Conquer the Chaos

Latest Episodes:

114—Frank Gerola—Perpetuating Real Estate Business During a Pandemic Jul 08, 2020

Show notes

Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Scott Martineau are joined by Frank Gerola, a real estate agent in the Phoenix Metro Area, who discusses how he's adapted his business during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gerola's business represents both buyers and sellers. One area of concern that came up for his clients was safety while looking at houses during the coronavirus.

"A lot of it is comfort level, how comfortable they are," said Gerola. "One of the things that we try to limit is the buyers' exposure, and the exposure they're bringing to the property."

Gerola requested that no children were to be brought to a home showing. If people had to bring their children, each parent would view the home individually while the other parent stayed in the car with the kids, then they would switch. As children tend to "look with their hands," this was a way to mitigate the spread of germs.

During home showings, Gerola provided booties and gloves to his clients as well as wiped down the house once they were done looking at it. He requested the homes to have all of the lights on, all of the doors open in every one of the rooms, the closets open, a couple of the cupboards open so the only doors that visitors would have to touch are the front door, the rear door, and the garage entry door.

"It's working all together as a whole. And then letting the consumer know, the seller know, 'We have your best interest in mind as well. We understand your concern and we hear you,'" said Gerola. "A lot of it is up to the consumer, but when you show them that you're proactive, it's a win-win."

You can find Frank Gerola's business on Instagram, @GilbertNOW and on Facebook, GilbertNOW. His personal handle is @RealtorFrankG on Instagram and Frank Gerola on Facebook.

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113—AJ Wilcox—How Your Business Could Benefit from LinkedIn Ads Jul 01, 2020

Show notes

Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Scott Martineau are joined by AJ Wilcox, who works for an ad agency that helps with the account management side of LinkedIn Ads as well as teaching, training, consulting, auditing, and anything else individual teams need to attract leads.

Wilcox expressed that the big limiting factor for LinkedIn Ads is their cost. The average cost per click, when you're using their ad network in North America, ranges from $8 to $11. This isn't traffic that's ready to buy–these are individuals who are interested in learning more about topics, or they're interested in consuming content. So $8 to $11 a click for something that is more mid to top of funnel.

"What I tell people is, if you have a lifetime value of $10,000, $15,000 or more of one of your future customers, then LinkedIn Ads is a great place to get to know them and get in front of them," said Wilcox. "If less than that, smaller B2C offers, even smaller B2B offers, you're going to have a really hard time getting a return on your investment."

Wilcox said you're launching a combination of AMO–your audience, your message, and your offer when you present your LinkedIn ads. The first thing you're going to be looking for is your click-through rate.

"I think most people who start using LinkedIn Ads should use one ad format. It's called single image sponsored content," said Wilcox. "It's the simplest, shows up in your newsfeed type of ad. Very versatile. And the average click-through rate on these across the network is a little bit less than half a percent."

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112—Brett Curry—Creating Compelling Content for YouTube Ads Jun 24, 2020

Show notes

Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Scott Martineau are joined by Brett Curry, who discusses how to leverage YouTube Ads to grow your business with a focus on ecommerce.

For those small businesses that don't have a video crew or can't invest enough money in video production, Curry breaks down how to create a compelling YouTube ad on a budget that will still see sufficient viewership.

He explains you can set your campaigns up to drive conversions, but you can also just set them up to optimize for views. Get creative when you start to build what's called a viewed video audience that has viewed your video before, so now you can run another ad to them or show them a display ad or a search ad next time they're searching on Google. If you approach it the right way, you're building an asset and an audience as well as potentially driving conversions right away.

When crafting a video, you don't have to go full production. You don't need special effects and trained actors or to hire a scriptwriter for $50,000. If you just remember that the most important elements are the script or the story that the video tells, and the simple visuals, the message can still be compelling.

"You could even use stock images if you had to, or basic footage that you add to it. So you don't have to go full production, in fact, I recommend you don't," said Curry. "Start with some concepts, test those out. Once you know a concept works, then increase the production value and kind of take it a step further."

Curry also reveals three types of content that businesses can use to build brand awareness on YouTube.

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111—Jason Komosa—Creating Work-Life Balance for Business Owners Jun 17, 2020

Show notes

Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Michael Van Dusen are joined by Jason Komosa, a mental coach who helps leaders achieve their goals by creating a better balance in all areas of their lives.

A mental coach is a person who supports you, champions you, is your sidekick, your accountability partner, being very open, very authentic, very vulnerable. The idea is to just make you better while training your mentality, mind, and spirit.

"Leaders and entrepreneurs need to make sure that they're prioritizing their life. Not just their work," said Komosa. "If we're just constantly focusing on work and ignoring all the other things that we need to have that quality energy, that quality work, it doesn't make sense to work 15 hours if eight of those hours are really quality, awesome work and the other seven are just half-ass mediocre work."

"The message I preach is, 'You might think you're doing yourself and your company a favor by putting the extra two or three hours of work. But the reality is you'd be much better off taking a break, stopping work, getting some rejuvenation, spending time with your family, go outside, get some exercise, get some movement, eat healthy, and get a good night's sleep,'" Komosa added.

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110—David Freedman & Kurt Donnell—Create Great Content via Growth Hacking Jun 10, 2020

Show notes

Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Michael Van Dusen are joined by Freestar's Co-founder David Freedman and President and CEO Kurt Donnell, who discuss how being advocates for publishers has maximized their revenue.

Freestar maximizes publishers' programmatic ad revenue specifically. Basically, every time you see an ad that appears on the internet, there's an entire auction that's happening in milliseconds behind the scenes. Freestar puts pressure on that auction to drive up the price to help publishers make as much money as possible and be competitive in a world where Google and Facebook continue to take a lot of the market share.

Freedman and Donnell deliver a real service that's very black and white in the sense that they drive revenue and people see it. It's also a revenue share model, so there's no upfront cost or fees for the publishers to work with them. "We're very passionate about the technology side and also giving a voice and a fighting chance for publishers these days, because it is a tough industry for them to survive in," said Freedman.

"Our industry is pretty much all geared towards the advertiser. Everyone's focused on satisfying them, which typically results in the publisher getting screwed," Freedman continued. "We wanted to flip that theory on its head and go the opposite direction. Publisher first is one of our core values and kind of our guiding decision making on everything that we do."

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109—Paul Ramondo—Secrets to Successful Facebook Ads Jun 03, 2020

Show notes

Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Scott Martineau are joined by Paul Ramondo, who helps small business owners and entrepreneurs generate highly-qualified leads and sales using Facebook ads and digital marketing funnels.

Ramondo divulges how to use the tools that are available both intra-Facebook and extra-Facebook to find your audience, refine them, build an audience avatar, build an ad set for targeting so you can then run ads and test to see what resonates and what doesn't resonate with your target audience.

"It's important to define what the internal emotions are in which your product or service solves or activates for your audience, and how that relates to the avatar that you're targeting," said Ramondo.

Ramondo recommends spending $5 on targeting a cold audience in a cold audience campaign and $5 a day targeting a warm audience, which are based off your retargeting audiences and include retargeting people who have visited your website, retargeting your email list, retargeting people who have engaged with your Instagram or Facebook profile, etc. and then run ads variable to the audience that you're speaking to.

"Customize to the audience that you're speaking to because the way that you speak to a cold audience is going to be different from the way you speak to someone that's already brand aware," said Ramondo. "A warm audience already knows who you are, whereas, a cold audience needs to learn about who you are. You need to build trust, you need to build rapport with them before you can actually get them to take out their wallet and buy from you."

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108—Mike Kim—Writing Brand Copy that Connects with Your Audience May 27, 2020

Show notes

Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Scott Martineau are joined by Mike Kim, an online educator of marketing who focuses on the personal brand and copywriting space.

Kim's business operates on two arms: copywriting for personal brands–meaning a speaker, a coach, an expert, a trainer, a thought leader, an author, anyone who's paid for their thoughts, and being a marketing consultant for some of the bigger thought leadership brands.

"I always say that when you influence language you influence thinking," said Kim. "We have that opportunity right now because the world is in a very, very unique place and we can use our words to bring comfort, to bring hope, to bring leadership, to bring clarity."

When Kim is ever asked, "What is unique about the way that you see marketing?" he says, marketing isn't about closing a sale. It's about opening a relationship. If you filter everything you say and do, marketing wise, through that lens, that's going to help you, because you're going to approach people as friends. You're going to approach people as people. People do business with people.

"My marketing isn't just a nice slick campaign with a nice slogan. It's actually part of a bigger context, which is a movement I'm trying to start," said Kim. "I'm not trying to be a religious leader, a cult leader, political leader, but in a sense, I'm trying to help the folks who want to become their own boss at a personal brand and help them through using the power of marketing to do it."

During this unprecedented time of the "coronapocalypse" as Kim refers to it, it is a golden opportunity for businesses to pivot the way they brand themselves and let their personal voice come out.

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107—Mel Kettle—The Importance of Connecting Your Audience May 20, 2020

Show notes

Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Scott Martineau are joined by Mel Kettle of Mel Kettle and Associates, who is a Communication Specialist whose area of expertise is helping people connect.

"I work with clients so that they can get a clear understanding of how to connect with compassion, with conviction," said Kettle. "I help people communicate so they connect and engage with their people. Whether it's their people, their workforce, their customers, their stakeholders, their investors, their volunteers or whoever else they need to have that strong relationship with."

She also has a podcast called This Connected Life where she discusses what's important when it comes to connection and her audience, as well as welcoming many guests.

"Probably 50% of my episodes are guest interviews where I talk to leaders about how they stay connected with their people so that they can achieve the outcomes that they want to achieve both personally and professionally," Kettle said.

Kettle believes that connecting starts with yourself. You need to have that self-connection piece and you need to be comfortable and competent with who you are and to look after yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally. If you don't do that, then you're never going to present your best self as a leader to your workforce or to your client base, which is what many people forget when it comes to connection.

Kettle also provides insights on what small businesses can do to connect to their audience, their family, and themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and what they should be doing to anticipate permanent changes in the workforce for the future.

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106—Grace Abruzzo—Solopreneurship in Women's Health May 13, 2020

Show notes

Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Scott Martineau are joined by Grace Abruzzo, the owner of Rooted Physical Therapy, who is a physical therapist specializing in the pelvis area, and discusses how her business aligns with her passions, her calling and how she uses it to provide a service.

Abruzzo typically works with women, but also works with any gender, any transitioning transgender and any age group. She got into physical therapy because she has a history of needing from when she was a child what she now provides. She has been trained in treating the whole body, but specializes in the pelvis.

"When I was in physical therapy school, I learned that this is the thing that I always needed that I never knew existed and that most people don't know exists," said Abruzzo. "I was immediately hooked."

Abruzzo also tackles the subjects that people don't feel comfortable sharing with a medical provider or the conversations that they hardly have with their spouse–helping those overcome the stigma behind discussing pelvic health issues.

"I'm working on one person at a time, but the change I'm making, I'm hoping that we're all going to experience it," said Abruzzo. "Because if you do healing, your partner is going to feel it, your kids are going to feel it, your friends are going to feel it, it's going to change the world."

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105—Jasmine Star—Using Instagram for Your Business May 06, 2020

Show notes

Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Scott Martineau are joined by Jasmine Star, a photographer and business strategist who empowers entrepreneurs to build a brand and market it on social media to grow their business.

"Your net worth is your network and that network is really built on social these days and that has been a game changer for my business," said Star.

The secret to a successful social media presence is the ability for people to show up consistently. It wasn't until Star had crafted a plan for consistency that people would expect her to show up as a representation of her business and her brand. She had created a brand using a blog with nothing more than her words and being consistent, and applied that same ideology to Instagram.

Her social curator business will help any type of content or organization see authentic engagement on social media.

"You are enough. Do you have the willingness to keep on pushing forward to get to where you want to go? I believe that we all have that wild ability for success as long as you remain undaunted," said Star.

Jasmine Star can be found on all social platforms @JasmineStar. You can also find her at jasminestar.com and all of her social media membership. For those who want to create a brand in marketing and social media, you can find her at socialcurator.com.

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