18 months ago, John T. Meyer co-founded Lemon.ly, as part of his plan to make the world an easier place to understand. Currently, Lemon.ly achieves this by creating beautiful infographics, but as you’ll find in today’s interview – John has bigger goals than that.
There are few things that make John’s story unique. The first one that comes to mind is the size of his clients. I don’t know many entrepreneurs that in their second business manage to secure mega companies like Nike, Pepsico (owners of the Pepsi, 7UP, Quaker, Tropicana and Doritos brands and 17 other well-known brands), or the Marriott within their first two years in business.
John T. Meyer, Co Founder of Lemon.ly
But there are other interesting factors. Location, for instance. John and Lemon.ly are located in South Dakota; almost the least populated USA state, and definitely not a major business or technology hub.
And of course, big part of what makes Lemon.ly special is their founder’s story. But first – what are infographics anyway?
What Are Infographics
The best way to explain what’s an infographic — is to show you one! As you’ll see, it’s a tool to organize data in a visual way that allows us to understand and remember it ; a lot quicker, for a longer time, and at a deeper level.
Today, As I sat down to record the intro & outro for episode 14, which should’ve been my interview with John T. Meyer, I realized something.
The photo above is the view from the window of the room in which I am sitting. This breathtaking view of Salt Lake City, Utah, and a book I just finished reading, have helped me understand something. Something that I’ve known for a long while, but couldn’t quite explain.
I’ve always been lucky to have the most amazing, supportive, inspiring and generous friends. But – does luck really have anything to do with it? And how come I have more support from my friends today, than ever before? Is it just a lucky strike, or did I unknowingly learned the ancient secret to surrounding myself with the best people I could think of?
As I was drinking coffee and preparing my notes, I thought of Jack, Mary and Camille, who let Julie and me into their breathtakingly beautiful home after spending just 3 days together in a conference 9 months ago. I thought of Phil, who driven from L.A. at 6am in order so spend breakfast with us. I thought of amazing friends that weren’t part of my life less than a year ago – Ralph, Farnoosh, Andy (x2), Benny, John (x3), David (x4), Dennis, Lisa, Stef, Gary, Kamal, Pete, Jared, Cahill, Bernd, Rob, Chris (x2), Dino, Jaime, Gabi, Leah, Nick, Sean, Jeff, Kobi, Nati, Krista, Amy, and many others (if your name isn’t in this list, it just means I don’t want to bore my readers. If you are my friend, you have as you already know, my eternal appreciation). I realized there’s a common thread between all of these people.
Many people told me over the last few months that I’m a great networker, and asked me to share my secret with them. I’ve turned them down because I felt there is no secret. There is no system to the madness. But seeing the whole picture, I realize I do have some things to share.
So I am both excited and slightly terrified to publish today’s episode; What you’ll hear today is more of a freestyle conversation than a structured interview. I hope this one-time change of format will be both refreshing and beneficial in helping you make new friendships and relationships that will inspire you, pick you up when you’re down, and be your safety net. Your home away from home. Because this is what these people are for me. And please, let me know what you think.
Next week we’ll be back no normal programming, with John T. Meyer – CEO and co-founder of Lemon.ly.
In this episode you will learn:
The one little habit that will make your life (networking, business, clients, personal life) a lot easier.
My deepest appreciation goes this week to Steve, who made the effort to come and meet me when I was in Salt Lake City. Steve, it was a great pleasure to meet you, and I can’t wait to see your first product take form!
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I Need Your Help!
Thank you all for checking out this episode of the Inspiring Innovation podcast!
If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
What would you ask Tony Robbins, one of the world’s top motivational speakers of all time, if you could spend 15 minutes with him in person?
Our guest today not only spent 6 years working alongside with Tony, but also was in charge of launching and managing his social media platforms. And wait till you hear how she got the job!
Amy Porterfield – Webinars, Social Media, Growing Your Business
On today’s conversation with Amy you will find a rare combination of an inspiring entrepreneurial story with actionable (and clear!) how-to and up-to-date tips on; how to use social media to grow your business, behind-the-scenes of Amy Porterfield’s webinars, how to build a brand with social media, and more.
Amy Porterfield
Over the last few years, Amy became the go-to Facebook strategist for small and large businesses alike. In 2012 she was included in The Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers. She’s the co-author of ‘Facebook Marketing All-In-One For Dummies’ and a published author on Forbes, Social Media Examiner, ProBlogger, Mashable, The Huffington Post, Business Insider and more.
Now, let me put everything on the table: I really love Amy. She’s one of the sharpest people on the scene. The amount of knowledge she accumulated since she launched her business is staggering. She’s an amazingly good teacher and on every interview of hers, she shares an amazing amount of useful, actionable, and new information. I guarantee today is no different. To be honest, today’s interview is one of my all-time favorite, and I’m so excited to share it with you. I know it will have some serious impact!
From Humble Beginnings To World-Class Entrepreneur
Amy’s story starts with one of the most important people in her life: her father. A firefighter for 30 years who never missed a day at work. Growing up in a “full-on blue-collar household”, as she defined it, Amy learned two lessons that guided her for the rest of her life:
You need to find a work that you love and makes you happy to go to every day.
You need to be your own boss so you can work on your own terms and call the shots.
One extra lesson was; Harley-Davidson motorcycles are super-cool. And thus, Amy earned her motorcycle license quite early in life (although after riding the Harley Fatboy several times, she decided to move on to cars!). Nonetheless, after graduating and having a few short-term jobs, she ended up working for Harley. She was working at dealerships level in the marketing department.
This experience gave her access to Harley’s top marketing materials and taught her storytelling, content marketing and event marketing — which later became the pillars upon she built her career.
Working For Tony Robbins
While working at Harley, Amy had an ugly breakup with her boyfriend at the time. She couldn’t sleep at night, and ended up in front of the TV – watching the late-night infomercials. One of them was of Tony Robbins. Enchanted, she went the next day to the local library and picked up some of his old CDs.
Amy was getting tired of her job, and wanted to move forward. She was very unhappy, but didn’t have any idea where to go next. So every day she was driving to work with Tony Robbins in her car stereo. At lunch time, she’d excuse herself and go to eat in the car – and listen to more of those CDs. She ordered the newer CDs and finally decided – her next job will be working for Tony Robbins!
She contacted the marketing department, went through the interviewing process and got a job offer: Travel the world and work 1-on-1 with Tony himself!
There were only two problems – she’d always be on the road, and salary was 40% less than what she was making. Amy had to choose between the dream of working for Tony, and the lesson she learned from his own CDs, “You have to go for what you want!”.
She turned the offer down.
Six months later she was offered a managerial position; creating and leading Tony’s social media platforms; and with what was “a dream salary”, according to her.
“Little did Tony know that he had to pay me more because he himself encouraged me to go for it!” —Amy Porterfield, on working for Tony Robbins
Amy worked for Tony for 6 and a half years. She built his brand online and perfected her online marketing skills. But corporate life wasn’t easy for her. When she got married, she realized that the stress and the traveling reached a tipping point. Work was overwhelming and no longer fun.
One day, during a shoutfest with Tony, something clicked in her mind and she knew: It was time to go. Building upon Tony’s lessons and her father’s tips that she took to heart, she made up her mind to start her own business.
How To Use Social Media To Grow Your Business
Inspired by Marie Forleo, whom Amy met while working for Tony and had become her mentor, she started taking baby steps towards having her own business. She was excited and wanted to burn her ships at shore – but Marie told her to wait. She learned that:
“You have to burn the boats so you can’t go back, but you don’t have to burn them instantly, at the moment you make your decision.” —Amy Porterfield
She kept wanting to quit and make the switch, and Marie kept telling her she’s not ready. So Amy spend a 6 months transition period, educating herself and building up her name by doing various consulting and social media management jobs. Many of those she done for free — in order to build her portfolio and experience.
Working early mornings and late nights building her business while working her full-time job, Amy was excited. She was working way too much, and took many projects she didn’t enjoy, but her motto was:
“You gotta say yes to more stuff than you say no to in your first year. You need to figure out what you like and what you don’t like… and you need to make money!” —Amy Porterfield
This motto guided her through her first year in business, but she slowly started to pull back. She stopped working for big clients and corporates,stopped doing social media for other people, and set to create her own online marketing program.
She KNEW she loved teaching, and she finally found a way to mix all of her interests into a single profession – a job she loved doing, a field that was interesting, and being her own boss. Amy has arrived!
How To Get 10,000 People On Your Next Webinar
Amy’s main programs today focus on generating leads and business from Facebook, in the most engaging, cost-effective and brand-building ways. She attributes her webinars to growing her business and brand in such a quick way, and on today’s interview we dig in and break down the behind the scenes of her webinars – how to choose a subject? how to get over 10,000 people to attend your webinars? how to handle competition? and more. We discuss the most up-to-date Facebook ads techniques, conspiracies and common mistakes.
What are you waiting for? Hit the play button right now!!
In this episode you will learn (A LOT!):
How Amy’s childhood shaped the type of career she ended up creating.
How Tony’s tips built the foundation of Amy’s business.
Why Amy turned down an offer to work close to Tony Robbins and travel the world with him.
Why Amy left her position as manager of social media for Tony Robbins?
When is the time to burn your ships at shore and launch your new career?
How to build the foundation of your next business before you launch.
How, when, and why should you take customers for free?
What’s Amy’s key tip for your first year in business?
How to use webinars to build your business, and Amy’s best tips for creating amazing webinars that over 10,000 people attend.
What words should you use in your Facebook communications.
How to define Facebook ads to maximize your conversion rates – including a step-by-step guidance on how Amy sets up her own ads – Today!
How to use free, valuable, content to build your business.
How to get more traffic to your blog.
How to handle competition.
How much does Amy Porterfield REALLY spend on ads.
What parameters should you monitor on your Facebook ads campaigns?
How to get engagement on Facebook, and what to do if you have no engagement yet?
How to improve your FB page, based on your competitors pages? <<< This is soooo slick!
Why, and when, should you pay Facebook to reach your existing Fans?
What’s the one thing that Amy would’ve done differently?
What’s the best tip Amy took from Tony Robbins? (It’s Not what you expect!)
My deepest appreciation to all of you (comment or email me if you want to be removed from the list):
Ben Putman
DL Schroeder
Will Merchan
YOU GUYS ROCK!
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I Need Your Help!
Thank you all for checking out this episode of the Inspiring Innovation podcast!
If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
“Just Do It. What’s The Worst Thing That Could Happen?”
These were the first words that Ralph Quintero & I shared. The time was May, or maybe June, 2012 – only a year ago. Ralph had just launched his iPad magazine – The Great Business Project. I was procrastinating with launching my magazine – Inspiring Innovation.
I was stuck at getting interviewees for my first issue. I couldn’t bring myself to approach anyone. Funny thing was that for quite a while I knew exactly who I want on my first issue – Pat Flynn, Farnoosh Brock and Cahill Puill, co-founder of world-famous 4HWW muse – LapDawg… But I was scared. I was afraid they’d say no, so I didn’t ask.
One day, I was on a Google+ Hangout (back then it was very exciting!) of MagCast publishers – the platform both Ralph & I were using. Ralph was sharing how incredibly easy it was for him to launch and get interviewees on board.
I was very pissed… at myself.
So I sent Ralph a tweet, something like, “I’m kicking myself so hard after seeing you on the Hangout for not taking action”. The response?
Just Do It. What’s The Worst Thing That Could Happen? —@RalphQuintero
That day was were my friendship with Ralph was formed, and the day that ‘Inspiring Innovation’ became a real thing.
How To Be An Entrepreneur
Ralph Quintero
Ralph became an entrepreneur at a young age, and with a unique profession – DJ! At the age of 13 years old, he borrowed stereo equipment (double cassette tape) from his dad and aunt, and started deejaying school parties. Then his big break came: Ralph and each of his other two partners made $20 on a single night!
Ralph could not have been happier, and to this day he has a smile on his face when he tells the story. That evening was the first time he realized he could make money doing something he loved.
He became a professional DJ. He toured and performed in the hottest nightclubs around the world and got to work with his idols. Life was great… besides the rough hours and lack of any normalcy.
Finally, he was about to get married. He knew he can’t carry on this way when starting a family. So he ended up getting a job at JBL, and moved to the corporate world. Since JBL is a world-known speaker company, he reckons he was, “still doing something I love, but in more reasonable hours”.
Ralph’s attitude and tendency to excel didn’t fade in the corporate world. Quite the contrary; he was climbing the ranks and became head of international sales. Which meant he was traveling 80% of the time.
One night, Ralph came home to his wife, who was alone with their one-year-old son and pregnant. She told him she can’t take it anymore. They decided to leave California and their six figure jobs and go back home – to Miami. This was the beginning of their Life After Corporate.
Life After Corporate
That night in 2003, the Quinteros made a promise to themselves — to only work in things they are passionate about. They had no idea what that may be, but they were going to find out. Ralph decided to leverage his experience from corporate, and combine it with everything he learned from being a young successful entrepreneur. They created a company targeted at helping audio companies establish themselves in Latin America. When they divested from the company 6 years later, it was generating over $35M in revenue for their clients.
This process was documented on Ralph’s best-selling title, Life After Corporate: My Personal Journey from the C-Suite to the E-Suite. That book was an overnight best seller – as you will hear on today’s episode. Today Ralph owns several businesses, one of them is The Great Business Project (magazine, podcast, forum and blog), which aims to be the resource for entrepreneurs that Ralph wish he had when he got started. It’s his way of giving back to entrepreneurs. He’s also an in-demand speaker, coach and advisor.
Successful Entrepreneurs
So what are we talking about today, besides Ralph’s story?
Today, Ralph shares with us the #1 pillar any entrepreneur need to take care of; his own mindset. Ralph will walk us through creating and maintaining the mindset and attitude that all successful entrepreneurs share. We will also cover some of his 5 pillars to having a successful business that works for you — so tune in now so you don’t miss out! Prepare to start having a business that works for you, and not the other way round!
Enjoy the episode.
In this episode you will learn:
How having an action-taking mindset and attitude like Ralph’s will change your life.
How Ralph discovered how to make money doing only things he loves.
Why Ralph gave up on his entrepreneurial career and moved to corporate?
Why you need to take action in your life?
Why you should ban the word ‘tired’ from your vocabulary?
How to cope with getting a ‘no’ from your dream client?
What’s the one, and ONLY thing that limits you when someone says ‘no’ to you?
How to perform at your best?
How Ego affects a person’s success? How can you deal with it?
One thing that 84% of the US population wants to do before they die!
How Ralph’s book became a bestselling book, without him having any previous writing experience.
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I Need Your Help!
Thank you all for checking out this episode of the Inspiring Innovation podcast!
If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
Content Is Not The King, Traffic Means Nothing, And Ads Are Not A Blog Monetization Plan
There you have it. If you want today’s interview with Dino Dogan in a nutshell, the above title will give you the major points.
According to Dino, “there is nothing worse than writing a blog post that nobody reads. Triberr solves that problem for bloggers by developing a community of sharing and support with other bloggers.”
Triberr is a new and better way to grow your blog’s readership. It’s better because it connects like-minded bloggers who are interested in reading and supporting each other. This core community, or Tribe, is the secret to a successful blog.
One Wednesday, a few years ago, somewhere in New Jersey, Dino Dogan had a realization: He’d been studying how to get more traffic to his blog for quite a while; consuming everything he could read about it. But the more he read, the more it became clear to him:
It Was Too Little, Too Late!
Dino Dogan
Dino perfectly understood the “science” of link building, PageRank and website authority, and the roaring power of social media. Because of that understanding, he knew that in a competitive niche with well established megawebsites — his blog didn’t stand a chance. Not with the tools that were available back then.
Blogging Tips 101
As Dino saw it, all bloggers needed to do in order to rank well and get a lot more attention, was:
Publish A LOT of content.
Have TONS of backlinks.
Become a brand that Google respects (demonstrated by being given a higher PageRank, for instance).
The problem was that as the blogosphere was changing. With the rise of social media, no one was linking anymore. Everyone was now sharing via Twitter, Facebook, etc., so it became very, very hard for small bloggers to build (or earn) enough high quality links. As to publishing a lot of content – could you seriously compete with the amount of content that is published on Huffington Post? NY Times? Forbes? (Yeah, that’s a bit of a radical competition to pick on, but any blog that’s a tenth as active as any of these will be a huge undertaking).
And as to becoming a brand – the best way was to publish a lot, get as many high quality backlinks and shares as possible. Which for a new blogger on the block – was almost impossible.
Building A Successful Blog (What if…)
What if. That’s how it all started. What if bloggers could share their audience with some other bloggers from the same niche? By doing that, they could get the attention of the audience of their colleagues and have a lot more content to share with their own audience, who were easily consuming more content than the bloggers had to offer.
What would be the compound effect of creating such a tribe of bloggers?
This is what was on Dino’s mind that Wednesday. So he sat down and started searching for such tool, “surely someone came up with this idea already!”, he thought. But… No such tool existed. So Dino, born & raised in Bosnia who came to the USA and found work as a network engineer, and spent the last seven years teaching computer geeks how to become bigger computer geeks, found a new position: co-founder. Dino pitched the idea to his friend Dan Cristo, and by the next Wednesday, Dino and Dan where on the same Triberr tribe, sharing audience and content.
Solving The Next Big Problem
As press print was invented, knowledge became more accessible than it ever before in human history. People could suddenly afford access to books. In the late 1990’s, with the rise of platforms like WordPress, Blogger.com and others, the gate to publishing was opened for the first time. Today, anyone can start a blog, a podcast or publish a book on Amazon. It’s no longer a small closed clique of the very fortunate.
As Dino sees it, the next big problem is allowing anyone who wants to publish to get attention. Evidently, this is the biggest hardship for almost all bloggers. This is the mission behind Triberr.
Hitler, Apple and Insane Loyalty
In the second part of the interview, we discuss a subject that has been fascinating Dino and is the ultimate challenge for any business owner: Creating insanely loyal fans.
This is where Dino’s studies of Theology come into play, and make the discussion somewhat controversial. Dino claims that there is a lot to learn from religions and cults when planning your online (&offline) presence. Dino actually gave a fascinating speech on this subject at the New Media Expo in Vegas, where I first heard him speak.
Check out today’s interview to find out more about polarizing, social status, isolation and mythos – for examples of how these tools are used to affect us in our day-to-day life, and simple examples of how you could master some of them, and combined with tools like Triberr – create true focused attention to your brand, business or website.
In this episode you will learn:
How Dino went from songwriting and blogging about dog training to founding Triberr?
How can small bloggers get more eyeballs on their content.
Triberr’s ultimate goal.
Why Triberr is considered a big secret among the successful bloggers.
How a small blogger can compete with big sites like or big media properties?
How to create insanely loyal fans?
What is polarization and how can it help you succeed?
How does giving status to your followers (this could be users, members of the site, customers, or employees) help you with succeeding in your business?
How do you apply these tools in blogging, magazines or podcasting?
What is the importance of isolation?
What Dino decided to wear for this interview (caution… you might not wanna know!)
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I Need Your Help!
Thank you all for checking out this episode of the Inspiring Innovation podcast!
If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
