and then I went over to a company called Interactive, which was an Australian IT company, and it was really interesting because I was like the flavour of the month for 6 months, they were struggling to move forward in their digital like IBM, and that’s why they poached me because they saw all the cool stuff I was doing over there, so I just started doing stuff, I was building things and you know, they didn't have a facebook page so I put it up in 2 days, I just did it, and that was great until the CEO kind of decided he wanted to have a bit more control over what I was doing. The company was amazingly successful, it had 20 years of solid growth and then the 2nd quarter I was there they made their first loss ever, then the next quarter was a loss again and it was like, they had some challenges. Consequently they couldn’t afford to keep me so I had to leave there after an argument with the boss but during this time, for 18 months I was running Social Star.  I mean I did 15 years of business school while I was working and then I was teaching at University while I was working so running a consulting practice was just par for course.

[0:17:20] BELINDA: So it sounds like there’s a few things going on, it sounds like you started learning the skills that you needed Social Star in the roles that you had in the corporate world and so you had the confidence to then go on with Social Star.

[0:17:35] ANDREW: I’ve always been quite a confident guy, in terms of I back myself and I think it’s because we I was a kid I didn’t have a Dad and my Mum wasn’t around so I basically raised myself and became resilient and independent, which is obviously a good thing but it can also be a bad thing because you don’t rely on people and you don’t trust, so I always knew that if I threw myself into something I’d be ok.  I’d be able to do it so I would throw myself into studying, doing sports, doing business or whatever, new jobs, and I knew that I was good with people, I could form a team around me and people would like me and I would be able to, you know, I thought I was smart enough at that time to figure it out, and sometimes it didn’t work and I had to, but I was always able to transition out of that coz it was the wrong spot, the wrong time or what ever, but I’d already run my business for 18 months which gave me the confidence that there was demand, we generated $80 thousand in revenue in the 18 months, part-time, so I knew that I could sell this stuff.  I’d already had someone offer to buy the company before I even went full-time, so I;m like this stuffs hot and it was at the time, I mean, at the time personal branding was new, no one was doing it, so it was kind of the flavour of the month.  So I had confidence jumping out but the thing is going from a very high 200 income, dropping down to zero is quite a change...

[0:18:58] BELINDA: So how did you prepare for that financially?

[0:19:01] ANDREW: I didn’t prepare for that, that was the problem.  I had a fight with my boss and I was out and the next day I said I’m starting my business.

[0:19:02] BELINDA: Did you have savings aside or where did the confidence come from or, I suppose the question I’m eluding to is how did you know that everything was going to be ok?

[0:19:16] ANDREW: It’s an interesting question, I didn’t to be honest, I kind of felt like this is my chance to give it a go and let me give you some more context I guess, so when I was at Interactive I’d been separated, divorced for about a year, so we had the GFC we had to have which impacted me a lot because I had a lot of investments and then I got divorced, and during that process I was working on this high income and I’m quite a generous person so I said to the mother of my children here have all the money, I don’t need it I’ve got this job with all this income, and then I didn’t have my job and my income and I’m like, that was probably not the right decision at the time so I actually didn’t have anything.  I was as broke and broke could be, I was living hand to mouth like you wouldn’t believe and I don’t...it’s only probably now that my business is now a bit more successful that I can talk about it but it was tough, I mean every second day I wanted to quit and get a second job but I just had this absolute certainty, just like all those jobs I transitioned I just knew, I was in the middle of arguing with my boss when, you know, he was firing my and I was quitting at the same time and in my mind is oh here’s an opportunity to start my business and by the time I got to the car park the first person I ran was my ex-wife and said, this has happened, I’m going to start my business, she was actually amazingly supporting and it’s amazing your friends, you know I went out and told people what I was doing and friend Andrew McKinnon let me his office and had a couple interns that were working for me, Sasha and John,, and they came and helped and then I reached out to Dent because I was helping them with their business, getting people into their courses and I believe in what they did and I reached out to them and I did a promotion and that kickstarted….so you know, I kind of had been giving for years and now it was time for people to reward me by giving back.  

[0:21:06] BELINDA: So it sounded like you had a lot of support around you, family and friends and other co-workers were really supportive of this idea and encouraging you to do it, because I think that's a big part of making sure that you have support around you, for when times get tough yourself that other people help you keep going.

[0:21:25] ANDREW: It’s 100% true, because I felt certain that it was the right thing, it didn’t mean that I didn’t have hard times, but I just felt certain that I could get through those hard times, and the cycle of wanting to quit just gets less, doesn’t mean it’s still not there, it means that it’s just less often and that we’re more stable and more reliable and all for the last sort of 4 years, we’ve just sort of built systems and processes and products and digital stuff and built our business so that it’s more robust, and that’s what the process of entrepreneurship is, we’re not a build an App in 6 weeks and suddenly we’re making a billion dollars like Instagram but virtually no one is, most businesses are built over 5 to 10 years to realise any significant value and it’s a long game.  So I plan to be running this business for years to generate the full value because I’ve got big ambitious goals for it, and so the team around me, I guess the people around me, gave me the support where required, in the times I felt like giving up they were there, but it’s a dangerous thing to rely too much on those people and I say that like a boxer, so I’ve done martial arts and I’ve fought in the ring and those sorts of things, and when you’re fighting, you’ve had your support group and they’ve helped you train and they’ve helped you prepare but you're the only one getting the punches, you’re the one who’s going to make it happen or not, and I think entrepreneurs need to realise that even if you're in a support group and you’ve got great team and staff, it’s ultimately up to you, and you have to find a way.  The only way it’s going to be successful is if you dig deep, and the challenge builds the resolve and the challenge is not bad it's good.  You need the challenge of self doubt, of customers losing deals, people stealing your money, whatever happens in your business, because that is the pivot point to make your business stronger, and a lot of people fail or quit at those times, but that’s the signal that will get to the next level and I’ll give you an example because it’s very relevant, it’s something I’ve been talking to a few friends about recently.  Swisse vitamins.  So interesting story, Helen who married Radek who’s the CEO of Swisse who just recently sold the business for 1.4 billion dollars, and Devina who worked in my...Helen and Devina both worked in my team at Sensis and so they went across and worked at Swisse.  So Swisse sold for 1.4 billion and everyone's is like oh that’s amazing, that’s a fairy tale but what people don’t know if they don’t follow business is that that company grew steadily for years and years and years and Radek was a great boss, really looked after his people, really looked after the people who sponsored him so the sporting people and celebrities who were on his ads, but they went and had a venture into America and it failed miserably, the company was struggling financially in a mountain of debt that had done this big growth thing and it just fell through the floor.  He could have given up then, he could have gone oh it’s not working, I’ll close the business down, I’ll sell it for what it’s worth and get out, I’ll still be quite wealthy.  But he didn’t do that he looked for the signals and looked for the signs and a sales person at a meeting, analysing figures, and they realised that they were selling 4 times as much vitamins through these certain stores.  Why? And it was in the asian parts of Melbourne, and they investigated and figures out they are all shipping back to China.  So they figured out there is all this demand and they started forming connections and consequently a year later they’re selling their company to a Chinese company, even though they’d just had this massive failure, they then bounced back and had a massive success and that the story of entrepreneurship.  Steve Jobs got kicked out of his own company, he probably cried for a while but he bounced back, came back in, humbled himself, learnt, because he was a shit manager before, improved himself and went back to form success.  But that’s the story, you’ve got to take those knocks, those punches and not just sit down and go oh well that was  a bit too hard but get back, learn from it, oh ok he’s got a good left hook I’ll avoid that, and then get back in the game, and that’s what I think the personal journey for entrepreneurship is because where you want to have your personal development in your business or in your relationship, you’re going to have it somewhere.  You’re going to have some where in your life challenging you to grow coz that’s the point of existence is growth and so if you run your own business it’s like a personal development course because it’s going to push every button you’ve got.  Your money button, your people button, your trust button, your I’m not good enough button, all of those things are going to be exposed and it’s an opportunity to grow and make yourself a better person.  

[0:25:53] BELINDA: So how do you work on mindset, cos it sounds like there’s a few things you're talking about which is mindset and having grit and sticking it out, so how do you work on those things, which is personal development but how do you work on that it you are someone that can be a big negative and see where things can go wrong rather than the positive or maybe it does look hard but you really want to make this business work but yes it look like it's a big hill to climb, how do you work on that?

[0:26:21] ANDREW: You need strategies and it’s not just mindset, you need practical application, so whenever someone’s feeling disheartened my strategy is take some action, ring a customer, do some work, not for you, for a customer.  I always feel that if I'm like oh it’s all too hard and I have a client meeting and generally I;m solving their problems, so I ;m helping someone other than myself, and they get a great result I’m lifted up again.  Because the business isn’t about me, the business it about helping others, that’s why more people are in business.  I love transforming people’s little businesses or getting them out of jobs they hate, into careers they love, or helping them break through their sales barriers because it’s their life, this is their dream, this is not just business to make money, no one comes to me just to make money, everybody comes to me because they want to have a more fulfilling business and life through their business and that’s probably my small business background, my family business, my grandparents started it, my uncle run it, the whole family...everyone worked in it, everybody, it was just the fabric of our family was ingrained in the fabric of the business, we talked about it, it sustained us, it put me through private school when my Mum was dirt poor, we had a beach house you know, we’ve lost that, we think we just go to work and we hate 8 hours a day and then we come back and have our life and I go it’s not like that, business is just life, it’s like eating it’s just...it’s not separate it’s the same.  I’m at pains to bring my kids to see me present, so that they see what Dad does. They know my company, they know what we do, I’ve got a 7 and a 12 year old, they come to meetings with customers, they hear me on the phone and coz I’m trying to teach them that business is not something that Dad goes to that they don’t understand and then comes back and then he’s Dad.  That’s why I’ve got the tagline of my book is it’s not business it’s personal, coz it is, it is personal to me, my customers are my friends, my business is my life and my sustenance and I want my children to be involved in it, I want my friends to be involved in it and it’s my community, it’s where I spend my time so it has to be with people I like otherwise it’s not going to be fulfilling.

[0:28:36] BELINDA: Has it had a cost on your personal relationships, running a business? A lot of people...you have to work hard and a lot of people are prepared to work hard and so the work isn’t the problem but what they find is they maybe don’t put as much time and effort into other aspects of their life, like their personal relationships.  What cost has it had on your personal relationships?

[0:29:00] ANDREW: Well it's...I don’t think it’s a cost, I think it’s a choice.  It’s a focus, so think about this, so let’s imagine that you're going to the Olympics, I don’t mean the next Olympics say in the next 2 years, and you're going into a cycling event.  Now, right now you would be training pretty hard but you’d have time for your relationships and time for other things but as you inch closer to that date everything else is going to fall away and you're going to focus solely on that goal because there’s an end point and at that point having those extra dinners out with friends or whatever is going to tell, and if you stand up and you’ve won the gold medal, then it’s it’s all seemed worth while.  Now, business is kind of like that you know we don’t feel like we have this end point but I do I’ve got there goals that I want to make, and they’re omnipresent for me they’re what I wake up thinking about and what I go to bed thinking about and the reason is...and I shared something personal with you just recently and I’ll share it for the audience which was my son was just in hospital, he’s only 7, and it made me think if I had to spend a month taking care of him the business can’t sustain without me, and that’s just not acceptable.  I can’t then choose to not look after my son and come to work and I can’t have no money, so my business needs to be a robust fully functioning without any critical parts that if you miss then things don’t happen.  So I’ve got full determination to get my business to that stage, which takes time to build, more than anything else, because it supports my family and my children and that’s the number one. So you ask about personal relationships yes so my personal relationships has taken backseat to my business and my kids and I'm very upfront and transparent with people about that and I don’t feel bad about it at all, it’s just a choice and I know that once my business is at a larger and greater scale and it more independant, I;ll refocus my priorities again back to a bit of balance, but I'm going for the gold medal and so there is no prize for second best, if my business doesn’t make it, it’s binary.  If it fails then it’s all for naught, so I can’t let that happen.  You see the entrepreneurs, not to compare myself to them I’m a small business owner but you look at the Elon Musks and so forth and they’ve still got families and so forth but yeah they have to sacrifice and they have to prioritise their business at times in order to make it happen and I think that, to be honest, a lot of small business owners out there that are not doing particularly well, it's because they haven’t prioritized and haven't put in the hours or the choices because it doesn’t happen by itself, and I'm not talking about a, you know, if I was just running a standard small business like an accounting practice and so forth, that is a routine business where you go and you have your clients and you can have a nice lifestyle, I'm aiming for something biggest, and it’s just choice, because I feel like that’s my inner need, to grow a business that makes a global impact that has lasting change that is unique and revolutionary, and that’s what I want to do, I’m only doing it for a small number of people now but I’d like that to be big, and that would be my legacy if you like, so it’s a bigger than me thing, so do that you need to put in the effort.

[0:32:14] BELINDA: So you were talking about that businesses take quite a long time to build systems and to get to the point that you want them to, but how did Social Star look when you first had the idea, and when you first started Social Star, compared to what it is today, the changes that have occurred over that time...

[0:32:31] ANDREW: So many changes, Lyn who is my business partner and long term...put up with me….employee….

[0:32:38] BELINDA: Still puts up with you!

[0:32:39] ANDREW: Still puts up with me.  You know I’m a create a profile, whenever I get into stress or struggle I create new stuff, coz that’s my personality right, so I’ve always got a new angle on the business, I’ve always got a new product, I’ve always got a new system or marketing something that I want to try, which is hard if you're not in the same ….personality, in fact I used to work with another creator and it was great because we just came up with ideas all day but no one executed them right.  So, the business at the very start, we sold ideas, so we were selling knowledge and information, we would just write plans for people, I would assess your brand based on no particular methodology, just my experience, and I would write you new recommendations of what you should do, and that worked quite well, my original business partner, awesome guy, he was more of a technical detail guy and so we would work together, I would work with the client and he’d write the reports and we’d sell those, and we did really well, couple of grand we’d make from each one, we did a whole bunch of celebrities and high profile people and it was awesome, but as the social media market matured we needed more, and I noticed that people would get their reports and not do anything, they wouldn’t execute anything, I’m like bloody hell I still got paid but I didn’t feel good because I want them to get the result, so I started to implement the ideas for them so we started building web sites, we started building social media, taking photo’s for LinkedIn, doing writing of copy , and that was great, and then we could give the advice, and then we could implement the service, and that worked really well for a while, and all along the way we just improving our processors, coming up with formulas, changing our branding, increasing our online presence, we were just continually improving basically everything.  Every year the business is pretty much unrecognisable from the year before, a lot of the time.  But then we realised that customers that had this great digital profile but weren’t using it, they’re not connecting with people on LinkedIn they’re not sharing content, I’m like, oh man they’re not getting the results still.  So then we added this leverage part of the process where we teach them sales, we teach them how to connect, write content, we come up with formulas and methodologies cos I’m a creator and that’s what I do, and we did that and we actually now help people fully outsource it, so we help them understand themselves, their brand, their business, we help them build the online assets, we teach them how to do the sales and we unpack their sales methodology, but then we actually do it for them, we actually sell it for them, so we take them through the whole process and at this stage I’m happy with that formula because I can take someone from not getting where they want to go to achieving where they want to go, through the full journey, and I really love that because I get to see the happy smile and result when someone has a full workshop or they’ve got clients.

[0:35:18] BELINDA: So it sounds as those your products and services have grown as you’ve had a lot of contact with your clients and you’ve needed clients to be able to understand what their needs are...

[0:35:29] ANDREW: Yes

[0:35:30] BELINDA: And then that’s grown from there.

[0:35:31] ANDREW: Every good break through we’ve had has been a client idea, pretty much everyone.  The reason I started the business is coz a guy came up to me, Nick Bracks, I was at a party, we were running it when we ran cool parties, and he’s like, when you google my name all this negative stuff came up, he was going through some issues at the time and is there anything you can do about it, I’m like, well yer there is, I know SEO and google and so the production of assets is what you need to do, websites, social media, adding positive content to flush out all the negative stuff onto page 2 where no one cares, so that process took some time but I’m like, oh there might be something in this, did some research, found some articles of people doing it in the US, my secord person was the social media manager for Telstra, started to do some branding work with her, and then I just sort of took off from there, so it was the fact that there was a need and I could fulfill that need and solve the problem.  Business, entrepreneurship is only about solving problems, that is the core of it, if you're not solving a problem, you haven’t got a business, and if people aren't prepared to pay it means their problem is not severe enough.  So your job is to figure out the best way to do that and our evolution is really just been finding better and better and better ways to solve the problem, because it used to be just me and now it's a process and a team who solves those problems, and eventually it will be other teams in other countries solving those problems with our methodology and we’ll just work on the method.  Any good business like say a franchise, let's say Starbucks.  It’s a brand, so you put the sign out the front people rock up because they know what they are going to get, and it’s a method, it’s a process.  That is all, that is it, when a new starbucks opens up in Collins Street, they’ve got no clients, they put a sign out the front, people know what it is so they’ll go and give it a go and the process means that they’ll get a reliable result, and that is all it is.  So the business is not necessarily about me, or I want it to be less about me, it’s about your process and your method.

[0:37:30] BELINDA: So you learnt a lot of what your customers needed by having customers, so how did you get your first customers, and also how did you get your customers when you first started compared to how you find customers now?

[0:37:43] ANDREW: Good point, so when you first start, I tell all clients this, there’s 3 brands, there’s your personal brand, your business brand, and your product brand, and what that means is you’ve got a Steve Jobs, you’ve got a Apple and then you’ve got an iPhone.  Now, Steve Jobs didn’t start out selling computers branded in any particular way.  He went into a computer store and he negotiated himself with a store owner to say would you like to buy some computers.  So it was a personal negotiation and he then went back to his garage and built them himself, with his team so at the very start it’s all about you and so the only thing that really matters is your personal credibility and your online brand is the way that you demonstrate personal credibility so people can check you out.  So you need a really great LinkedIn profile and a personal website to start with.  Once you start to have clients, and I’ll talk about how I get my clients, start to have clients then you can have a business brand because the business is a process and a system and it’s the credibility that that company has by dealing with multiple people.  So I say when you’ve had between 50 and 100 clients you business is now worth something and it means something because then those clients have had good or bad service, you’ve got terms and conditions, you’ve got an environment there's all those different things, it’s got a culture, and it’s not until you have  a great business that you can have products that can mean anything individually, separately, so that the process of entrepreneurship.  Build your personal brand then your business, then your product.  Call it year 1, year 2, year 3.  So in year 1 essentially the only thing that matters is you, you can pitch and sell something, you don’t have to have anything, I’d my first client and I didn't have anything, no brand, didn’t even have a name, had nothing, but what I did is, I had a curiousity to find out what people’s problems were and then I looked at my skillset and said can I solve those problems, and generally help them, because if you can’t generally help them you will have 1 client and you won’t ever get another one, so you’ve gotta want to know what their problems is, not just what you want to sell.  So don’t come up with a product and try and sell it, go and ask the people you like to work with what their problems are and start to develop it from there.  You will know your skill set, you will know what you can do, but it doesn’t mean anything until you can sell it.  You can talk to people and they might say that’s a great idea, that’s amazing idea, but if they’re not putting down any money to get you do to it, and if they don’t get the result once you do it, your not a business, it’s just an idea.  So go out and sell it first.  That’s what I say.

[0:40:08] BELINDA: Originally, when you first started your business, how you found clients compared to how find clients now because I’d imagine that process is different.

[0:40:16] ANDREW: It is, so, I forgot to mention that bit, so at the start really it’s your network, so what I first started they had challenges in digital, they knew I was a digital person, I would go and solve those problems and I thought geez, instead of doing it for free I might as well charge, so I started charging for it, and then reputation got around and I got referrals from my friends and colleagues and people in my inner circle.  Most people's inner circles is about 200 people, so that the limit of your target market, so it runs out pretty quick and they you have to go and get people you don’t know, and as your business grows it moves from personal relationships to marketing and selling.  So what we did was we built my brand first, as I said, through LinkedIn, I have a personal website, and I started blogging, and that then attracted a whole bunch of new people so friends of friends, friends of friends of friends, and the market starts to expand.  What we do now is we do a whole variety of different things so we’ve partnered with Dent to leverage their database with our database and help their clients with our material, so partnerships are really key, wrote a book, we distribute the book to different people, I do interviews, I do a lot of public speaking, all of those things just gets me in front of more people, and get’s us more clients.  We have a really robust digital setup with HubSpot so that we know what’s happening with out clients, so these are all assets that you will assemble over time as you move away from you being the centre of the universe to your business being able to operate without you.  Which is, we’re in that transition phase now.

[0:41:39] BELINDA: When you were starting your business what was some of the pain points that you had, what were some problems when you were building your business early?

[0:41:47] ANDREW: So one thing about problems or business challenges is they never ever ever go away, ever, they are just a different set of problems.  So Dan Priestley told me that, I was talking to him the other day and he’s like Elon Musk has problems, he’s not yet got his rocket to Mars, that’s his problem and you know he’s building Gigafactories and he’s negotiating with Government, they’re just different problems, he’s still got problems, he’s probably got financial problems...

[0:42:10] BELINDA: Do you find a lot of businesses that are starting, or people that are trying to build their business come across the same types of problems?

[0:42:17] ANDREW: 100% the problems in entrepreneurship are exactly the same and can be predicted and solved.  It’s a formula and it’s a method, and it’s not a secret, it’s just that a lot of people who try and sell you the answer don’t know really the answer, they haven’t really put the work in to know what it is.  They just think they know the answer.  I know about personal branding and I understand business quite well, I’ve got the academic credentials, I’ve got the experiences to solve those problems for a particular set of people, but I can’t solve it for everybody because I haven't been down that path.  So for professionals, so for mature professionals wanting to start a business or have  a business they want to grow, I’m the guy, I’m very good at that and I’m very confident.  But I can’t solve problems for bigger clients, so what I do is I get them into the Key Person of Influence program with Dent who has the mentors and who has done the research with the people who work in bigger companies to know exactly what the formula is and how to solve those problems.  And the funny thing is it's the same problems, it’s just a different scale.  So for instance, cash flow is always a problem, sometime you have lots of cash and sometime you don't’ but as soon as you get lots of cash you want to re-invest it into something like growth, oh let’s expand to Sydney because we’re doing really well, fantastic.  Now I just have a different problem, now Sydney isn’t making any money, it’s drawing on the Melbourne cash flow and suddenly I’m back to where I started.  But as soon as I get Sydney rocking I’m going to go to Brisbane, you know what I mean.  So we always have the same problems, just different scale.  But I’d rather have a multi million dollar cash flow challenge than a 5 thousand dollar cash flow challenge you know what I mean, because there’s so much more enjoyment at the high levels, there’s so much more freedom at the high levels.  There’s always time pressure but you have choice, a lack of resources is probably the biggest challenge at the start, and that’s why you have to have resourcefulness.  The resource is you.  Probably the biggest failure point I see in start ups or very very small businesses, they spend too much time on marketing and not enough time on sales.  Sales produce customers, customers are people who pay you money.  So they spend all this time building websites and writing blogs and doing podcasts and doing great stuff but then they don’t spend the time to convert those leads into sales, and the only thing that makes money is the sale part.  So I say to people spend more of your time on the sales element and less on the lead generation and you’ll make money.

[0:44:32] BELINDA: Coz the sales sales to me seems quite broad, can you define that a little bit more, is it...does it really describe the point of contact through and all the touchpoints if you like, through to them buying a product?

[0:44:44] ANDREW: Ah no, it doesn’t.  So the way I teach sales and I always teach simple formulas that people can remember and they might seem simplistic but they’re quite powerful when you unpack them.  There’s 4 average touch points in a client, so they go from cold where they don’t know who you are at all to warm where they know who you are.  So that might be for me someone’s given my book away, they’ve seen me present, they’ve heard me on a podcast, they’ve come across my LinkedIn profile or whatever it is, they’ve touched me in some way, digitally or physically.  So then they’re in warm and then their like in the evaluation phase, do I trust this person, do I like this person, do I want to be involved with them, do I have a need that they can solve.  As they go through that point they might get to trust, and as soon as they hit the trust point which means that if I did have that problem I would probably look at that person to solve it, and that’s in the hot zone.  Now this is where sales comes in.  So once they’re in the hot zone and they have a problem, that’s when they have a potential to buy but not before, because no one buys anything that they don't’ need, I mean we do we go buy clothes that we don’t need and what ever, but in terms of business professionals, no one goes to see a lawyer unless you got a legal issue, you know you don’t, you don’t go see an accountant unless you got a financial issue, compliance issue, and people don’t come see me unless they’ve got a business issue, and so if they’ve got a business issue and they think it’s relating to branding then that’s when they come to see me.  Now they might voluntarily come to see me because we've got a good marketing funnel but they always go through those 4 steps.  Where it comes into sales is as soon as I talk to them.  As soon as I talk to them that's when the sales process begins, and even though we use the word sales because we know what it means, I don’t think of it as sales, coz selling to me pertains to I’m trying to get someone to buy something they don’t like or they don't want.  That’s not what we do at all.  What I’m doing is helping.  You’ve got a problem, I’ve got a solution, let’s figure out whether I’m the right round peg to go in your round hole, or can you afford my solution, can I help you in the specific way that you know, is that the best thing for you or is there something else.  I’ve turned away clients because I don’t do what they do, I did one yesterday, I said I don’t do that type of work anymore I suggest this person, and refer them on.  Because it’s not the sort of work I want to do and I wouldn’t get the result, because when you go through the process it’s great to get them to buy, get the money, but you’ve got to deliver the result, you can’t just have a one off client, so I want to meet people who go, I’ve got a problem, I respect the fact that you're good at what you do, let’s negotiate on a price, well we don’t really negotiate I have my products and they decided if they like those and then we go ahead and do the work.  But I want to enjoy the process with my clients, I just had a finalisation meeting with a client yesterday and he was like that was the best meeting ever, you know fantastic process, he looks fantastic his business is going really well he feels great, I feel great, awesome.  He’s probably going to give me a referrals, he’s probably going to do additional work, I feel good because I’ve done a good service, there’s nothing better than that. So you’ve got to find the right clients, you’ve got to help them.

[0:47:44] BELINDA:  Coz I suppose from my perspective sales can seem like a dirty word or it has a negative connotation because a lot of people are trying to sell hard to you and really trying to push their product on you which is off putting, but I suppose what your saying is it’s more about expose of who you are and what you do...

[0:48:01] ANDREW: Correct.

[0:48:02] BELINDA: ...so that people know who you are, and your front of mind when they need a problem solved that you can solve.  

[0:48:09] ANDREW: Yes, the process of branding is long and painstaking, it takes time to build your personal brand, your company brand, your reputation, but that’s the only way to have a successful business.  Doing sales knee jerks, sales is only required when you haven’t warmed people up propally, they haven’t got used to you, they don’t know what you do, they don’t understand your services, and your trying to convince them to buy something too early.  If you run your business effectively enough and you do enough marketing and branding then you’ll have enough leads and it’s just a process of talking to those people to see who is ready right now.  That’s the better way to do it, and it’s a little bit of an artform in terms of knowing, well how much effort do I spend on the marketing, like I said before it’s more important to do sales, but that’s the balance and that's why you need an effective system and a process in order to do that.  So we have completely written down design sales process, or a marketing to sales process so everybody knows what it is, we do it all the time, customers get used to it and it works well, we know if we follow the process it works.  But what people then do is get lazy and then don’t follow the process, even I do it sometimes, I rush, like ah the customer wants to buy I’m just going to skip phase 2 and go for the close, and the close is just really a question, do you want to do this, do you want to start now, do you want to start tomorrow, and they can say yes or no, no I’m not ready, ok so when do you think you want to be ready.  I’m not trying to convince them, I’m just trying to get them to make a decision, because the worse thing is that they just never make a decision, yes we’d like to work with you or no I don’t want to work with you .  Great, either way, no problems, coz it’s always  a process of evaluation, it’s like dating.  Not everyone you meet your going to marry, you probably want one partner, or two or three whatever are people’s preferences...

[0:49:55] BELINDA: We’re recording...

[0:49:57] ANDREW: So people think that every single date that they’re going to go on is going to be the one and I go but it’s not, it’s a process of evaluations to find someone you actually want to go on the second date, and then you might go on the second date with a few people and then get to the third date with a couple less and that's sales, that’s exactly the same.  It’s a process of elimination and it’s voluntary on both sides and we just present what our value is, but in a compelling and effective way, the reason people don’t buy is they don’t see value.  It’s not your price, it's the perception of value and the perception of value is either, it’s not valuable enough or you haven’t communicated how valuable it is, and I believe that it's the latter.  People don’t communicate their value effectively enough and that’s branding, you can read about my thoughts in my book, you can read my blogs, you can look at my connections, you can see my work history, you can see m education history, it’s all out there for you to make your decision upon.  I’ve got clients who don’t put half of the cool stuff they do online, no one can see it.  So I can’t judge the value because I’m not getting the information.  And they just think it’s not important, I go, it’s very important, it’s extremely important because those things could be the reason why they come with you, or not, so it’s the communication.

[0:51:11] BELINDA: So you now know what all your processors are, and you’ve got processes and structures in place, but when you were starting how did you know what the structure was and how did you put it together or was it more of a feel, you kind of winged it a little bit, working out what the processes were they you needed to build your business?

[0:51:30] ANDREW: I’m a bit of a trial and error guy which is not the best way to be honest, I read books and I listen to podcasts and I have friends like the Dent guys who help me out a lot and so I learn from other people a  lot however I like to test and measure, so I implement something and I use it and it either works or it doesn’t, we keep it or not.  For instance we created an online course, now I’ve worked with hundreds of clients and I sort of knew what the process was that I followed but I hadn’t documented it and I’m like I need an online course because it’s just going to make our life more efficient and so I just made myself sit down and write this course.  Now, this is another thing I just jumped into it, I go oh I’m going to start an online course.  45 thousand words later, 18 videos, endless hours building websites, I spent 3 years building a website that I just turned off because it wasn't working and went to another one, you know we spent money on this stuff.  But now I have a documented process, we thought oh we’ll put it out and everyone will buy it as everyone does but that doesn’t happen.  What we do is it's actually more effective to use in our business process so when a client comes on board they now can go through our online modules which saves us time.  It’s a value add to them, it shows the value because they see that we’ve got an actual process, it’s documented, and I use it all the time, it exceedingly useful in our business, it’s an asset. And so you’ve just got to pick them off one at a time, you know, writing a book, took me almost 2 bloody years, it was hard because I didn’t go and do a book writing course I just figured it out.  That’s my personal challenge, I need to ….well I’ve learnt it because I went to you for podcasting, because I wanted to do a podcast and it wasn’t until I met you that I actually did anything about it and I said, I don’t know how to do it, I don’t want to know how to do it, I want you to do it for me.  I’ve got to that point so I think that;s success in some way, I’m willing to invest where it counts.  But I have less time now, back then I had more time to experiment, now we don't we’re just growing and moving too fast.  But you’ve got to build these assets and you've just got to test it because a great process that doesn;t work is not a great process, as much as you want to think it is, it’s not.  

[0:53:43] BELINDA: So it sounds like when you initially started you do things quite differently now compared to when you started.

[0:53:49] ANDREW: Absolutely, the essence is still the same, we still do personal branding I still have a very personal approach, I like to understand people through psychology, the personal development in order to help them build their brands, it’s just the techniques have improved, we created a word called e-traction, that’s our 12 step process to building someone's brand, that goes in 3 modules, understanding your brand there’s 4 modules in there, there’s 4 modules in the build process and there;s 4 modules in the leverage or how to sell.  I’ve grown this to such a point now where I’m working with Monash University to make it a university course.  My dream is that this is the standard of personal branding, because it works I’ve done it so many times, people get value, it just works and I’ve combined the best of all the different things that I’ve found to make this really good, so I think I’ve got a winning formula it’s just about what's that best format for that to go out into the world.  

[0:54:41] BELINDA: And so probably your customer is quite different now, compared to when you started.  

[0:54:44] ANDREW: Oh very much, as you evolve your customers evolve, so we’re starting to do corporate now, back then we were doing celebrities coz I thought that was cool, then we decided to do more entrepreneurs and then we moved into what we do now which is more professionals and business owners, and corporates are calling me now so we’re just growing and elevating, and I love them all, but your business can only setup and match to certain businesses, and I think that that’s kind of the normal career….probably not the celebrity bit... but the normal career path is that we get bigger and better and we charge more then we get clients who have more.

[0:55:18] BELINDA: So building a business is a marathon not a sprint, so how do you manage your enthusiasm over such a long period of time?

[0:55:26] ANDREW: This is why we do the understand section if you're not clear on your why, for me, and I tell this story in my book and so forth is that one of the reasons why I didn’t go out and get another corporate job, because I could have easily I had people calling me, but I said no, even though I have no money, even though I had an uncertain future, because it wasn’t just about my dream of starting a business, it was about having a business that allowed me the time flexibility to spent time with my kids, coz I was sick of a company telling me where I had to be and when and feeling this tension between oh that’s Hudson’s athletics carnival and I want to go watch him but I can’t because I can’t leave the office or if I leave early again today after picking the kids up yesterday it’s going to look weird and everyone’s going to give me dirty looks, or I have to lie and say I’m sick or you know I just don’t want that so  I’ve been a hard worker all my life, I go and watch Hudson do his sports carnival, and then I go home and do work, and I get up...I was up and 5 o’clock this morning, I get up early and I work late, and I’m also very productive.  So when you're’ running your own business you give up the oh let's just go for a coffee and hang out for 45 minutes and then I’m going to ring my mate and then I'm going to stuff around on facebook, I don’t do any of that, I'm extremely productive, did I don’t know, 7 or 8 meetings yesterday as well as a whole bunch of other stuff, because you have to be, you have to be disciplined with your time, so I work more hours  than I ever have but I enjoy it more because A: I love the work because it matches my personality, which is an important part is when we’re going through that understand phase, we need to build a business around you and around the way you like to work at the start.  It can evolve later on when it goes from your personal brand to your business brand, but that's why we do personality assessments because if you not doing the role that you find the most enjoyable, you won't want to do it, and you’ll find excuses and reasons not to do it, and if it doesn’t match your values, as in having flexibility with my kid time, then I'll start to not like my business and I don't want to be there, and so every time I go and leave work to look after m kids I get this gratitude kick of thank god I can do that, that reinforces my desire to double down in my business even when you get hard times, because there is always hard times, shit happens.

[0:57:41] BELINDA: So what does a tough day look like to you now?

[0:57:44] ANDREW: Tough day is when something has happened financially, a customer is not happy, we’ve stuffed up or for whatever reason we go and pay a bunch of bills….I’ll give you a tough day last year.  A guy I had been working with for 9 months to build a new app that we were building, it’s kind of my dream, we were going for a technology play, just disappeared, just ran off with my money, that I paid him to do this app, no app, and 9 months of huge amounts of effort on my behalf waisted.  With it he pulled down 2 of my biggest clients going into  Christmas.  I was stuffed.  Basically financially stuffed, emotionally stuffed, and just at the end of my thing.  But I looked at my options and I went well I can go and get a job and I could earn lots of money and I could have it easy to be honest, it’s easy working for somebody, however then the why kicks in, oh but then I wouldn’t be able to see my kids but then I wouldn't be in control of my destiny.  The foundation reasons for starting your business have to be rock solid, and if you don’t get them right, that’s why we do the value analysis as the first module, it’s so essential, some customers don’t even know why we’re doing it but they get it by the end.  If you don’t have that rock solid, then when things get tough you’ll quit, coz it’s easy to quit, and it’s hard to persevere.

[0:58:57] BELINDA: So would you say that’s probably one of the hardest things that’s happened in your business or what would you say is the biggest mistake you’ve made in your business?

[0:59:06] ANDREW: Yer that was probably the hardest thing and the biggest mistake that I, I wasn’t looking at the signs, remember we talked before about when things feel right, this project never felt right, but my investors gave me money to build this project and every time I tried to do it, it failed.  I had 3 different times when I was getting signals, and each time was progressively worse, and I just didn’t see the road signs.  Its funny because then we pivoted the business away from the tech play into just helping more clients, the actual thing I like to do and ever since then it’s just flourished, because I was just ignoring the signals in myself and in the business and in the market and trying to pursue something that I thought I should do rather than I felt was right, and that’s why your intuition has got to be your biggest guide.  Not logic, you can’t listen to everybody else no one else knows, everyone’s got opinions but no one knows but you and that’s why you’ve gotta have rock solid confidence in yourself that you can do it.

[1:00:00] BELINDA: So then what did you learn from that mistake?

[1:00:03] ANDREW: Oh huge, listen to myself, follow what feels right for me regardless, build the business that I want to build because it’s my business, you know other people are involved and I respect and listen to them but if you're the leader you're the leader and you’ve got to take the punches when it fails but you also get the rewards when it survives.  So you’ve got to be a leader that's what it is, you’ve got to make decisions.

[1:00:25] BELINDA: So what was your view of success going into business and has it changed?

[1:00:29] ANDREW: Yer probably has a little bit, I thought it was going to be more financial, that was, as in my signal for success but I find that money is a result but it doesn’t give me the fulfillment so when we make lots of money I don’t feel any different than when we don’t make lots of money.  The fulfillment for me is actually feeling like I progressing to the big goal that I have to make a big difference, you know like this university thing, I’m slopping myself to uni at night and marking assignments till all hours on the weekend and getting paid not as much as what I get paid at work to do it.  But I;m doing it for a reason because that’s the dream, I want my process to be used all over the world and help more people.  Talking to a guy yesterday after  I finished his meeting talking about how we help school kids get access to these methods so that they can figure out what they want to do before they do their uni degree and get into a job and go shit I hate doing this, I wish I chose something else, coz it doesn’t match my values, it doesn’t match my personality and it’s not getting me where I want to go.  But they don’t do that, now I can’t afford to go and just help school kids, but I’d love that to be a way, so when I feel like I’m achieving those dreams, that’s only 10% of the time, we’ve got to spend 90% of the time making a living, that’s fulfillment to me, that’s success.  

[1:01:40] BELINDA: So would you say you have a successful business, because I feel that especially with a lot of social media we get a view from the outside and we don’t actually see what’s going in and everybody looks successful and you have no idea what’s going on inside so, would you say you have a successful business? Your definition of success?

[1:01:58] ANDREW: I would say we do, yer, so the number 1...I’ve done lots of economics and business study and the number 1 success point for a business is existence, are you still around.  90% of businesses fail. Of the businesses that don’t ever get to an ABN 99% of businesses fail, they just do, people come up with business ideas and don’t pursue them.  People start it and do a few things and then nothing ever happens and then people who actually get into business, so many of them fail, and some of the sell and are successful but most of them don’t .  The fact that we’ve had a business, I’ve paid myself a salary and my team for 4 years, we’ve never defaulted on debts, we pay the tax that we need to pay, we pay our suppliers, and we’ve helped customers, that’s success.  Yer sure we’ve got money in the bank now and we’ve got more revenue, which is great but it’s not about that, it’s about the fact that we are running an effective business everyday, every week, every month, that is the success.  And you know we have ups and downs and challenges like everyone but we are operational, what is not successful is when your artificially supporting something that isn’t supporting by itself.  So I see people who don’t draw a wage, and that’s not sustainable, or I see people who run a business where it’s propped up by something else, by savings or something like that and I go that’s not sustainable either. A business needs to survive on it’s own and when it does and can support all the people in it, to me that’s successful.  

[1:03:23] BELINDA: I was going to ask a question, why do you think a businesses fail but you’ve sort of touched on that , is there anything else you’ve seen typically why businesses fail?

[1:03:31] ANDREW: Oh look there’s lots of reasons I think a lot of people don’t understand their role in the business.  So I’m the sales person in my business and so that’s my role, but other people people might be the delivery person and get another sales person, you’ve just got to fulfill all the key roles.  You’ve got to look after your finances, you’ve got to look after your sales, and you’ve got to look after operations.  And if you cover those 3 things, you should be fine.  If you're not selling anything, you’ve either got a problem with your marketing and positioning or your branding, or you've got a problem with your product and you’ve just got to put the effort into solving whatever the barriers are and then it will release and your business will go well.

[1:04:04] BELINDA: If someone's thinking about starting a business and maybe they’re still in a corporate job and their weighing up pros and cons whether they should do it, maybe they’ve a bit of an idea, what would your advice be to someone who’s thinking about leaving their job and starting their own business?

[1:04:18] ANDREW: Great question, my advice is don’t jump out and just do it like I did, because it was exceedingly tough.  Hard, like a lot, there’s nothing hard...ok so a big why are my kids, I remember walking past the cafe once and the kids were like Dad let's go get some breakfast, and I couldn’t afford it, broke my heart, but I persevered and I continued and now that’s not a challenge for me but I don’t want anyone else to have that so I’ve got friends who are looking to do that and I’m like look you need to go through the initial parts of my process, because we look at your life stage and we look at your resources, and we go are you ready, and if you're not ready you plan.  You can plan a business and you can write your book, do the Dent course, build your personal brand, build your LinkedIn profile, get the customers on your database, before you launch, do the work after hours.  If you're not prepared to do it after hours you won’t persist doing it full time, if it’s not important to you, you won't do it.  So we go through that process before you quit, and I;m working with lots of people to do exactly that thing, to prepare them for launch, right, sell your product first, ensure that people will buy it and pay you money before you quit your day job, and then go down to 4 days a week 3 days a week or just quit depending on the circumstances, you might be wealthy and can afford to do that, but you’ve got to look at those resources first because you don’t want to be in a crises situation and I saw the signs, I could have easily quit my job plenty of times.  I got a redundancy once, got paid out, huge money, payed off my house, that was a great time to start my business, but I didn’t I was greedy, I went back and I did more corporate work right.  So again you’ve got to look at those signs, you know, take the  opportunity when you can but don’t stress yourself because if you're financially stressed you don’t make quality decisions, you have to sell, you feel reactionary, you’re not in your most productive zone.  So look after yourself first and then go and build your business.  

[1:06:14] BELINDA: So knowing what you know now, any regrets building a business?

[1:06:19] ANDREW: No, I would have like to have done it earlier.  I kind of wish I had started it earlier, and the only thing that stopped me was I was scared, I couldn’t give up the trappings of success, and I had to go through that humbling process of for me divorce and giving away my assets, in order to realise that’s not success, and I see, I call them the working rich, that’s not right they’re probably the working poor, but anyway, the people who are earning 2, 3, 4 hundred thousand dollars but are gears to the eyeballs, they’ve got 2 kids in private schools, they’re driving fancy cars, living in a nice suburb, spending all their money on holidays and clothes and food and art work and whatever and don’t have any assets.  Couldn’t survive a crisis is they needed to and they’ve got the money but they just consume it, and the reason they consume it is because they are unfulfilled and so the next car, the next holiday, the next art work, the next fancy dinner, that’s what’s going to fulfill me but it doesn't and it’s a never ending cycle, and so fulfillment comes from living true to your values and doing something more meaningful in the world, and there’s no short cut.  So that’s why you start a business and not to make money.

[1:07:35] BELINDA: Well that’s a great way to end this show on isn’t it, nice warm fuzzy feeling.  Thank you so much for spending the time and letting us get to know you a little bit more, it’s been great asking you questions and the knowledge that you’ve had and all the experience that you’ve learned, it’s great value.  If someone wants to connect with you, what’s the best way they can do that?

[1:07:53] ANDREW: Im sure in the show notes you’ll put my web site and so forth.  The best place to go is our website to look at what we do, examine it, we’ve got heaps of free information on there, download my book ‘Creating a Powerful Brand’ for free, so go do www.socialstar.com.au, and I’m happy for people to connect with me on LinkedIn and just have a chat.  

[1:08:11] BELINDA: Great...

[1:08:12] ANDREW: Nice to chat...

[1:08:12] BELINDA: Thank you, yes, thanks

[1:08:13] ANDREW: Thanks Belinda

Want to Build Your Own Business? Take a 'boliday' by yourself.

I recently returned from a quick 'holiday' in beautiful Phuket, Thailand. During my six days in Kamala beach, I discovered a few things about myself and my business that might be handy for those working on their own corporate escape. Here are my top three takeaways.

The reason I put 'holidays' in parenthesis is that it's not really a holiday, it's a boliday. A business holiday. I go by myself to work on my business plan for the next year. I see some sights, swim, drink too many beers, but overall I am 'working' about 5-6 hours a day. It's a bit lonely at times, you get a few funny looks having your laptop at breakfast, but that's the point - to get away where there are no distractions and let your brain work out what's next on the journey. I have had a few of these and have a few tips for people wanting to try one. Hope they help.

Tip 1 - Actually Get Away

The first problem to overcome is actually getting away in the first place. I'm sure it sounds nice, but how does a small business operator even get away in the first place? Between partners, kids activities, business commitments and of course the cost I know many small business owners who would never consider taking a holiday by themselves - ever. I tend to work a lot and don't take many breaks so I have to have a system in place for me to take regular bolidays.

The system for me is to be in a travel club where I pay a small amount each month which gives me points towards a holiday. It's a package deal so you have to go somewhere nice and actually be on a holiday. The points expire so I use it or loose it! Great motivation to book a trip. By the time you get to the boliday, it's mostly paid for so the money excuse is gone too. This trip, I used my frequent flyer points for flights and the package part cost me $250 for 6 days.

So tip 1 is set up a system to ensure that once a year you take a boliday alone to work on your business.

Tip 2 - Set Intentions

Before I left for Thailand I already knew what I wanted to get done. My first book 'Creating a Powerful Brand' (written in Bali a few years ago on my first boliday) has been out a few years and I have a bunch more material I want to share. So time for book number two. The problem was I was so busy with work and kids, that I wasn't clear on what it should be about. I needed some space to reflect before I committed a year of work on that project.

Day one of being in Thailand, I sat by the pool with my notebook and wrote my intentions. I had to finish a few work and University items before I could focus, I wanted to read Daniel's Priestley's book 24 Assets to stimulate my thinking, prepare for two courses I was running and get my book plan done. I also checked in with my team and ensured the business was all okie dokie.

This might now sound like a holiday, it isn't. It's a boliday. The benefit is that after work instead of the long commute home to cook dinner, do the washing and do emails in front of the TV. I would walk down this beach (see drool photo above) and have a $10 pad thai on the beach with sand in my toes and a few beers. Not so bad after all.

The tip is to be clear about what you want at the end and write it down, review regularly and take the actions.

Tip 3 - Your Brain Will do the Work

Day one of a boliday I am always a bit anxious. I try to get clarity, I force myself to relax and will my ideas to come. Doesn't work.

This trip, I just did the work I had to get done first. This helped my brain relax as I knew once it was completed I could genuinely relax. I put myself into a relaxing environment by the pool, had a few drinks if I felt like it, read some of my book, did some exercise and cruised. It's amazing how many hours there are in the day once you take all other distractions away.

After a few days of 5-6 hours work on my stuff, I started to unwind and let my brain think about the future. It's funny how when you set an intention, your brain just starts working on it all the time without you even knowing. Then you're at Phi Phi island enjoying the sun, taking selfies and you get a moment of clarity about your book - awesome!

The tip here is, you can't make it happen, you have to set the focus and let it happen.

Conclusion

Boliday's are not for everyone, but for those considering starting your own business, I highly recommend it to get some clarity. If you have any other tips on your annual routines to plan your year, love to hear them!

P.S. My next book & podcast is all about Being Your Own Boss #BYOB coming soon!

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Like this blog? Check out some others I think you would like on my website. Here is one on my Vietnam trip.

Keep your URL domain privacy high, avoid the annoying cold calls

If you have purchased a website domain or Unique Record Locator (URL), you might have had a bunch of calls from well meaning, but ultimately annoying companies trying to sell you websites. Here's the simple way to stop it.

When you purchase the domain with Go Daddy, our preferred supplier, they try to upgrade you to their 'Privacy Protection' for $7.99 a year or business production for $21.99 per year. What this does is replace your contact details with Go Daddy's so spammers can't call you. 

Surely, this should be free, but we live in a commercial world and privacy comes at a cost. I personally, don't pay as I feel like it's extortion of a sort and just don't answer unknown calls for a week after buying a URL or another strategy is putting in a phone number that will not disturb you i.e. reception.

However, if you are more concerned with your privacy take this option for year one and save your time.

Hope that helps!

Andy

PS If you have another provider or different idea please share below.

Tip 10 - Leverage Your Brand With Paid Advertising

Doing paid marketing, such as Google Adwords or Facebook ads, are not as effective as activities to build your brand leading to a referral. However, there is room for both in an effective marketing strategy for your small business so let’s review how to use them both in a campaign. 

Why are referrals?

Most small businesses rely on referrals for their new business. If you do a good job you will get clients recommending you to others, and these referrals are the best marketing you can ever get. They convert from an inquiry at between 50-80% and cost next to nothing! However, the way referrals work has massively changed over the last few years and those that haven't caught onto this change are at risk of being overtaken by their competitors.

This was highlighted to me recently when I had a call from a potential new client. Let’s call this new potential client “James”. James has been running his family physio business and been losing business to competitors steadily over the last few years. In fact, it was so bad, James was considering retiring after 25 years in the same location. 

The issue was when a prospect Googled the business, you couldn't find him. There were many competitors within 1km of their location, you couldn't find James. It turns out he didn't have a website, social media or any digital presence! Wow. So even with a great reputation, 25 years’ experience in the same area and a shop front, James couldn't get enough new clients. James was losing business to competitors who had a stronger digital presence. 

Therefore, when a client referred a friend to James and they tried to find him, they couldn't and would move on. Even if they found him, he didn't seem credible with his current profile and lacked a clear way for a client to buy from him. Fixing the 'findability' issues was his top priority, but then he needed to build his online trust quotient and create a clear sales path. This all takes time so paid marketing can be very useful to fill the gap.

Paid marketing 

Paid marketing is great for instant traffic, but it is a lower quality investment than branding because as soon as you stop paying, you stop getting the results. With branding, it builds over time into an asset.

The first thing to decide about paid marketing is which platform will suit your situation the best. There are many options but Google Adwords and Facebook ads are the most popular and easiest to use. The type of product and target client should easily distinguish between these two.

The second action is to choose one category for your campaign. You can't target everyone you choosing a very niche area is always best for your ROI. Make sure your using the language of your customer, not what you think they type into the search box.

After working in digital marketing for 15 years I have seen some massive waste of money from companies, big and small, in paid marketing. One very large, blue IT company I worked for liked to spend all its Google search engine marketing (SEM) budget on buying ads for their product names. Every code number and product - there were hundreds. The issue with this strategy is they were already getting the organic SEO link right under the ad. Therefore, the person searching was getting the paid link and the organic link, and if they click the paid link it costs the company money which they could have been getting for free.

The lesson here is to focus your spend on what you are not getting organically. So that's not your business name as you should get that naturally. Better to focus on your customer's problems as they describe them. Focus instead on what “term” or “type of information” your prospect would search for before they know your name or product. 

The last part is to decide the spend you want to invest. Use a realistic conversion rate such as the 4x 10s. That means if you want 10x sales, you need 100x hot prospects, 1,000x warm leads and 10,000 hits to your sales page. If the cost of getting 10,000 people to your sales page is higher than 10x sales, it's probably easier to ask your current clients for a referral.

This is the last in my 10x digital tips, I hope you got some value and if you missed some of them you can download them all free in one convenient eBook here.

Best of luck building your brand and business and subscribe to be part of my next content adventure a Podcast!!

Andy

P.S. If you want to chat regarding your personal brand just set up a call and I will give you some free tips for building your online assets.

Tip 9 - Email Segmentation For Effective Communications

Once a prospect enters your digital ecosystem and gives you their email address, what's next?

Do you have a plan to build a relationship with them? Many businesses, when they first start out, don't have an email plan to nurture prospects through the buying process and beyond. The first step is to segment your buyers into personas and have different email lists.

An email address is a sign of trust and should be treated with respect and consideration. What did you promise the prospect to get the email address with your call to actions (CTA)? If it was advice on a specific topic, ensure you provide that value to them. The fastest way to get them to move along the buying journey is to give them useful information to solve their problem. Not easy when you don't know them yet, so here are some tips to get you started.

Email segmentation process

The first step is to create buyer personas for each of the groups you are targeting. These personas are attributes that make these prospects different from other people but similar enough to be grouped together. It could be demographic (age, income, location etc), or psychographic (beliefs and behaviours) depending on your business. Once you have these attributes, think of your perfect client in this group. Give them a name and specifically define what their problem is, what solutions they are looking for and what would make them buy from you. Then when writing and planning your marketing content, visualise this person in your mind and ensure it would be useful and motivational for them.

Next, we create the content to catch their attention and drive them to our website to progress their buyer's journey with our effective CTAs. Once they have submitted their email address on our website, where does it take them? You will need an email program to capture the content and send out your communications from.

Email groups

Segment your email list into groups will increase your open and conversion rates. The goal is to send the right, related and useful information to the right person at the right time. Easier said than done!

Start with a list for prospects for each product you are selling. This list you will digitally nurture them with useful information about their problem to help them take the next step in the buying process. If your products all relate to the one client problem this can be one list.

The second list is for clients that are in the consideration phase of the buying cycle. These clients have opted into your sales process and want to know more, so give it to them! Invite them to your events, offer them a free phone consultation, invite them to get a copy of your book etc

The next list is the client list. These are active clients that you are working with and want to keep up to date with your business developments. New products, functions, changes of staff and useful updates to their products etc

The final list is the completed clients. They have finished the buying process and can be great referrals for new business. Depending on your situation, you might want to keep them up to date with your business and product offerings or delight them with surprises and special offers from time to time.

By segmenting your database into different groups, you will be closer to making your mass communications more personal and relevant to your prospects.

Cheers Andrew

P.S I'm hosting Tim Dwyer, CEO Shirlaw's and Dent Coach, for a special event for small business owners. It will be a deep dive into how to develop deeper foundations in your small business by understanding and managing your time more effectively so you can build more capability and capacity. Social Star clients are welcome to join and receive a 2 for 1 ticket. Click here for more details.

Tip 8 - Create A Clear Call-To-Action (CTA) For Your Personal Or Business Brand

When a prospect visits your website or social media, what do you want them to do?

Is it clear to them what the next step in the process is? Does it help them or just you? A great call to action (CTA) should be clear, logical and help the right people move forward in your sales process because it’s of value to them. This applies equally to small businesses as it does for job seekers.

For example, if you are a graphic designer and are looking for a job, LinkedIn will be the first place a recruiter or hiring manager will check you out. We have already discussed the importance of LinkedIn to demonstrate your expertise. However, with a visual or creative industry, you will be expected to show examples of your work. It will be useful to direct them to either your personal website, Pinterest or Instagram. Do this with discrete CTAs in your profile summary, work history and also in the blogs you write, you can gently direct them to learn more about you and impress them with your work.

Different types of CTAs

CTA’s come in many shapes and sizes to suit different circumstances. The type of CTA you use will depend on whom you are targeting, your clients’ needs and your sales process. It also varies on where the CTA is featured such as email, websites, blogs, social media and so forth. We will explore some of the different usage situations, and give a few recommendations, but remember there is no perfect solution. Your CTA should feel natural to you and your client, don’t force them down a direction. Guide them and let them buy.

Examples of CTAs:

• Blogs: if you are a blogger there are many great ways to create effective CTAs. The most common one is at the bottom of the blog, where you insert a clearly labelled button with the next step such as ‘join us’ referring to an email subscription or whatever is the next step or desired action in your process. (See example here) You can also embed hotlinks to your website when you reference your company or experience. The other popular CTA is at the end of the blog, after the salutation, in the P.S. section. This feels like a special message just for the reader and receives more clicks than any other link.

• Social Posts: Lovers of Facebook and Instagram will be producing regular posts containing pictures, hashtags and messages to grab attention. But where are you sending them? It’s great to get them to your page, but even better to offer links to your landing pages or your website for more quality information. Often people do all the hard work to get the attention and interest but lack the crucial step of getting the prospect to the next stage in the buying process with a CTA.

• Websites: The goal of a website is to take an interested client to the next step in the buying process towards a sale. That could be a phone call, collect an email address or fill in a qualification form. To do that you have to insert effective CTA buttons and links that are tempting for the prospect to click on. Think about what the client needs in the interest stage of the buying process. Would an eBook, a video or checklist be helpful? All of these can be offered in return for collecting an email address or to build engagement in your CTA.

Effective CTAs are an essential part of the marketing process for your business or job search. It helps people to know what the next step in the process is and provides them useful information to build your relationship with your prospects.

Regards Andrew

P.S. If you are looking to boost your career or business in 2017, download our “E-ttractive Personal Brand Calculator” to measure how e-ttractive your current personal brand is and how to improve it.

Personal Branding Tip 7 - Getting Prospects To Connect With You Online

One of the most common and overlooked mistakes that we see from clients is not displaying their contact details online or having outdated or incorrect information. 

It’s a simple mistake due to lack of care and attention to their profiles but has big ramifications for their lead generation and revenue lines. Making it hard for prospects to contact you - find your phone number and email address online - is pretty simple to fix so read on to see how best to do it. 

Fix your contact information

Imagine you have worked hard to get your name, your business and products on the front page of Google, a prospect clicks through to read about you, loves your brand and wants to call you, but can't - what a waste! 

It's a simple problem to fix, but many people don't think about it or check their digital assets regularly enough. Follow this simple 5 step process to complete a thorough review.

Step 1: Start with a review of all your online sites. Google yourself to make sure that you don't miss any you are mentioned on. Review the first 3 pages of your name in list view AND image view. Images are based on a different algorithm so you will find any sites you forgot about, especially that pesky MySpace that still pops up once in awhile. Make a list of them and check them off systematically. 

Here are some of the biggest sites and tips for each:

• Google Business listing: make sure the address is up to date, it has the correct business hours, a photo of your office, phone number and website.

• Personal LinkedIn Profile: update your contact details under the Contact tab, on the right-hand side of the screen. Check your email address, is it your business one? If you are looking for a new job perhaps you want to use your personal email instead. The same applies to your contact number, do you want your office number or your mobile, it's your choice. And make sure you take advantage of the three website links by pointing people to your personal website, business website and your best social media sites. Also place your details at the end of your biography and in any current roles you have. (For more on LinkedIn get our free eBook here)

• Facebook: make sure you include your website and contact details on both your personal and business accounts.

• Twitter: make sure your profile is pointing to the correct website.

Step 2: Write down the preferred contact information you want people to find. This might differ if you have multiple businesses or between business and personal social media. Ensure you create a clear path for customers to follow from your social media to website assets, to yourself or team to complete the sale. If they want to buy, don't make it hard for them!

Note: In most social media sites there is a place for you to put a URL, email and phone number. Make sure this on your business and personal media. Why put it on your personal social? Two reasons, friends often become clients or refer others to you and secondly, personal social still appears in Google search results so prospects might see these sites and you can direct them to your business website. If you don’t tell them where to go, they might just find someone else.

Step 3: Give people multiple options. Just because you like people to call you doesn't mean they like to talk on the phone. Some like to email or instant message. Have multiple ways of connecting to you.

Step 4: Put your details in multiple places. As with the LinkedIn example, don't make clients search for your contact information, put it in multiple places so when they have the urge to contact you the information is right there.

Step 5: Ensure that your website has plenty of contact options. The basics are to have the company phone number, address, email address on the front page of your website. Where you put it will depend on your business and sales process. However, as a general guide, the top right of the screen is a great place and again in the footer. 

Put a contact tab in the header as people are used to having that link there, so don't be tricky and put it somewhere hard to find. If it is in the header it appears on each page so if they like a blog or particular piece of contact they can always contact you.

If you have a team, ensure their individual contact information (and links to social media) is under their photo and bios. It shows a sense of openness and confidence to give access to people on your website.

How much information to put online?

One challenge of putting all of your contact information online is that everyone can easily access you, whether you like it or not. We believe the benefits of being contactable, outweigh the detraction. That said, in some industries, it might not be appropriate to put your mobile phone number on your website, or your personal email address on your Facebook page. Each profession has it's own nuances so use your discretion, but make your decisions intentionally, not just by accident.

I hope you found this blog useful and stay tuned for next week when we will discuss effective calls to action in your content.

Regards, Andrew

P.S. If you are looking to boost your career or business in 2017, come along to our Make Your Passion Your Careerevent Monday 17th July 2017- 6:00 Pm to 9:00pm

Make Your Passion, Your Profession!

Because our last "Date night with your Career" event in March was such a great success, we are bringing it back! Have a drink and chat with like-minded people and learn how to transform your career into one you are more passionate about.

This time, the theme is:

Make Your Passion, Your Profession! How to turn your big idea into a real business. One that you love running AND makes money.

Monday 17th July 2017- 6:00 pm to 9:00pm

Who Should Attend?

• Professionals with a burning business idea wanting to understand the process to get it off the ground as a side hustle or full time business

• Business owners looking to launch a new idea in their existing businesses 

• Career workers wanting to understand and prepare themselves for the future of work in the digital economy

Why Join us & What to expect?

• Get practical advice on how to search for a meaningful career that you are truly passionate and care about

• Get Tips & tricks from experts in personal branding and recruitment

• Meet like-minded mature professionals who have start their own passion businesses

• Learn what the next trend in personal branding is and why you should be building your brand assets now

• Find out how to do what you love and get paid what you deserve

• Get insights into the future of careers in the next five years, global trends in employment and entrepreneurship 

• Hear from people who have moved from a job to a career they love

• Inspiring stories of Business Owners & Entrepreneurs and the process they followed to find their 'passion-career' and build up their businesses to replace their work income

If you are looking for a change in your career invest some time in you - Check it out here.

Personal Brand Tip 5: Build A Website That Performs To Get More Referrals

As discussed in the last blog, if a referral comes to you from a client or associate, it’s likely to be based on your name or your business name, so you need Google to find your site for that specific search term. But that is only half the battle. Once a client finds and visit your site, it’s important they get the information they need to move to the next step and take the action you want.

Here are some tips on how to build a website that can be found in Google for your three key searches: your name, business name and niche and what to do when they get there.

The focus on each of these three sites will depend on whether you are working for someone else or have your own business. The idea is that you will appear for all three regardless. However the focus will be on your personal website if you are working for others, and your business website if you run your own company.

If you already have a website, check its quality by running it through a website grader.

We recommend Hubspot website grader as it gives you an overall score and a good breakdown of each important categories with recommendations to resolve the issues, plus it’s free. Google also has some great free tools here - Google tools 

Build an effective website - SEO tips

Before we rush off to build a new website, let’s see how your current websites are performing. Google your name, business name and niche to see how many times you show up on the front page of Google? The goal is to show up number one for all three, but also to have at least 50% of the other links pointing back to your brand. If you can also get the Google plus (G+) advertisement on the right of the search results, that’s perfection!

That type of search dominance takes time and effort. The best place to start is to have a website dedicated to each of the three search terms. You may think it’s overkill to have three different websites, instead of one that includes all?

Below is the logic in our strategy.

• The URL matters

Google appreciates having a website dedicated to one specific topic. When the URL is an exact match for the search term it is likely to get the first link in a search result. Therefore if your company name is Social Star but you want to be found for Andrew Ford and e-ttraction, it is less likely these will show up. You can see the relevance of the search results as Google bolds these terms in the results URLs.

• Choice of software

The choice of software or platform in which you build your site will matter. The more the code matches Google's criteria, the more likely it will show up in the results. There are many choices with the popular ones being Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix, Weebly and others. They all have benefits and challenges. We recommend Squarespace because it provides high-quality code, great SEO and makes it really easy to build a website. With no code to worry about, your focus goes into the quality of your content, not the technology. It also has the benefit of being easier for your to update the content yourself, faster to get to market and cheaper than other software.

• Regular content

One of the best ways to get your website loved by Google is to provide high quality and relevant content for your target audience. This provides four big SEO wins: it updates your website regularly, provides long tail search terms for your customer's searches, gives people a reason to come to your site and provides backlinks to others websites. Content really is the best way to improve your website SEO so get blogging!

The issue with building great websites is that there are no standards for business people to follow. There is so much conflicting information out there and opinions, it’s hard to know whom to trust. My advice is to start with a marketing and sales strategy for your specific career, market and business. Then decide on a budget and priority for the websites and get a referral to find someone to assist you.

Best of luck and visit our website for more free guides on website and SEO.

P.S. If you are looking to boost your career or business in 2017, download our “E-ttractive Personal Brand Calculator” to measure how e-ttractive your current brand is and how to improve it.

e-ttraction: Podcast interview with Davis Mutabwa - The Entrepreneurial Dream

The Business Generals Podcast - Helping You Maximize Your Entrepreneurial Dreams - 5 Days a Week

I recorded this podcast with one of my previous students of the Launch in 12 weeks program, the amazing Davis. Accountant, family man and a very authentic guy. As he says...

"Andrew is the founder of Social Star, a personal brand marketing agency specializing in building online brands for individuals and businesses in order to e-ttract more career and business opportunities."

Check it out on iTunes here or his website here. 

Personal Brand Tip 6 - Using Your Personal Social Media For Your Business & Career Benefit

When you are starting out in small business or in a service-based industry where the product you sell is your time and advice, you are the main attractor of new clients. Like it or not, people want to know about the person delivering the service, not just about the product and price. They care just as much about your personality as your qualifications. Who you are and what you stand for is important in the age of digital transparency. More and more, prospects want to dig behind the business facade to really see who is running the operation. The more you show them, the more they can trust you and the more likely they will buy from you.

Social media is a great forum to showcase various parts of your life that you are comfortable sharing. I’m not talking about super personal matters you wouldn’t want to share online, I’m talking about your hobbies and activities that showcase your character, personality and values.

What to share online?

There are two parameters that you need to review which will assist you in deciding what to share online.

The first is the formality of the industry. The more formal, the less personal content, the less formal the more personal content.

The second element is how open you are to sharing yourself online. Rank both of these on a scale of 1-10 and this will assist you in deciding what you are comfortable sharing and what is appropriate in for your clients. Use the graphic below to help your choices.

• Informal industries

Think about the small talk you have with prospects when you first met them. You ask about their weekend, where they grew up, their family, holidays they have had, sports teams they follow, causes they are interested in. All of these chats are a way to establish rapport and build some bridges before you talk business. Forming trust with another person hasn’t changed, but the medium has. 

In today's digital world, prospects can easily find your information, see your activities and hobby through your Facebook and Instagram before meeting you. Chances are they are more likely to like you and do business with you if you share a common activity or hobby. Seeing your activities over time also makes them feel like they know you, just like when we talk about celebrities like we know and understand them despite having never met them. That’s why big companies hire people like George Clooney to advertise coffee because we like and trust him through repeated exposure to his brand.

A previous client of ours was a sales manager for high-end software that is looking for new prospects. He didn’t have a presence on social media and was finding it tough to break into new industries. After reviewing his personality and values, we realised that he is most passionate about surfing. He goes every weekend and loves talking about it. We suggest he uses that hobby for business and joins Surfers in Suits - a networking group for business people who surf. He attends and has an amazing time. Not only does he get to talk surfing with equally passionate people, they want to do business with him because they have a shared passion. Now when prospecting online, he can use his surfing credibility to link up with others who share his interest.

• Formal Industries

If you don’t like sharing non-business content and your industry is very formal, another way to use social media is to focus on blogging on your industry using LinkedIn Publishing. By writing longer articles about your experience in the industry, your beliefs on certain topics and sharing your opinions, you start to reveal what you are like to deal with to your prospects.

You are not revealing the social side of your personality, more your character and knowledge. Over time people will get to know your style and resonate and agree with your opinions or not. Building rapport and trust which has the dual benefits of speeding up the sales process and disqualifying non-matching clients who wouldn't buy from you once you met. It's simply more efficient. 

I’m sure you can see the benefits of warming up cold prospects with your online content before they start the sales process with you. But what happens if you have staff? This is the biggest untapped resource in business. Staff all have friends and networks that could benefit your business and they are the best people to recommend your services. If you support them in building their own personal brands and sharing appropriate content, you can save huge amounts from your marketing budget. The key is to ensure it is a win for the staff member, their friends and the business.

P.S. If you are looking to boost your career or business in 2017, download our “E-ttractive Personal Brand Calculator” to measure how e-ttractive your current brand is and how to improve it.

Personal Branding Tip 4: Get Found For Your Niche Job, Product Or Service

In previous blogs, we have discussed the importance of referrals. Having clients and friends recommend you by name will lead to the best jobs and clients. In this process, being found for your name and business name is the best use of your marketing time and money. However, there are many cases where referrals are not enough to give you the e-ttraction you need. You may have moved to a new country, be just out of university or changing industries. In these cases your name and company won't be enough, you will need prospects to find you for your service. Being found for what you do is a whole different marketing approach. This blog will help you identify your niche and give you some strategies of how to be found for it.

Company niche

If you are running your own small business, the methodology is the same. Think about what problem are you solving for the customer, and what value can you create for them. This isn’t the product you sell, but the solution. An old marketing adage is people don’t buy a drill, they buy a hole. If you really understand your customer's pain, it is a lot easier to create a product that solves his problem and marketing that will grab their attention.

The niche solution you provide needs to be super specific. To ensure you have it clear in your mind, follow this simple process. Start by writing a description of your target client. Picture them as a single person and detail their habits, behaviours, demographics, lifestyle and problems. In a job situation, this is the person hiring you. For a business, it’s your preferred client.  Then write the way you can solve their problem with the skills you have and also why they would get you to solve that problem.

Let’s take an example of a real estate agency. You open in a new area and need to stand out amongst the many other competitors in the area. It is an affluent area and so you define the target client as Mary the mum. She is educated, 42, with 2 children at private school, works part time in a corporate role and very savvy. In this household, she makes the decisions and demands quality service. Mary is wary of salespeople and doesn’t trust agents easily. You decide your niche will be providing advice and education to Mary and her friends to achieve word of mouth marketing. Your business runs monthly sessions in their homes to educate them on property investing and portfolio management. Over time you establish trust with Mary and her friends and receive many referrals for house listings because of this relationship.

Job niche

The first step is to establish what exactly is your niche. If you are reading this to boost your career, a niche is a specific job you are looking to do. It is the service you are providing to the company who is employing you to solve their problem. It is important to realise that the value you provide to the business isn’t in your job title or even your skills, it is based upon what value you can provide to their customers which they can turn into revenue. When you begin to change your mindset to the employees' problems you can solve with your skills, rather than your own, you begin to open up a whole range of new career opportunities, some of which you might not have even thought of. These are the sort of roles that are created around you, rather than you apply with 1,000 other people.

Let’s use an example to clarify this process. Jim has been working in mining all his life and at 60 is looking for a final senior role for a few years in a large manufacturing or mining company reporting to the CEO. Jim would create a buyer persona for the CEO he most wants to work for. ‘Chris the CEO of X Mining is a 45-year-old first time CEO who has been an executive in a similar company for 10 years. He is a bit nervous taking on such responsibilities at his relatively young age, but has confidence in his abilities and know’s his MBA will help him navigate the role. His problem is he is new to this industry and hasn’t had any hands on experience so understanding the nuances of the business is tricky so he is advertising for a COO with industry experience.’ Jim knows that his hands-on experience and personal contacts in this specific industry will be of huge benefit to Chris. Now Jim just needs to look for changes in his industry where the CEO requires a more experienced mentor. 

Marketing your niche

Once you have clearly identified your niche, you need to market it in the same ways that you market your personal brand and your business brand. On your social media and website, you need to talk to your target person in the language you use. Highlighting the problem you solve, your solutions and your strengths. Then you need to take action. Connect to your target market in LinkedIn, write content that is useful to them on your blog, share articles that would interest them and answer their questions. Help them solve their problem and they will reciprocate with referrals for your niche.

Google will also look after you if you have a clearly defined niche. In the real estate example, if you were writing about your specific workshops for mums in a particular suburb a search for that would easily find your website. Google is looking for the best match to a search query and a lot of searches are very specific. You can be found for your generic service ‘Real Estate Agent Kew’ with the other competitors or try the niche process and be found for ‘Free Property investment seminars for mums in Kew’, and be the only result.

P.S. If you are looking to boost your career or business in 2017, download our LinkedIn eBook here.

Now Hiring - Client Aquisition Role

Based in Melbourne CBD, this role is for a junior sales professional who loves chatting on the phone, social media and events. (who doesn't right...)

About Us...

You would be working at Social Star on the Dent Globalaccount. Two awesome small global business that are passionate about what we do and very motivated to make a difference in people's lives.

We genuinely love what we do and we want someone who has the same high value on work and serving clients. It would be handy if you like Friday drinks, going to business events, social media, Gami, meeting new people and good coffee.

About the role...

The role is primarily phone-based talking to people who have bought our books, listened to our podcasts or completed our entrepreneur quiz. They need help and we aim to help them with our award-winning training programs. You will attend our frequent strategy sessions and fun events too. Be quick as we have a team ski trip scheduled!

You need to be able to travel and work evenings and weekends as required, but we will be super flexible during the week in exchange.

Perhaps you have finished your Marketing Degree a few years ago and haven't really found your place in the workforce. You might be from overseas or are local, we don't mind. However, it's important you can show that you have a few years work experience doing something with customers and can stick it out for awhile. Also, think about how you could demonstrate your analytical and detail oriented nature.

Full training is provided and we will invest in you if you invest in us.

How to get hired...

Your measure will be based on your attitude and results. This will be measured in how many people you chat too and introduce to me and our clients satisfaction. Salary will be base plus bonus on meeting goals. We want a self starter that we can give a brief and they improve the process, not need hand holding. Entrepreneurs, artists and creative people welcome!

Next steps...

To see what we are like check our Social Star website, Andrew Ford's website and Lynn's website for a feel of the people you will work with. Also, check out Social Star University for our methodology.

Other benefits of working for Social Star is that we will build you personal brand in your career including a personal website, LinkedIn, professional photo shoot and more. When you leave in a few years you will be in e-ttractive and in demand!

To apply click here and send me a message of why you want to job, what you think makes you the best candidate and a link to your LinkedIn profile.

Best of luck!!

PS we do cool stuff like this...

Tip 3: Optimise Your Personal Brand on your Business Websites To Get More SEO

Business SEO is very similar to personal SEO, in that you are trying to get the first link in a Google search result. But they can be related as often when you Google someone's name, a business website will appear. To take advantage of this additional boost to your personal SEO from your company we have some tips and tricks to assist.

Leverage Company Website

Let’s begin with how to use a business website to boost your career. If you are working for a company it’s a great idea to leverage their brand for your benefit. To do this you want to be found when someone Googles that company. Obviously, it depends on the size of the business and your current role in it, but the strategy is the same. You want to be recognised for the impact you are making and no one will know unless you tell them.

There are several ways you can effectively do this with a little effort.

1. Volunteer to write some blogs for the company so your name gets some SEO love. Blogs don't have to be long and complicated, simple is usually the best and avoid company specific terms and acronyms. Start thinking about the questions customers ask you the most and write an easy to follow answer to that one problem.

2. If you are senior enough, your name, photo (with correct Alt tags) and biography should be in the About section of the company website. Board members, senior staff and anyone public facing should be on your business website so clients can look you up before meeting you. It's great for your personal SEO as it will provide another business link to your name and if your company is large then it should rank highly.

3. If you can get in front of the press to represent the company that can work wonders for your personal reputation. Volunteer to be the face of a particular project, it could be a high-profile business project a charity or social event. These are awesome for your LinkedIn profile and resume too. Be sure you have permission and media training for this tip.

4. Get one of your projects or articles published in an industry journal or magazine. Your company gets kudos and you get your name represented by a third party publication, win! These tend to rank highly in SEO as they get a lot of traffic to their website so will give you a great SEO boost.

5. Enter your company in an awards competition. The barrier to doing this is the amount of paperwork required. If you volunteer to do this, the company will thank you!

Leverage Social Media

1. Start with your LinkedIn profile and ensure you have your company URL link in your contact information (see below).

2. In the experience part of your profile, list your current roleand ensure the company logo appears. This will only happen if they have a LinkedIn company page. Add a paragraph or two about what the business does and what your role is. Then list your achievements, any projects you are proud of and don’t forget to place visual images (pictures, videos, slideshows) as they tell a thousand words.

If your company doesn't have a company page, then volunteer to build one for them and do our fast start LinkedIn course here. 

3. Add the company name to all your personal sites that could assist in building your brand. If you would be embarrassed for a referrer to see the site, don’t link it your business! For example, if you are a copywriter then a personal blog would be appropriate to link to the business, but Facebook might not be.

4. If you are a Twitter user post photos and comments related to the business and @yourcomany name and #theeventorconference

There are so many ways to link yourself to the business in websites and social that these are just a few tips to assist you in getting started. If you are interested in learning more about how to apply these to you specifically book in a free 20 minute brand assessment with Social Star.

Regards Andrew

P.S. If you are looking to boost your career or business in 2017, download our “E-ttractive Personal Brand Calculator” to measure how e-ttractive your current brand is and how to improve it.

Idea Generation: Follow your passion, the Tribe Digital case study

I'm an ideas guy, a creator. Way back in 2012 I had several ideas that I was working on since finishing my Masters of Entrepreneurship; one was a beer app called Closest Beer(in the app store now), one was Social Star (my current company) and one was Tribe (owned and run by Jules Lund). 

I met Jules through a mutual friend and what an engaging guy! So respectful of learning from others and a sponge for my personal branding information. I gave him a manuscript for my book (now published 'Creating a Powerful Brand') and on a hunch pitched him, Tribe.

My pitch went a bit like this: "Imagine Tinder for celebrities and brand managers." He was a celebrity and I was the brand manager, a perfect fit. We worked on the idea together for 18 months and it grew and grew. I was full time in Social Star at this stage and didn't have the time or funds to devote myself to Tribe as it was required. 

In late 2014 Jules wanted to take the business further, it was only an idea at this stage, so I exited the business and wished him all the best. Ideas are free, execution is where the value is created and he created the value that Tribe is today.

Friends ask me why I didn't pursue the idea further knowing that it could be a global company. My response is simple. I am more passionate about helping small business owners build their brands and live a more fulfilling life and spend more time with their family than I am about helping famous people make more money. It all comes down to being true to your own values.

Jules is the heart and soul of Tribe, and although, I had the idea first and pitched it to him. He was the man that put his time, money and significant effort into what the business is today. 

I sat on this idea for over a year before pitching it to Jules. My mate, Sacha Mcmonagle-ihasz, and I built out the strategy, played around with concepts, but it never made much ground until Jules became involved. Jules made it happen because he is more passionate about the idea than I.

My advice for entrepreneurs is this. Share your ideas freely. People may try to copy your idea, but most will give it up when presented with a challenge as they are not as passionate about it as you are. Don't do it for the money or success, do it for the people you want to help the most. 

If I didn't share the Tribe idea on a whim all those years ago, it would probably have been gathering dust in my ideas book and someone else would have created the business. Share and collaborate. I would rather see the idea come to life with a guy that I respect and call a friend.

I wish him all the best with the business and know he will make it a massive success.

Follow your values,

Andrew

P.S. If you want to peek inside my ideas book just shoot me a message, I have heaps!

Tip 2 – Increase Your Personal SEO in Google To Boost Your e-ttraction

What is personal SEO?

Personal SEO is where your name appears in a search result for your name. It's what a potential client would see when they are looking for you when they have been referred for your service. E-ttraction is your level of digital attractiveness based on being findable, credible and contactable. 

It’s best to have at least 5 out of 10 results lead to you, but that will take time and we will cover more of that in future blogs. For now, let’s focus on getting you the first link. 

To do that you need to know what is going to be your core site. That’s the one you realistically can get to the top of Google because it has SEO strength and the one that will likely convert a referral to the next step in your sales process.

Have one core site

Have a think about the main site you want your referrals to find? If you are in the job market or running your own business I suggest you focus on LinkedIn. It’s the easiest way to get you to Number 1, with the least effort and lowest cost. 

Appearing as the first link is getting really important now that Siri, Google assistant and others will only read the first name in a search result. So as these artificial intelligent searches become more popular, particularly on mobile, the more vital it is to be at the top.

After working in the social media industry for over a decade, we know that when someone searches on a person's name, 80% of the time, LinkedIn will be the first search result on Google. The reason is that LinkedIn has a huge amount of evergreen content dedicated to individuals. By evergreen, I mean it doesn’t disappear like a Twitter or Facebook newsfeed post, it stays on your profile for Google to crawl and prospects to see. 

Use LinkedIn better

One site that outranks LinkedIn is Wikipedia. This site is designed for celebrities or people ‘of note’ so although we have created them for clients, you have to back up all factual statements with public articles from reputable sources. If you have many online news articles about yourself it is possible. This will be beyond most people so a personal website, one that is dedicated to your name, can be a good solution as it will achieve number one placement. e.g. www.yourname.com.au

If you have a weak LinkedIn profile then other sites such as Facebook, news articles or a website you are featured on may show up first. The issues with these options are they are not the best way to move a prospect forward to contacting you for a job or new business. Another issue is you are not able to control the information so they may not always be positive for your brand. They can be useful for creating first-page domination, but getting the first link is the most critical.

Therefore, for most people, the best chance of getting the first link in Google is going to be LinkedIn. This is great news as many people are already on this platform, yet most people really are not using it properly to convert referrals. 

Fear not! We will cover how to use LinkedIn in more detail in upcoming blogs or you can check out our free eBook on LinkedIn here. 

What’s your name?

One item we need to mention regarding SEO is that it all depends on the search term. If your name is the term we want to appear for, it is critical that you spell your name the same way every time. That means not mixing up nicknames (such as Andrew and Andy), last names remaining consistent and not using stage names on LinkedIn. The name people will use to refer you to others needs to be the name that Google is looking for in LinkedIn. 

For example, you are known as “Andy Ford”, or “Fordy”, and on LinkedIn, your name is Andrew Ford, that isn’t a direct match. Similar, but not the same. Try both searches and see the difference!

Name images

The final tip for your personal SEO is to name your images. When someone googles your name, it generally will have an image bar in the results with photos, so you can find that specific person. Google is smart, they know you are looking for a person and sometimes you need to see their face to recognise them. 

To make it easier for Google to find you, name any images you use online with your name, business name and product name to increase SEO on your photos. (e.g. "Andrew Ford, Social Star, e-ttraction marketing or personal branding" depending on the image.) In SEO’s language, it’s called optimising your Alt and Title tags, which you can read more about here.

I hope these tips give you a starting point for your personal SEO work. There is a lot to learn! If you would like to know more or need some assistance in how to remove negative articles and how to beat famous people who share your name contact our team here. 

Regards,

Andrew Ford

P.S. Why not take advantage of our free brand review by clicking below.