RetainFM – Build your Digital Agency on Recurring Revenue

RFM175 – Building get out clauses into your contracts

Pete Everitt — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 09:30:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Most common reasons why projects go wrong:

Scope Creep
Misaligned Expectations
Misaligned Budget
Inaccurate or insufficient discovery
Even long term retainers have a life span

The importance of thinking how to get our of something, before you get into it...

The difference between quotes and estimates...

For Projects:

Have a specification linked to the estimate – reserve the right to change the quote if the specification changes
Be clear where the intellectual property lies at different stages of the project
Have a termination process from BOTH sides in your Contract / Agreement:
If the client terminates the project
If you terminate the project
Have the payment schedule linked to stages YOU control
Have a documented process for packaging up files, sending them to the client and offboarding the client from your systems

For Retainers:

Have a termination process outlined in your Contract / Agreement
Include a notice period – and detail from both sides
Detail how and when final payments will be expected and what they will cover
Have a documented process for completing work, sending data to the client and offboarding the client from your systems

Join the Facebook Group

RFM174 – How Agencies Should Measure Their Performance with Marcel Petitpas

Pete Everitt — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 13:47:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Key metrics to track
Targets to aim for & industry benchmarks
Exactly what formulas to use to calculate them

Example metrics:

Financials (Revenue, AGI, Gross Profit, Net Profit, Overhead Spending)
Utilization Rates
Average Billable Rates
Labor Efficiency Ratio

Marcel's Bio:

Marcel Petitpas is the CEO & Co-Founder of Parakeeto, a company dedicated to helping agencies measure and improve their profitability by streamlining their operations and reporting systems, a problem he discovered while running his own agency.

He’s also the head strategic coach at SaaS Academy by Dan Martell, the #1 coaching program for B2B SaaS businesses in the world.

In his work as a speaker, podcast host, and consultant, specializing in Agency Profitability Optimization, he's helped hundreds of agencies around the world measure the right metrics and improve their operations and profitability.

When he’s not helping agencies make more money, he’s probably watching “The Office” or “Parks and Rec” on a never-ending loop and eating breakfast foods for every meal of the day.

Links:

Twitter / X: @Parakeeto

Website: www.parakeeto.com (👈 you can also get the Toolkit from here)

Podcast: The Agency Profit Podcast

Join the Facebook Group

RFM173 - My 5 minute SEO Assessment for ANY client website

Pete Everitt — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 09:42:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

My 5 minute SEO Assessment of any client website!

Disclaimer: this isn't a process for running a full SEO Audit on a website. Instead, this is the process I go through when a lead comes in to talk about SEO. Before any project has been confirmed, or any money has exchanged hands, this is the process I go through before the initial call to give me context.

Website structure
User experience
Current Rankings
Competitor Websites & Rankings
Website Speed / Core Webs Vitals

This leads on to two gated products...

SEO Health Check
Keyword Research & Mapping

... and from here I can present a retained proposal.

Join the Facebook Group

RFM172 – If I had to start my Digital Agency again, what would I do?

Pete Everitt — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

#1 – look inwards – "What do YOU want?"

What type of lifestyle do you want?
What interests you?
How much money do you want to make?
Do you want to be in a location?
Do you want staff?
How will it serve you?

#2 – where can I make a difference?

What is your skill set, and how can that commercial impact on businesses?

#3 – do any of my points above line up?

If no, what industries are cash rich?
Legal
Jewellery
Financial Services
Events
(Industries that are used to spending money to make money)

#4 – create my proposition (and my product / service)

How can I help you, and why thats a benefit to you
How we work together over time (recurring and non-recurring options)
Do this to MVP level

#5 – network

Content creation, SEO, email funnels are all good, but they're not fast
Meeting people face-to-face IS fast
Be clear about what you do (and do NOT) do

#6 - make sales

So far, everything is just theory – an idea doesn't work until someone buys it.
With 5 customers I can start to make improvements
With 10 customers I can start to make processes
With 20 customers I can start to delegate (if I want)
Do something towards making a sale EVERY DAY.

#7 - review, refine, rescope, repeat

When it feels right
Does it deliver?
Does it work for me?
Does it work for them?
Is my price right?
Can I be more efficient?
How do I serve more people?
When do I review again? <- This is my target

#8 - keep an eye on company value

Will I EVER want to sell it?
If so, this needs to operate away from me – always keep that in mind

Join the Facebook Group

RFM171 – Completing a Business Development Task Every Single Day

Pete Everitt — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Why did I start this?

Leaving previous employer
No Leads
Contractual Obligations

How do I do it?

It's in my to do list
I have some habits that happen regularly
I have one-offs that happen when they need to
A lead is never ignored or left to stagnate
Some days it takes 5 minutes, other days it takes all day (it might be the only thing I do that day)

How do I manage it?

Trailblazer FM – How to Manage Leads
I use ClickUp with a very similar approach to how Lee describes it.

How you can begin...

Make a list of all customers you haven't spoken to in the last 3 months – and get in touch with some of them.
Review your Google My Business Information
Review your website and make sure people CAN convert and contact you easily
Put your existing customers on an email list and start emailing them marketing / web type advice
Write all your corporate social media posts for the next 30 days

... Download the list of 50 from my website!

Join the Facebook Group

RFM170 – My tried and tested SEO Project Proposal Template

Pete Everitt — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Process:

Pre-Discovery Session

Lead comes in
Brief 20min phone call to validate lead / project – outcome is to present Discovery Session as next best step
1 Page Agreement / Checkout for Discovery Session

Post Discovery Session:

SEO Health Audit
Current Rankings Reports
Backlink Toxicity Report
Top Level KW Research
Core Web Vitals / Speed Report
SEO Proposal Prepared

Document Templates:

Proposal Template

Cover Page
Intro Letter (personalised)
Where do you currently Rank?
How fast is your website?
How healthy is your website?
How many links does your website have?
What should your website be ranking for?
How to start ranking?
What are the next steps?
Investment (inc payment schedule)
How do we get started? (Project Agreement)
Terms
Appendices (to full reports)

Links:

Join the Facebook Group

RFM169 – My tried and tested Website Project Proposal Template (and Process)

Pete Everitt — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Process:

Pre-Discovery Session

Lead comes in
Brief 20min phone call to validate lead / project – outcome is to present Discovery Session as next best step
1 Page Agreement / Checkout for Discovery Session

Post Discovery Session:

Project Specification Document Prepared
Project Proposal Prepared

Proposal Delivery:

Proposal Call Booked AHEAD of sending proposal
On the morning of the call, send the proposal through Adobe Sign
Have the call, answer all questions, and ask for a signed document

Document Templates:

Proposal Template

Cover Page
Intro Letter (personalised)
Snapshot
Business Needs (aka Project Outcomes)
Solution (overview – Spec document has full details)
Timeline
Investment (inc payment schedule)
Future considerations
How do we get started? (Project Agreement)
Terms

Specification Document

Cover Page
The Brief (in detail)
Business Requirements
Project Outcomes
Design Specification
Development Specification
Technical Requirements
Milestones

Join the Facebook Group

RFM168 – Why you should treat your agency as your own client

Pete Everitt — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 16:53:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

The Importance of Internal Focus
Treating Your Agency as Your Own Client: A Strategic Approach:
Self-Assessment and Goal Setting
Implementing Internal Marketing Strategies
The Option of Outsourcing: When to Make Your Agency Someone Else's Client
Balancing Internal Focus and Client Responsibilities

Join the Facebook Group

RFM157 – Finding Clients: Be Easy but Firm with who you work with

Pete Everitt — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 17:39:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

As an agency, we need to take responsibility for the quality of leads we have coming through our doors.
Having defined products and services is key to aligning yourself with the right clients
Having a clear marketing process that guides clients is key to not wasting anyones time

Defining your products and services

What you do
Who you do it for

How does your marketing fit

Funnel Mentality

Can you filter out those that are not suitable automatically?
Can you filter out those that are not suitable quickly?
Find your lowest common denominator - start there
The create the filters that move in from that point
Try not to leave clients hanging... have referral partners in place

Join the Facebook Group

RFM166 – Service: The Heartbeat of A Successful Digital Agency

Pete Everitt — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 16:50:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

There are multiple levels of service that an agency can work on...

Clients
Staff and their dependants
The owner
The wider world

A business is only really a sustainable force when it can serve all four (OK, if you're content at being a solo-agency, then maybe not number 2).

Why is service important?

Differences for clients:

Personalized Service
Proactive Service
Responsive Service

Differences for staff:

A safe place
Security in knowing they are contributing to a bigger picture, that in turn contributes back to them
Confidence in bringing life in to work and knowing that the balance is the last way round.

Differences for the owner:

Freedom
Security
Wealth
"Success" – whatever that looks like

Differences to the wider world:

A legacy
Community impact
A positive footprint

RFM165 – Don't underestimate the value of local clients

Pete Everitt — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 09:27:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

The Importance of Local Clients:

1. Understanding the Market:

Local clients operate in a market you’re inherently familiar with. As a part of the same community, you can understand their target audience better, as you share the same environment, culture, and trends.

As a Digital Agency, you often need to target marketing campaigns to specific local audiences. Being in the same locality as a client can provide invaluable insights into the tastes, preferences, and behaviours of local customers. This can be crucial for crafting effective SEO strategies, creating locally relevant content, or running targeted ad campaigns.

2. Face-to-Face Interactions:

With local clients, you have the opportunity for face-to-face meetings, which can foster stronger relationships. These meetings can often lead to a deeper understanding of the client’s needs, more effective communication, and ultimately, more successful projects.

While its easy for digital agencies can work remotely with clients, face-to-face interactions can still be beneficial. Meeting in person can foster better understanding and collaboration, particularly during initial project scoping or strategy development phases where nuanced discussions can be more effectively held in person.

3. Building Trust:

It’s often easier to build trust with local clients. Being part of the same community or area creates a sense of shared identity and mutual understanding, making it easier to establish credibility.

Trust is crucial for any client-agency relationship, but it’s especially important in the digital sphere where clients often need to entrust sensitive data and crucial aspects of their business to their agency. Being locally present can enhance a sense of trust and reliability.

4. Local Networking:

Working with local clients often leads to better networking opportunities within your community. Local clients are more likely to refer you to other local businesses, increasing your client base.

Local networking is an excellent source of business for digital agencies. Attending local business events or joining local business associations can result in referrals and partnerships. A good reputation in local circles can significantly enhance an agency's client base. There does need to be a hint of caution with this, however. Some local networking events can become stagnant (essentially the same people meeting in the same room each meeting). Unless there is an active referral practice in place, be wary if networking groups don't contribute to your business within a few months – it might be time to move on.

5. Community Impact:

Working with local clients often means you’re helping local businesses grow, which can have a positive impact on your community. This can enhance your agency’s reputation and lead to more local work.

Helping local businesses grow can elevate the reputation of a digital agency within a local area. Success stories can be more tangibly demonstrated and can serve as strong social proof for the effectiveness of an agency's digital strategies.

This can either be through some form or partnership or shared community effort with some of your clients, or by tapping in to a local need and contributing individually.

6. Faster Decision Making:

In many cases, working with local clients can lead to quicker decision-making processes. Face-to-face meetings, shared working hours, and easier scheduling can speed up approvals and make project management more efficient. This is true for non-local clients too… sometimes a trip or a dedicated call can lead to faster decisions than leaving communications up to email. (There is a thought about never emailing a proposal – always present it, for example).

For a digital agency, project timelines can be crucial, especially when dealing with aspects like time-sensitive ad campaigns or fast-evolving digital trends. Faster decision-making with local clients can help agencies to be more responsive and agile.

7. Understanding Local Regulations:

(Possibly more of a US consideration) – Being in the same locality, you would have a better understanding of any regional or local regulations that might impact a client’s business or marketing efforts.

This is particularly relevant in areas such as data protection and privacy, local SEO, or location-based advertising where local or regional regulations might significantly impact a digital marketing strategy.

Shout Out Episodes:

Join the Facebook Group

RFM164 – Using Google Bard AI to turbo charge SEO Processes

Pete Everitt — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 09:34:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Why Google Bard is better than ChatGPT for certain tasks:

How ChatGPT and Bard are different:

ChatGPT

Database until Sept 2021
Uses a volume of written text to understand and produce new output.

Bard

Trained by a specific data set for conversations
Main goal is to provide simpler results than the SERPs and trigger conversations

Which tool is better for which tasks?

ChatGPT:
Better at writing.
Stores previous conversations.
Can share responses with others.
Offers various plug-ins and integrations with popular sites and apps
Bard:
Better for research.
Can research current information such as recent events.
Read and summarize webpages.

SEO Processes that Bard is best for:

KW Research / Content Ideation
Content Auditing
Types of content
Content Planning & Structure
Heading compilation
Internal Linking
External Linking
Meta information (Meta Titles & Descriptions)

Links

Join the Facebook Group

RFM163 – Clients are bigger than Contracts

Pete Everitt — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Agencies as a Commodity vs Marketing Partner

The perception of an agency as a commodity service can have several negative impacts on its growth. Here are the key issues:

1. Price Competition: When a service is viewed as a commodity, the price often becomes the primary differentiator. This can lead to a race to the bottom in terms of pricing, squeezing margins, and reducing profitability.

2. Reduced Perceived Value: If an agency is perceived as a commodity, its unique selling points or unique aspects may be overlooked. The perception of value can decrease, causing clients to be less willing to engage or less loyal.

3. Difficulty Differentiating: In a commodity market, it's challenging to set yourself apart from competitors. Angela's agency may struggle to differentiate its services, resulting in lost potential clients to competitors who appear to offer the same services at a lower cost.

4. Limited Innovation: Commoditized markets often stifle innovation because of the relentless focus on cost-cutting. An agency might find it difficult to invest in new ideas, technologies, or processes that could actually improve service and client satisfaction in the long run.

5. Customer Loyalty and Retention: With services seen as interchangeable, customers may be less loyal and more likely to switch providers for minor price differences. This could lead to higher client churn rates and increased costs in attracting new clients.

6. Short-Term Relationships: If clients view the service as a commodity, they may not see the value in developing long-term partnerships. This can limit opportunities for repeat business and referrals, critical aspects of growth for many agencies.

Viewing contracts as business partnerships rather than commodities can have several beneficial impacts on an agency. Here are some of the key benefits:

1. Long-Term Relationships: Viewing clients as partners foster long-term relationships, which can lead to repeated business, referrals, and ultimately more stable and predictable income streams.

2. Improved Collaboration: When clients are viewed as partners, they're more likely to engage in collaborative and productive discussions that can lead to innovative solutions, better outcomes, and higher client satisfaction.

3. Better Understanding of Client Needs: Treating clients as partners typically involves a deeper dive into their business, allowing the agency better to understand their needs, challenges, and goals. This understanding can help the agency to provide more personalized, effective services.

4. Increased Trust and Loyalty: Partnership implies a certain level of trust and shared commitment. This can increase client loyalty and reduce client turnover.

5. Value-Add Services: With a better understanding of the client's business, the agency can more easily identify opportunities to add value beyond the specific terms of the contract, increasing the client's overall satisfaction and willingness to continue the relationship.

6. Enhanced Reputation: An agency known for treating clients as partners is likely to have a strong reputation in the industry, attracting more potential clients.

7. Reduced Price Sensitivity: Clients who feel they have a partnership with the agency are likely to see the value of the services provided beyond just the cost. This can reduce price sensitivity and increase the potential for higher profitability.

8. Shared Success: In a partnership, the success of the client translates to the success of the agency. Clients' growth can lead to larger contracts and more business for the agency.

9. Higher Engagement: When clients are considered partners, they're more likely to be engaged and actively participate in projects. This can lead to better outcomes and solutions that are more aligned with the client's vision and goals.

10. Innovation Opportunities: Close partnerships with clients can stimulate innovation as both parties work together to solve challenges, potentially leading to new services or improvements that could benefit the agency's entire client base.

Ultimately, the shift from viewing clients as commodities to viewing them as partners can lead to more fulfilling, productive, and profitable relationships that benefit both the agency and the clients.

Let’s rerun the original issue…

The commodity agency says “This is not in the scope of the contract – it is beyond the scope and the client’s responsibility”. What does this say to the client? We don’t care? We just want your money? We have our business as our priority and not yours? Moreover, what happens when the client realises this could / should have been taken care of and asks why you didn’t do it?

The partnership agency says “This is something we need to take care of. Don’t worry, we have it covered but we’ll need XYZ from you” (this could be information, access, money).

What’s more what happens when the client from the partnership agency speaks to the client of the commodity agency who is complaining that they’ve lost XYZ data… The client from the partnership agency says “well the people who look after me took care of everything – there were no issues. I’ll give you their number.”

Score 1-0 to the partnership approach. Clients are ALWAYS more than contracts.

Why is this important? Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room…

Join the Facebook Group

RFM162 – Selling through presenting the opportunity

Pete Everitt — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 00:15:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Sales that drive growth aren't incidental – they come about through a persistent drive to build a business. (Get the 50 business development ideas you can use every day).

Savvy business owners know that all business is an investment. Their profit is a direct multiplication of what they put in. So they ask the question "What's in it for me?" If you can answer that, you'll make sales. If you can't, you won't.

To be clear, I'm not talking about giving away complete strategies or "free work" for clients, but I am talking about understanding the potential BEFORE you approach a client, and presenting the opportunity to them in such a way that they understand what could be in it for them from the outset.

This is often far easier to do with existing clients to upsell them on to new products or services as you understand their business model already, there will be a learning curve for any new client, but even utilising tools like CHatGPT can help you run audits in seconds – and that's exactly what SEOHive's Scout Reports and Local SEO Audits are designed to do.

Any client that isn't interested in the opportunity (or who is just going through the motions) probably isn't a great client in the long run – you may do a project, maybe 2, but they won't be a long-term client.

So, what is the opportunity your clients are looking for?

Search position?
Sales?
Enquiries?

What's their average conversion rate? If you can ascertain that, then you can literally forecast from spend to return.

Example:

A client receives an average of 1000 website visits per day.
They receive around 35 enquiries per day for their service.
Of those enquiries, 60% become quotes, and they close about half of all quotes.
So from the 1000 visits, they get 21 quotes and close 10-11 of them.

It goes to stand then, that if they can increase their traffic of the same quality by 100% (so 2000 visits per day) that would lead to 42 quotes per day, and 21-22 confirmed orders.

If they can 10x their traffic then that would be 210 quotes per day and 105 orders.

So without improving anything but traffic, you can demonstrate a return.

These are the numbers that help clients make investment decisions – are you selling through presenting the opportunity? If not, why not?

Check out SEOHive's Scout Reports and Local SEO Audit if you'd like to present SEO opportunities to your clients with a view to increasing your MRR.

Join the Facebook Group

RFM161 – Which AI Tools Agencies can use to provide UGC services for their clients

Pete Everitt — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Part 2 of a mini-series about User Generated Content – go back and check out episode 160 about what UGC is, how to create a UGC strategy and how agencies can help clients with UGC as a service.

The benefits of these tools are where the efficiencies lie for agencies. It's the tools that make this process scalable so you can sell it to 100+ clients and know you'll get reliable results for all of them.

NB: I'm not suggesting you use ALL these tools, but explore the options that will work for your agency and your process. AI tools are just like any other tool - don't pay for something if you're not going to meaningfully use it.

Key AI tools to note (most of these are for brand monitoring, social media management and content curation):

TINT is a social content aggregator that helps agencies collect, curate, and share UGC from across social media. TINT uses AI to automatically tag and categorize content, making it easy for agencies to find the right content for their campaigns. TINT also provides analytics on UGC performance, so agencies can track the impact of their campaigns.
Nosto (formerly Stackla) is a user-generated content (UGC) management and marketing platform that uses AI to discover and curate online content. It can assist in selecting high-quality UGC, tracking how UGC influences conversions, and understanding which content resonates best with your audience.
Social Native is a platform that helps agencies collect and showcase UGC on their website and social media channels. Social Native uses AI to automatically tag and categorize content, and it also provides analytics on UGC performance.
Crowdfire is a social media management platform that helps agencies track and analyze their social media performance. Crowdfire also provides tools for scheduling posts, engaging with followers, and running contests. Crowdfire's AI-powered tools can help agencies find and curate UGC, and they can also help agencies track the performance of their UGC campaigns.
Sprout Social is another social media management platform that helps agencies track and analyze their social media performance. Sprout Social also provides tools for scheduling posts, engaging with followers, and running contests. Sprout Social's AI-powered tools can help agencies find and curate UGC, and they can also help agencies track the performance of their UGC campaigns.
Yotpo: Yotpo is an eCommerce marketing platform that allows you to collect, curate, and manage UGC such as reviews, photos, and Q&A. Its AI capabilities can help in identifying trends, and can also assist in displaying the right content to the right customers at the right time.
Canva's Content Planner: Though primarily a design tool, Canva's Content Planner feature uses AI to suggest the best times to post on various social media platforms, helping to maximize engagement with your UGC.
Chat GPT and GPT-4: A powerful language processing AI that can generate human-like text. It can be used to create content, answer questions, translate languages, and even to help in creating more personalized responses to user comments.

Join the Facebook Group

RFM160 - How UGC helps SEO

Pete Everitt — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

What is User Generated Content (UGC)

Simply put, UGC is any content that is published online that is generated by your audience. Some of this may be autonomous, but businesses can also have a UGC strategy to help stimulate this content production.

It is good practice to showcase the best UGC your business can gather, which can have both an on-page and off-page influence on SEO.

What are the different types of UGC?

UGC can include (but is not limited to):

Reviews and Testimonials: Users share their opinions, feedback, and experiences with a product, service, or brand. These can be in the form of written reviews, ratings, or video testimonials.
Social Media Posts: Users create content on social media platforms, including text, images, videos, and hashtags related to a brand, event, or topic. This can include posts, stories, and comments.
Blog Comments: Users engage with blog posts by leaving comments, sharing their thoughts, asking questions, or providing additional insights on the topic.
User-Generated Videos: Users create and share videos related to a brand, product, or campaign. These can include unboxing videos, tutorials, reviews, or user-generated advertisements.
Photos and Visual Content: Users share images, photographs, or visual content related to their experiences, products, or brand affiliations. This can be on social media platforms, image-sharing websites, or community forums.
Forums and Discussion Boards: Users actively participate in online forums and discussion boards, sharing their knowledge, and insights, and answering questions related to specific topics or industries.
Crowdsourced Content: Users contribute to collaborative projects or campaigns by submitting their own content. This can include artwork, photography, slogans, or ideas for contests or brand initiatives.
Customer Stories and Case Studies: Users share their success stories, case studies, or testimonials highlighting how a product or service has benefited them.
Q&A Platforms: Users provide answers, solutions, and insights on question-and-answer platforms like Quora or Reddit, addressing queries related to specific topics or industries.
Podcasts and Video Interviews: Users participate in podcasts or video interviews, sharing their expertise, insights, or experiences on specific subjects or industries.

What things would a good UGC strategy cover?

Define Objectives: Start by identifying clear objectives for your UGC strategy. Determine what you aim to achieve with user-generated content, such as increasing brand awareness, boosting engagement, driving conversions, or gathering customer testimonials.
Identify Target Audience: Understand your target audience and their preferences. Identify the demographic, interests, and platforms where your audience is most active to tailor your UGC strategy accordingly.
Choose UGC Platforms: Determine the platforms where you want to encourage and showcase UGC. This could include social media platforms, review websites, dedicated community forums, or even your own website or app.
Encourage UGC: Create opportunities and incentives for users to contribute UGC. This could involve running contests, giveaways, or challenges, soliciting feedback and reviews, or providing prompts or creative inspiration to encourage content creation.
Provide Clear Guidelines: Establish clear guidelines for users to follow when creating and submitting UGC. This ensures consistency and quality, while also setting boundaries for acceptable content.
Showcase UGC: Highlight and showcase the best UGC on your website, social media channels, or other marketing collateral. This can be done through dedicated UGC galleries, customer spotlights, or user-generated content campaigns.
Engage and Respond: Actively engage with users who contribute UGC. Respond to their comments, acknowledge their contributions, and show appreciation for their involvement. This encourages further engagement and strengthens the relationship between your brand and your audience.
Moderation and Monitoring: Implement moderation and monitoring practices to ensure the quality and appropriateness of UGC. Establish a process for reviewing and approving content before it is shared publicly to maintain brand consistency and protect against spam or inappropriate content.
Rights and Permissions: Clearly communicate any rights and permissions associated with user-generated content. Obtain consent from users to use their content, ensuring you comply with legal requirements and protect the intellectual property rights of content creators.
Measure and Analyze: Continuously measure the impact and effectiveness of your UGC strategy. Track engagement metrics, conversions, and the overall sentiment of UGC to gain insights into its impact on your business goals. Use these insights to refine and optimize your strategy over time.

Remember, a successful UGC strategy is built on authenticity, transparency, and meaningful engagement with your audience. By encouraging and leveraging UGC effectively, businesses can tap into the power of their customers as brand advocates, driving greater trust and loyalty.

How can digital agencies help their clients with UGC?

Digital agencies can play a crucial role in helping their clients effectively leverage user-generated content (UGC). Here are some ways digital agencies can assist their clients in maximizing the potential of UGC:

UGC Strategy Development: Digital agencies can work with clients to develop a comprehensive UGC strategy aligned with their business goals. This includes identifying the target audience, selecting appropriate UGC platforms, and defining the objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) for UGC campaigns.
Content Creation and Curation: Agencies can assist clients in creating and curating UGC by providing guidance on content formats, themes, and guidelines. They can help clients develop content creation campaigns, run contests, or encourage user participation through interactive initiatives.
UGC Platform Management: Digital agencies can help clients identify and optimize the right UGC platforms for their specific industry and target audience. They can provide guidance on platform selection, setup, and integration, ensuring seamless user experiences and effective UGC management.
Moderation and Quality Control: Agencies can support clients in implementing moderation and quality control processes for UGC. This includes establishing guidelines, monitoring content submissions, and ensuring compliance with legal requirements and community guidelines.
Engagement and Response Management: Digital agencies can help clients engage with users who contribute to UGC. This involves actively responding to user comments, acknowledging and appreciating their contributions, and fostering a positive and interactive environment.
UGC Analytics and Insights: Agencies can analyze UGC data to extract valuable insights for clients. They can measure the impact of UGC campaigns, track engagement metrics, and provide reports on the effectiveness of UGC in achieving client objectives. These insights help clients refine their UGC strategies and make data-driven decisions.
Integration with Marketing Channels: Digital agencies can assist clients in integrating UGC across various marketing channels, such as websites, social media platforms, email campaigns, and advertising campaigns. They can ensure consistent branding, optimize UGC for SEO, and maximize its impact on overall marketing efforts.
Compliance and Legal Considerations: Agencies can advise clients on compliance with relevant laws and regulations concerning UGC, such as privacy rights, copyright issues, and disclosure requirements. They can help clients navigate legal considerations and ensure their UGC campaigns adhere to best practices.
Measurement and ROI Tracking: Digital agencies can help clients measure the return on investment (ROI) of their UGC initiatives. This involves tracking key metrics, such as website traffic, engagement rates, conversions, and customer sentiment, to evaluate the success and impact of UGC campaigns.

Join the Facebook Group

RFM159 – Unveiling the Unseen: The Essential Communication Bridge Between Agencies and Clients

Pete Everitt — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Setting the context – the agency where I found my feet

Working with Client Services
Working on BIG clients
Our agency was NOT a commodity

The problem – we see it all the time through SEOHive. Clients identify with what they can see and understand easily – that's why content retainers sell so well.

What doesn't sell so easily is the technical SEO and link outreach programs. That's because these items are far more unseen, so clients don't "get" them.

Bridging the Knowledge Gap:

Some of what we do is technical, and some (maybe most?) clients won't want to know or care how something works. BUT this devalues so much of whats involved in SEO.
Unseen Actions can include:
Keyword Research
On Page Optimisations
Link Outreach
Internal Link Building
Hierarchy Optimisation
Schema
...

How to communicate these things in a way that is easy for the client to understand.

Including a learning curve in your marketing
Communicate regularly – especially wins where they are unseen
Drive your wins into firm results for the clients (sales, enquiries, etc).
Don't use too much jargon
Provide Reports to clients ahead of meetings so they can raise questions
Meet regularly (monthly)
Provide summaries of key data
Send snippets of wins through each week

Join the Facebook Group

RFM158 – Establishing effective routines to help with productivity and work/life balance

Pete Everitt — Tue, 30 May 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

The challenge:

We're all exceptionally busy – and if doesn't matter if we're an agency of 1 or 100, we all need to make sure that items of work aren't forgotten, deadlines are hit, our company is marketed, the booked an payroll are done, invoices are sent and that we have some time for ourselves and our family.

The solution:

Whilst it may sound exceptionally boring, establishing effective routines means you can become more efficient and think about the output rather than the process. This also seriously helps with delegating if some of these routines include catch-ups.

Here's my predicament:

I run 2 businesses – that's two lots of staff, two lots of project management, two lots of sales and support, and two lots of everything!
That also means everything is held in two places – we have separate project management systems.

Here are my techniques:

Regular (weekly) catch-up meetings with core team members
Weekly planning of my week (generally on a Friday)
Start up and shut down processes
Startup: review the day, and what needs to be done first
Shut down: check the day (what got done vs what didn't) and confirm the plan for tomorrow
Do, Delegate, Delete <- as much as possible... this is for far more than email
Only check email a few times a day
Have a separate communication channel for staff, but even then manage the notifications
Plan your social time/activities in if they encroach on your "normal working day"
Have a "normal working day" (or days). Mine are:
Monday: 9-5
Tuesday 10-6:30
Wednesday: 9-5
Thursday: Either 9-5 or 10-4 + 8-10 (late call every other Thursday)
Friday 10-3 (including no meetings)
Calendar Blocking where necessary
Have SOPs for EVERYTHING.

Software to help with this:

Project Management is in ClickUp for both companies
I run "personal" management through ToDoist
iCal for Calendar
Trialling Sunsama that is bringing everything task and date based together from across all three sources (agency, SEOHive and Personal)
Newton for EMail
Slack for Internal Comms

Join the Facebook Group

RFM157 – 5 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Customer Experience and Retain More Clients

Pete Everitt — Tue, 23 May 2023 07:00:37 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Understanding Customer Experience in a Digital Agency Context:

Explanation of customer experience (CX) and why it's important in the digital agency business. This includes marketing to new clients, servicing clients professionally and retaining / maintaining a lasting relationship with them.

The Five Strategies to Improve CX and Client Retention:

Strategy 1: Improve Communication

Clear and regular communication is vital for any effective relationship
Practical tips to enhance communication with clients today

Strategy 2: Deliver On Promises

Always on promises and meet client expectations – this is not negotiable
Share tips on how to ensure consistency in delivery

Strategy 3: Don't confuse clients (aka Simplify Technical Jargon)

Explain why simplifying technical jargon is essential for better CX
Offer tips on how to simplify complex digital terms and concepts

Strategy 4: Regular Client Feedback

Discuss the importance of client feedback
Practical tips for setting up a feedback system

Strategy 5: Stay in touch!

Just because a client isn't on a retainer with doesn't mean they won't ever need your services again. Find ways to stay in touch with your past clients to remain top of mind and provide the easy opportunities to work together again.
Share strategies for tailoring your approach to individual clients

Previous Episodes

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM156 – Introducing SEOHive's New Local SEO Plan

Pete Everitt — Tue, 16 May 2023 07:46:04 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Why Local SEO:

46% of all searches on Google include local intent
24.4% of all clicks go to the first result of local business searches
“Near me” mobile searches grew increased by 136% in 2022
56% of businesses haven't yet claimed their Google Business Profile
The average timeframe to see ROI-positive results from Local SEO is 4.76 months

SEOHive's New Local SEO Service

Phase 1: Local SEO Audits
Phase 2: Local SEO Optimisations (Month 1)
Including a full Local SEO Optimisation Checklist
Phase 3: Ongoing Local SEO Delivery (Month 2 Onwards)
GBP Content Creation
Citation Submissions
Review Monitoring

👉 Check out SEOHive's New Local SEO Plan

Use code retainfm for $50 off for 3 months!

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM155 – What is Scope Creep and How Digital Agencies Can Avoid It

Pete Everitt — Tue, 09 May 2023 08:00:48 +0000

Main talking points include:

Prefer to watch this show? Subscribe to the YouTube Channel!

Part 1: Understanding Scope Creep

Definition of scope creep
Scope creep in digital agency work refers to the phenomenon where a project's scope of work expands beyond the originally agreed-upon goals, tasks, and deliverables, without a corresponding increase in budget, timeline, or other project parameters. Essentially, it occurs when additional work is added to a project without properly managing or communicating the change in scope to the client.
Scope creep can happen in many different ways in digital agency work, such as when a client requests additional features or changes to the project scope, or when a project team adds extra work or features without consulting the client. The end result of scope creep is that the project becomes more complex and takes longer to complete than originally planned, often resulting in frustration for both the client and the agency.

Common causes of scope creep

Clients moving the goal posts – "I forgot to mention" or "I thought that would be included!"
Stakeholders – people not necessarily involved in the procurement process, but make decisions at project level
Gold plating – providing additional work or deliverables that are beyond the scope of the original project agreement but NOT at the request of the client (aka – making life harder for yourself!)
Examples of how scope creep can negatively impact a project
Overrunning the budget – or "losing your profit"
Unsatisfied customers – every customer has the potential to be an advocate for you, don't lose it
Sub-optimal final product

Part 2: Avoiding Scope Creep

Setting clear goals and objectives with clients
Building a strong scope of work and project plan
Communicating effectively with clients throughout the project
Proactively managing change requests
Managing client expectations and educating them about the impact of scope creep

Part 3: Dealing with Scope Creep When it Does Occur

Identify the Cause
Assess the Impact
Communicate with the Client
Revisit the Web Design Brief
Document Changes
Reprioritise Requirements

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM154 – What to do with a Lead when you receive one

Pete Everitt — Tue, 02 May 2023 14:06:29 +0000

Main talking points include:

This is part 2 of a two-part show. Check out Part 1 of this podcast – Generating Leads through the 1/9 Rule

In this episode, I share a comprehensive process that digital agency owners can follow when they receive a lead or enquiry. Tune in to learn how to convert more leads into clients by following these steps:

Initial Lead Capture: Streamline your lead capture process with CRM systems or lead capture forms and consider automation to save time.
Prompt Response and Communication: Respond quickly to leads and maintain consistency using email and phone call templates. Personalize your communication for better engagement.
Qualifying the Lead: Assess if the lead is a good fit by determining their budget, timeline, and project scope through targeted questions.
Setting Up an Initial Consultation: Schedule a meeting or call with a clear agenda and relevant information to establish rapport and trust.
Proposal Development and Presentation: Create tailored, compelling proposals that showcase your agency's expertise and value proposition.
Addressing Objections and Negotiation: Learn strategies to overcome common objections, negotiate effectively, and recognize when it's best to walk away from a prospect.
Closing the Deal: Secure a signed agreement, set clear expectations, initiate the onboarding process, and focus on maintaining long-term client relationships.

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM153 – Generating Leads through the 1/9 Rule

Pete Everitt — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 09:10:30 +0000

Main talking points include:

Reasons Digital Agencies complain about leads:

They "don't have any"
They "don't know where to find them"
The "don't have the time"

... All excuses...

What I've actually found is that all the digital agencies I've coached have easy access to leads, they just don't (really) know what to do when they've got one... so they pass on it or don't even class it as a "lead".

The 1/9th Rule

Firstly, you need to understand your customer. Is this:

Industry Specific
Business Type Specific
Location Specific

Create of grid of 9 squares and fill it with how your service (or services) directly help that customer.

Examples:

Help them sell products reliably online
Help them rank in the search engines
Take the pain out of unreliable web hosting
Help them integrate their website, product management and CRM systems through seamless integrations
...

When you have your 9 blocks... ONE of them will become your marketing tool. This one needs to be:

Something that is a specific need of your client
Something the client COULD do on their own – it might be convoluted, but they CAN do it if they really want to
Something that will make a real-world difference to them today
Something that you can create a marketing hook for
A lead into the other products and services you offer

Create a resource that helps the client with that ONE thing. This NEEDS to work and be accessible to them

PDF
Video
Podcast
...

You then go 110% into that ONE block:

Create content about it
Engage on Social Media about it
Search for people looking for help with X
Run Ads about it (if you do this, people could even submit their details through the ad)
Make it your topic of choice on guest podcasts
Speak from stages about it
Become the number 1 person known to help with it in that niche

And et voila... you have leads.

The REALLY daft thing about all of this – this is all advice you'd give to your clients, but Agencies are notorious at not taking advice for themselves.

Part 2 – coming next week – what to do when you have a lead!

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM152 - How we're using AI in Our Digital Agency

Pete Everitt — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:59:52 +0000

As with everything you need to apply the 80:20 rule – AI can get you 80% of the way there, but you still need to do the other 20% (thanks Bob Gentle for the inspiration here).

Internally

Marketing
Social media
Meeting summaries

Externally / with clients

Keyword clustering
Content ideas & briefs
Content Structures
Social Media Ideas / Posts
Content Summaries
Meta Descriptions
Meta Titles
Custom imagery

AI tools we're using:

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM151 – Pricing Profit Into Recurring Services

Pete Everitt — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 08:00:17 +0000

There are many different models of pricing recurring (and non-recurring) services...

... but all of them rely on you building profit into your pricing structure.

In this episode, we walk through how to rice a recurring service to make sure you're making money EVERY TIME (including a base price calculator for you to use) and discuss why profit is so vital to every business.

The Base Price Calculator is available in a bundle with the Recurring Service Planner (see episode 150!)

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM150 - How To Plan A Recurring Service

Pete Everitt — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 08:00:56 +0000

When you sell anything, it's your responsibility to make sure it works!

In this episode we break down a recurring service into its constituant parts, and then provide a Recurring Service Planner (which comes bundled with a base price calculator) for you to plan your own service!

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM149 – Deciding What To Delegate

Pete Everitt — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 08:10:53 +0000

Knowing what your capacity is and deciding how to delegate to grow is key to any form of agency growth.

(This is applicable to you, your business and your staff!)

Main talking points include:

The differences between business priorities and delegation
How to map out your likes and dislikes in your working life and making those decisions
How a framework can help build your business life and that of your team members
A framework built on a quadrant chart (screenshot available in shownotes).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM148 – What is a value ladder and why do you need one?

Pete Everitt — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 14:32:38 +0000

Main talking points include:

In this episode, we cover:

What is a Value Ladder?
How to Create a Value Ladder
Benefits of a Value Ladder
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Why a value ladder is good for a Digital Agency

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM147 – How To Deal With Clients That Aren't A Good Fit

Pete Everitt — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 13:39:43 +0000

Main talking points include:

In this episode, we cover:

Signs that a Client isn't a Good Fit
Why it's Important to Say No
How to Say "No" to a client (and some alternatives)

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM146 – Sometimes Things Aren't Always As They Seem

Pete Everitt — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 11:09:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

When was the last time you took a step back, looked at the whole picture and asked "OK – is this as good as it can be?"

In today's show, we uncover why sometimes asking the most obvious questions, can be the key to delivering in your business and for your clients.

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM145 - Understanding How Google Makes Money And Why It Affects You

Pete Everitt — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 19:19:30 +0000

Main Talk Points Include:

There's an inherent cost to ranking in the search engines... You either pay a direct advertising cost through Ad Spend, or you pay through the time and effort to rank organically. By employing an SEO professional you also incur the cost to rank organically, just faster than you would on your own.

Understanding how Google makes money can really help you to fast-track your organic SEO objectives...

Google makes money by running ads. It can charge a premium for those ads by ensuring the 10 organic results displayed on page 1 are the best, most relevant pages on the internet that will help the user – otherwise, why would anyone bother to pay to be above them?

Understanding the terms and, crucially, the intent behind the terms, that people are paying for means that you can be way more focussed on your keyword research and content creation process.

"But Google doesn't use keywords anymore?" I hear you cry. Well, not exactly.

Google has moved to show results far more based on users' intent than purely on a keyword basis, but you can't get away from the fact that it all starts with what a user types (or says) into the search bar.

Types of user intent:

Commercial intent

This intent signifies a drive by the user to act. Searchers are most likely to commit to purchasing or enquiring as a result of these types of searches

Informational intent

The user is willing to find out more about the subject matter. It’s probably not a good idea to try selling anything to them outright, but these could be good for developing “gated” content and capturing email addresses

Transactional intent

Transactional intent lies somewhere between commercial and informational intent. Essentially, these queries can represent both the purpose to buy or read more about the subject

Navigational intent

These people are just trying to get around the internet with the least path of resistance. They know where they want to be and just don't want to type it into a search bar

You can get all of this information through keyword research tools, along with the values people are paying to appear on page 1.

So what do you do with this information when you have it?

You can make decisions on which keywords to attempt to rank for and which not to bother with.
You can create versions of content for different types of intent, especially once you understand your client's sales funnel
You can laser focus on what will move the bottom line for your client the fastest and show an ROI – from an agency perspective we also have to win clients, demonstrate results and value and win the trust of our clients too... an added pressure that making good decisions quickly can help you with.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM144 – A Starter SEO Strategy For Any Website

Pete Everitt — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 19:44:57 +0000

Main talking points include:

Where to start for a client that has NO SEO budget.

Here's the formula:

1/ Write about your main product or service in full from start to finish.

Make sure you have sub-sections to your content (ideally 6-8 sections)
Don't go into granular depth in any of your sub-section
Make sure this has the main title in the URL, meta title and description
Ideally 2000-3000 words

2/ For each of your sub-sections, write another blog post – this time going into FULL detail about each section, and writing it in the words you would explain it to a customer.

At least 1000 words, but these can be as long as you like.
Include internal links (at least two, no more than four) back to the main service page you wrote in point 1 on the keyword you optimised for in point 1.
Go and update that service page with links back to your topic posts, again linking on keywords

3/ Make sure every page has a mechanism for people to enquire, get in touch, sign up or buy

4/ Share each post/page on social media – you can share more than once on some social platforms too!

5/ Repeat steps 1 and 2 for each service you run – starting with the most profitable, then working your way down.

Book – They Ask You Answer – Marcus Sheridan

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM143 – Agency Productivity and Email Management

Pete Everitt — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 19:17:47 +0000

Main talking points include:

Many of us become slaves to our inboxes – when a client emails we down tools on what we're doing and jump right onto their requests. As the day goes by the inbox seems to get worse, and the end never seems to be in sight.

But what if there was another way?

In this episode, I speak with James Murgatroyd, an agency owner who has mastered the process to manage his inbox, so that it doesn't manage him.

We outline James' email system, and talk about Agency Productivity in general – so once you have all that time back you are super efficient with it.

In short, the system comprises of:

Taking on an "Unsubscribe Campaign" – if you can get the information elsewhere, get it out of your inbox
Adopting a Folder System:
Personal
Accounting
A folder for each client
To do
Action
In Progress
Pending
Reply
Waiting for Reply
Incoming (going to remove) - enquiries
Read at some point (typically get emptied about once a month)
To Pay

In addition, we also cover:

Pomodoro Sessions
Go High Level
ClickUp
Jasper.ai

Shoutouts

Troy Dean – Agency Mavericks and Mavcon
Kyle Van Deusen – The Admin Bar
Noah Britton – Agency X-Ray

Bio:

James Murgatroyd is the Chief Everything office at Holler Digital, a web, and marketing agency in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. He's been building websites and digital strategies since the late 90s and is passionate about user experience.

Twitter: @hollrt

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM142 – What We've Learned From Running SEOHive So Far

Pete Everitt — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 07:37:27 +0000

Main talking points include:

In this episode, Jeff Patch and I set the mics rolling following one of our weekly SEOHive meetings.

We reminisce a little about how we got started, unpack where we are now, and chat about why we get so much out of running SEOHive.

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM141 – How To Calculate The Base Price For Your Services

Pete Everitt — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 12:44:46 +0000

Main talking points include:

In this epsiode I walk you through the method we use to calculate the base price for the services in our agency.

We follow the process of

Itemising Costs
Building In Profit
Allowing for Taxes

As mentioned in the episode – I have a template for a service planner and cost calculator for you – you can get them here!

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM140 – Introducing Agency Transformation Live 2022

Pete Everitt — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 21:46:51 +0000

Main talking points include:

Lee is the founder of Agency Transformation Live – an in person summit for Digital Agency Owners to come together, build relationships and build lasting change into their businesses.

Launching in 2019 with a phenomenal inaugural event, Lee had to transform the event through 2020 as a result of the COVID pandemic. In this epsiode we discuss the journey of Agency Transformation Live, and Lee reveals whats in store for the 2022 event that is taking place in November.

About Lee

Lee teaches thousands of agency owners across the world how to build a business and lifestyle that they love.

The host of Trailblazer FM, Cloudways Maverick on YouTube and Co-Founder of Event Engine™.

Focused on teaching agency owners the principles of transformation he hosts the yearly Agency Transformation Live conference.

Website: https://agencytransformation.live/

Twitter: @trailblazerfm

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM139 – Why Content is the Agency's Responsibility

Pete Everitt — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 14:55:51 +0000

Main talking points include:

Abby is the Founder of The Content Lab – a remote content department for digital agencies. In this episode we discuss:

Why Content IS important for the web design / development process and why you should be bothered about
What you need to consider when you are responsible for the website content
How to bill copywriting as part of your web design process
How to include copywriting as part of your recurring revenue
How you can retrofit a copywriting exercise to a completed web build

Resources

Blog: How Much Does A Copywriter Cost? – Abby's blog on The Admin Bar's Website
Book recommendation: Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson
Content Goodies – white-label copywriting guides

Shoutouts

Kyle Van Deusen / The Admin Bar (on FB)
Lee Jackson's Trailblazer FM

About Abby

Founder of The Content Lab, Abby has completed copywriting for over 300 websites personally, and leads a 6-woman team of amazing copywriters and content experts. Originally from Cambridge in the UK, she now lives in Waterford, Ireland with her partner Nick and their Border Collie Bosco.

Website: https://www.thecontentlab.ie/

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM138 – Getting Personal About Personal Development

Pete Everitt — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:57:47 +0000

Main talking points include:

Andy is the Author of Own Your Career, Own Your Life. In this episode we unpack the topics of personal and career development and Andy explains his experience of it, including his battle with cancer, and how he has honed his personal development practices and skills. This has now formed the basis of not just his book, but the mantra by which he lives his life and builds his business.

About Andy

Andy Storch is an author, speaker, consultant, coach, and connector as well as the host of two podcasts including The Talent Development Hot Seat and Own Your Career Own Your Life Show.

Andy is also the founder and host of the Talent Development Think Tank conference and community.

Andy is passionate about helping people fulfill their true potential and his book, Own Your Career Own Your Life, is designed to help people stop drifting and take control of their futures.

Most importantly, Andy is a husband, father and friend who is on a mission to get the absolute most out of life and inspire others to do the same.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andystorch/

Instagram: @andy_storch

Twitter: @andystorch

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM137 – Selling a Process rather than a Service

Pete Everitt — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 15:28:35 +0000

Main talking points include:

Alex runs his agency, The Lead Engine, by selling a process. This starts with a website, but moves on to a marketing process that he and his team have honed over years of practice for the Financial Services Sector in the UK.

Alex explains the key markers he has found are lynchpins to the marketing process for Financial Service Advisors, and explains how his process revolves around this. Alex also explains how his sales process works without actually mentioning the digital services involved.

About Alex

Alex is the founder and MD of The Lead Engine, a marketing agency for Financial Service Businesses in the UK.

Website: https://theleadengine.co.uk

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM136 – Why some succeed while others don't

Pete Everitt — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 22:24:56 +0000

Main talking points include:

"The truth is everyone has a personal brand" – Bob is THE go to coach for leaders who wish to develop the personal brand AND their business. Bob has coined the phrase "LeaderBrand" to encapsulate this.

The dilema is this... we all have access to the same information, so why don't we all see the same results? Based on the most successful business people he knows, Bob has devised a structure that he calls "The Seven Blades of Good Fortune" that all revolve around your "Why". The blades are:

Dreams and Vision
Discipline and Productivity
Network and Community
Creativity and Imagination
Mindset and Positivity
Confidence and Swagger
Knowledge and Understanding

About Bob

Bob works with leaders at every stage of business to help them step out in front of their marketing. He does this through his podcast, youtube channel, coaching, masterminds & consulting. His mission?.. Helping business leaders around the world discover, set and achieve their goals online - then build a business they love.

Website: https://amplifyme.agency/

Instagram: @bobgentle

Twitter: @bobgentle

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM135 – The Process of Writing Processes

Pete Everitt — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 08:36:53 +0000

Main talking points include:

In this epsiode I walk you through the process we have honed of writing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) – an SOP for SOPs!

All of our processes follow the structure of:

Define Prerequisites
Define Outcome
Document Process
Define Completion
Resources Required
Glossary of Terms
Where to get help

... and I will guide you through each one of these!

As mentioned in the episode – I have presented this process before... If you'd like a copy of the Slide Deck, you can get it here!

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM134 – The Will and The Way

Pete Everitt — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 14:05:35 +0000

Main talking points include:

In this episode, Joseph and I talk about hope having a define will and being open to many different paths (or ways) is key to developing yourself and your business.

About Joseph

Joseph Bojang is on a new mission to help the world through the concept of Hope Theory. He’s the owner of Web Champs, a digital advertising company dedicated to helping clients grow online. He's a sought-after advertising expert and routinely handles 6 and 7-figure budgets for clients, and is also known for his endeavours into cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

Website: https://www.josephbojang.com/

Instagram: @josephbojang

TikTok: @joseph.bojang

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM133 – How Digital Agencies can leverage their Brand

Pete Everitt — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 08:49:19 +0000

Main talking points include:

In this episode Brandon Birkmeyer and I unpack exactly what a brand is, and how it is vital for Agencies to develop their own brand. We cover the advantages of brand development and the tactical outworks of this in real life!

Topics include:

What is a brand
How the process of content creation helps develop your brand
Using your clients to drive the process of defining and shaping your brand
How brands set expectations through meaningful experiences
How to put a brand into action

About Brandon

Brandon Birkmeyer is a seasoned brand strategist, business coach, keynote speaker, and podcaster. For over 17 years, Brandon advised and directed brand strategy for top FORTUNE 100 companies including Apple, Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Wells Fargo. He is the founder of the Podcast Branding Academy, an online school for podcasters. He also produces and hosts a top marketing podcast called Brands On Brands, which has ranked #1 in personal branding and content marketing on Apple Podcasts.

Website: https://www.brandsonbrands.com

Twitter: @bbirkmeyer

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM132 – How to create space in your business

Pete Everitt — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:06:06 +0000

With my coaching clients I've been working a LOT on creating space in their businesses before taking on anything new in terms of business development or transformation...

In this episode I explain why that's a good idea, and how you can do that in your business by:

Reviewing your products and services
Reviewing your pricing
Reviewing your client base

We're all stretched for time, right? So by reviewing these 3 easy areas of your business, you can go from being reactive to proactive and taking back control of your own destiny...

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM131 – Distributing New Content

Pete Everitt — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 16:01:13 +0000

Main talking points include:

Why have a distribution protocol is a good idea:

Just generating content and hoping for the best isn't a great strategy
Helps fill the gap between content publication and indexing in the SERPs
It is easier to plan in advance if you do it when you're creating the content

What is a content distribution protocol?

A regular method or schedule of activity to boost initial traffic to a new piece of content

What are the benefits of a content distribution protocol

It drives traffic quickly
It is easy to set up and automate
It means there is some traffic data already associated with the content when Google indexes it

What might a content distribution protocol look like?

The major rule of engagement:

Never Share the Same Message Twice!

Some content post ideas...

Straight and Easy: Post Title + Link
The Question: Ask an engaging question to stir conversation
Cite a Fact: Share a fact or figure that is included in your post
Share a Quote: Grab a pull-quote from your article and turn it into a social message
Add Intrigue: Write a teaser message that grabs the attention of your readers

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM130 – Moving to a Recurring Agency Model

Pete Everitt — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 15:47:35 +0000

Main talking points include:

From a background of being an in house and agency designer, Doug has run his own business in a variety of guises.

The transition – giving prospective clients a choice:

A project-based model that costs a little more, and at the end of it we pass over the project and it becomes your responsibility.
A recurring model based on a payment plan, that includes the payment plan and all care plan and hosting services, that doesn't cost as much over the period of time.

A bit about Doug

"After getting my BFA degree (majoring in Visual Communications) in 2000, I became a pro Web Designer…. and its been a wild ride ever since! Along the way I’ve been an employee for other agencies, I’ve been a contractor (like an employee without benefits!), and I’ve ran my own show. I’ve learned a lot along the last 21 yrs, seen the industry change and grow a lot, and I’d like to think I’ve gained just a wee bit of wisdom. I’m happy to share some things I’ve learned along the way 😀"

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM129 – Everyone Needs a bit more Laughter

Pete Everitt — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 14:22:17 +0000

Main talking points include:

The power of laughter - how it energizes you as person
What laughter yoga is and why you should consider it for yourself
Pete's story and background in business (it's no joke!)

A bit about Pete

One afternoon, at a summer festival with his family, Pete heard the joyous sound of laughter ringing out from the arboretum. Assuming they were missing the funniest comedian in the world, Pete instead stumbled on his first Laughter Yoga event. And it was at this point that Pete Cann ‘Business Man’ became the man we have today, Pete Cann ‘The Laughter Man’.

From that first session, surrounded by people laughing unconditionally and without boundaries, Pete realised the joy that laughter could bring to a group of people. Returning from the festival, Pete began to investigate Laughter Yoga. The more he discovered, the more the idea of laughter as a health and wellness activity resonated with him.

Pretty soon Pete was attending as many Laughter Yoga sessions as he could find. The problem was, there were not too many of them. So Pete Cann ‘Laughter Man’ was born and he made it his mission to bring the benefits of laughter to as many people as he could.

In the same way he built his first business, Pete has used all of his innovative thinking to make himself a name in the Laughter Yoga world. Via the new phenomena of video calls, Pete Cann the Laughter Man has performed Laughter Yoga to rooms of people around the world. As his name gets bigger so do the rooms and so do the numbers of people attending.

Pete has made it his mission in life to bring the health, happiness and wealth benefits of laughter to the whole wide world.

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM128 – Being known as the Problem Solver

Pete Everitt — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 15:45:23 +0000

Main talking points include:

Reflections

There's always a way
The first solution isn't always the best solution (although it sometimes is!)
Being flexible enough to accommodate some quirks to your process
Being strong enough to know if you're the person / company for the job
Being known for solving problems

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM127 – How to conduct Keyword Research

Pete Everitt — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 14:40:11 +0000

Main talking points include:

Priorities for keywords

What makes you the most money?
What is under-performing that needs to?
What has quality issues?
What will help improve the direct bottom line?

Run keyword research thematically or by department if necessary.

Strategy Output

The output of your keyword research is threefold:

Keyword research document (Google Sheets Template)
Keywords Mapped to Existing Content (Google Sheets Template)
Keywords NOT mapped to content

Access the Keyword Research & Mapping Template

Sources for Keywords

Seed ideas
Wikipedia Table of Contents
Google’s “Searches related to”
Reddit and Forums
Google Suggest
YouTube Suggest
Exploding Topics (see Twitter)
Competitors (SEMRush / Ahrefs / Keyword Planner)

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM126 – Why there was a break in the podcast

Pete Everitt — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 14:21:38 +0000

Main talking points include:

COVID lockdown in the UK

Shoulder

Delivery of Demystifying SEO Advanced Modules

SEOHive Updates and 1st Birthday!

General Work

Mental Health

Personal Ethos – if something's worth doing, its worth doing well...

Something HAD to give, and it didn't feel right to show up on a podcast every week assuming everything was "tickety-boo" when it wasn't.

I took time to:

Look after myself
Deliver the Content I needed to
Improve the Systems and Processes at SEOHive
Keep work flowing through my agency

In many respects it felt weird NOT delivering the podcast... It's 3 years old now, and to not deliver weekly content was strange... But, we're back, and in a better place than we were before.

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM125 – How to use Google Ads to Boost your SEO services

Pete Everitt — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 16:40:12 +0000

Main talking points include:

Google Ads is one of the main streams of income for Google – and because of that it has a wealth of data within it that is super valuable for researching SEO even if you're not actually EVER going to run the ads themselves!

Here's my 12 top tips on how to use Google Ads and it's data to boost SEO traffic...

Tools in Google Ads

Including Cost Per Click (CPC) data in your keyword research
Finding related and / or long-tail keywords
Traffic Estimator to assess competition levels – This lets you see estimated click, impression, and cost metrics for a given keyword. Your own Google Ads data is more accurate than any of Google’s tools, and in many ways this is similar to looking at volume and competition in the keyword tool, but these estimates can give you an idea of competition (higher costs are partly driven by advertisers competition) and relative volume.
Placement Tool – a unique source for link propsecting – driven by adsense
Opportunities Tab – a good source for finding breadth in your strategy
Contextual Targeting Tool – The contextual targeting tool is also designed for the display network, but gives you ideas for groups of keywords to create for display campaigns. Since the tool is designed for the display network you want to proceed cautiously in analyzing the suggestions, but you can often come up with some good ideas for themes – either buckets of keywords to target on a single page or a collection of content to create.

Practices – if you actually run some ads!

Segments for search match types and device types
Ad Copy – to test meta titels and descriptions
CTR on Ads
CTR on keywords
Retargeting to organic prospects
Search Query Data

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM124 – How We're Setting Goals for 2021

Pete Everitt — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 16:14:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

The "normal" model

Having the master plan – you set the scope…

3 years / 5 years / 10 years

What are the steps to get you there… Keep them in broad annual stages

So, look at next year, what do you need to achieve to be on the path to your master plan?

Lets break it down into quarters

Keep in mind seasons

Then take the first quarter and break it down into months, then weeks.

THEN, put in your diary WHEN you are going to look at Q2, Q3, Q4 and to do this exercise again next year… Go!

But 2020 has been anything BUT a "normal year"

What's happened in our agency?

Slightly down on turnover
Mega UP on profit
We have been in a privileged position to help companies survive the pandemic

So how does that affect the planning for 2021?

Unfortunately we can't all give away work forever... but we can learn from these experiences and work with our clients as they grow - their success is our success, etc...

What that has changed in our planning for 2021...

Still have all the revenue goals BUT have included a profit goal too
Changed the structure of our accounting a little, modifying the profit first model
Creating and supporting our clients (especially the new ones who may not have operated at this level online before) to maximise their success. This is done through education, nurturing and product development
Committing to honing our processes further to become slicker and more efficient
Keeping accountable to each other as a work family – both for the business and as peop

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM123 – Benefits of Creating a 1 Day Service

Pete Everitt — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 11:41:52 +0000

Main talking points include:

Candy started as a freelance writer and designer in 2009. As her business grew, she started outsourcing work to sub-contractors. Through this she started by under-charging and under-estimating the amount of work that needed to be done.

From her journalism background where editors, writers and designers start with nothing and produce an entire newspaper in a day, it didn't seem strange to try and fit this mentality to the process of designing and building websites.

The key points:

1/ Working in person is way more efficient – clients would come to Bizzy Bizzy to complete their projects. Since COVID, the team have had to move everything online.

2/ Candy and her team developed a fun and interactive process for their clients. This has also translated to a virtual set up.

3/ Candy and her team include a writer, so the content is written for the clients during the day. The team includes:

- A writer

- A Designer

- A Developer

- 1 to 3 people from the client

4/ There is a discovery call to outline the scope of the project.

5/ The process is designed to be an experience for the client, AS WELL AS creating a great user experience fo the end user.

6/ The purpose of the day is to get the website "live ready". The following day is taken to test the website, check quality and polish the design.

7/ Ecommerce websites are doing through a process called "1 Day Plus" – where the design and structure of the website are done in a day, but data input, integrations, etc are done after the day. Typically within a couple of weeks.

"A website isn't launched, it's birthed" – Candy Phelps

The change

Candy started by running this process for family and friends to test the model. She then ran it concurrently with "normal" projects for around a year, before going "all in" on the 1 Day Model.

Candy's company has a core value of happiness for her and her team. This has shaped the way they choose projects, their working practices and the way the interact with clients.

Book: The Progress Principle

– The thing that gives people most happiness at work is making progress with goals

– The thing that causes the most unhappiness at work is having to redo tasks

Building Trust and Recurring Revenue

For the first few years of running this model, Candy and the team focussed on getting the 1 Day process nailed. Once that was working in a way they were happy with, they then moved the focus on to the recurring model.

The team now build in maintenance agreements into their projects. This is based on the unique relationship thats developed with the client through the 1 Day process.

Their models include:

– Maintenance & Analytics (base level)

– Content Marketing – in a 1 Day style (1 day a month)

Certification

1dayworks.com – an online course that walks you through the process for the 1 Day Website

Other website:

bizzybizzycreative.com

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM122 – Introducing Docket WP

Pete Everitt — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 11:34:50 +0000

Main talking points include:

Kyle used to work in Print Design, and in learning web design he realised that there was a number of processes that he was having to repeat over and over again.

Also, as an Agency of 1, Kyle doesn't have a team that he can rely on for quality control, therefore document his processes became a key to his success in his new business.

The importance of systems in recurring revenue

Docket WP allows you to keep all your processes in WordPress so there are no excuses not to use them!

Docket also has pre-built lists from industry experts so that you can import and use the right on your websites!

Shoutouts

Andre Gangon – Project Huddle

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM121 – Including Trust Factors in your Marketing

Pete Everitt — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 16:24:29 +0000

Main talking points include:

Building Trust with a potential customer is the one piece of the jigsaw that can switch them from making that purchase, to moving on to a competitor. It's also the one thing that is the hardest to achieve as it forms the emotive part of the marketing funnel – which makes it difficult to measure or quantify.

So how do you go about creating trust factors in your marketing or sales process, and what are the best trust building tactics to use?

Why do we need trust factors in our marketing strategy?

Back in the day, when people actually went to shops and services were found in the yellow pages, the majority of "everyday business" happened through referrals or word of mouth. Some of this was supported by print, radio and TV advertising, and that was that.

But in todays world, we can buy almost anything we want from the comfort of our own home. We don't need to talk to people or do our due diligence and research. All of a sudden this responsibility has fallen to the marketer, rather than the consumer.

Also, it has never been easier to compare products, services or even entire companies than it is today. And in doing so, potential customers often feel like armchair experts and don't necessarily realise that they might not be comparing things like for like.

It is therefore of paramount importance that as businesses, we build trust factors into our marketing to reintroduce the personal and bring clarity back tot he potential customer that YOU are the right solution to them.

Roger Edwards has a brilliant talk on this – explaining how essentially marketing is broken, expect when it's done with integrity and a deep understanding of this customer. https://youtu.be/LZO0uQgJiRA

The 10 cornerstones to building trust in ANY relationship

Truth
Communication
Respect
Consistency
Openness
Honest
Helpfulness
Emotions
Morals
Common Experience

These are values you should carry through all of your marketing communications anyway, but HOW do you include them in your sales process.

The Best Trust Building Tactics to use

1/ If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

People are armchair critics – outlining the scope of your products or services clearly, stating what they DO and DON'T do, is a great technique for setting these expectations and allowing the customer to make a properly informed decision.

2/ Using the experience of others incites the fear of missing out

If you're good at what you do, you will have done it well for someone else, right? Using case studies and testimonials shows that people have trusted you in the past, AND that you have delivered the results your potential customer expects. Case Studies are one of the most underused tactics in marketing today – you've already done the hard work once, now let it speak for itself!

3/ Be open and honest about who, where and how you work

For every positive result, there is a horror story somewhere else, and the ease of search makes them easy to find. Being open and honest about who you are, where and how you work, how many people are on your team etc, and linking that with the awesome results you deliver, circumnavigates any fears about dodgy outsourcing, or "profit and scarper" business deliverables.

4/ Demonstrating an openness to communicate to answer questions and alleviate fears

Allowing people to communicate with you in the way that feels most comfortable to them overcomes huge barriers really instantly. Maybe thats having a live chat function on your website, or a clear way to open a message in Facebook Messenger. Whatever you can do to allow people to feel comfortable and show that you're responsive is beneficial to them.

5/ Remove distractions from the process of conversion

Once you've lead a person to the point of making a purchase or an enquiry, allow them to do just that – don't then start bombarding them with popups or alternative information. Once they're ready to move, allow them to move quickly.

How to apply these tactics to your marketing:

Reviews / Case Studies – make sure these are up-to-date, demonstrate the good (and a bit of the bad) and are channelled in at points of your process when you know people will ask questions
Social Media – be present and be responsive. Also NEVER over promise (or you'll end up under delivering!)
Business information – providing information that makes your company real can help you stand out from the crowd.
Design – your website is often the first impression a user will get of your company – don't make it a bad one

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM120 – Stopping Imposter Syndrome From Holding You Back

Pete Everitt — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 10:54:00 +0000

Main talking points include:

Latest book – Ditching Imposter Syndrome

What Clare has seen during 2020 lockdown:

Flight, flight, freeze mode – caused by stress.
Increase of the 4 Ps

People who are doing the best with this are:

Learning to say "no"
Prepared to invest in each other in new ways
Are seeing "what really matters"

Corporates – some positives will come out of this and the work:life balance will be better as a result

Entrepreneurs – have had to pivot

Saying no to work - having boundaries

Setting your revenue priorities

Ask yourself "what is your core genius?"
Clare's offerings:
Corporates – preparing to lead
Entrepreneurs – making a difference
Other people like me (imposter syndrome mentors) – wanting to serve in a similar way to Clare

Imposter syndrome – the fear of someone finding out you're not as good as you actually are. This triggers a fear response (aka self-sabotage). The gap between who you see yourself as being and what you can achieve.

Book: Todd Herman – The Alter Ego Affect

There's two ways to deal with issues:

Find an unstable "Quick fix"
Remove the obstacle all together

FREE GIFT – Celebrating your micro wins! – http://www.clarejosa.com/retainfm/

Let's Rock 2021 – http://www.clarejosa.com/rock/

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RFM119 – Introducing RetainFM

Pete Everitt — Wed, 28 Oct 2020 17:02:34 +0000

It's time for a change and a bit of a mix up with the podcast.... Actually, honestly this is about redefining the scope of the podcast as times have moved on, and a reset in the direction of what the podcast is trying to achieve is good for everyone...

So why the change?!

The background of the Marketing Development Podcast

For Marketers to development their skills
Consultants
Freelancers
Employees
Agencies

Why them, I hear you ask?! As with any new project, you need to put a stake in the ground somewhere, and this was a "niche" (if you can call them that) that reasonated with my agency life, and provided some form of direction to get me started... fast forward nearly 120 episodes, and the world has moved on a bit... as has the offering of services I deliver and who I delivery them too.

This has been a journey through just starting a podcast, to launching a course and more recently a productised service. All of a sudden the niche of "marketer" is far too broad, and I need to reign things in a little.

Why RetainFM?

Looking back over the history of my agency, the podcast and the services I now offer, one of the main themes is retained income. Infact, SEOHive is purely set up to help agency owners build recurring revenue into their businesses to help them rise above the uncertainty of project based work – a journey I undertook without external help a number of years ago...

Thats not to say ALL the content will be 100% about retained income, etc... there still will be a great mix of guests, solo shows and the new YouTube channel! (which if you've been looking has been carrying the new branding for a couple of weeks).

The purpose of ALL of this is that I can keep on creating valuable content, helping people succeed, and serving the community of agency owners worldwide that have helped me so much along the way.

So here is RetainFM – I hope you join me on the next phase of the journey 🙂

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP118 – Introducing the Project Discovery Blueprint

Pete Everitt — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 14:27:25 +0000

Main talking points include:

Why a discovery process is important

Ensuring you know the full scope of a project BEFORE you are committed to a price, a process and an outcome.

Things you need to fix:

Stop offering services you can’t deliver
Setting client expectations
Having a solid discovery process

The Project Discovery Blueprint will give you everything you need, from the theory, to the method and the delivery – including swipe files and processes you can use WITHOUT the need for really expensive software! Find out more: https://agencytrailblazer.com/pdb

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP117 – How we talk "scaling" with clients

Pete Everitt — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 09:24:17 +0000

Main talking points include:

We have a responsibility when it comes to helping clients scale their businesses that they can cope with it! It's like our duty of care.

In this episode, I talk through "The Circle of Truth" that we use to determine the right action plan to scale their businesses - you can download a copy below...

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP116 – Why I moved back to a home office

Pete Everitt — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 14:00:48 +0000

Why I moved OUT of the the home office in the first place

Children
Noise
Being “professional”

Whats made me go back….

There’s two ways of making money… You can either earn more or save less.

Profit First – Mike Michalowicz

Creating some savings – EVERYTHING IS NEGOTIABLE

The reality:

The world has changed its ways for a considerable length of time
The office was an expense for me to sit on my own
There was another way, and that way will serve me well for the time to come

Am I any less professional? – No

Am I more productive? – A little

Am I more cash rich – Absolutely!

Are my clients affected in a negative way? – Not at all

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP115 – Building Lasting Client Relationships

Pete Everitt — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 10:28:44 +0000

Main talking points include:

As the world returns to a new kind of normal and activity with clients pics up again, it’s important to make sure you focus on the long game and not the quick wins for your own business.

Make sure you give the right advice to clients – even if that means you pass up on some chargeable work right away
Ensure your strategy is sound before delivering any work – demonstrate VALUE
Adopt the role of the trusted advisor – ask “why” A LOT!
Keep communications OPEN – remain front of mind
Be prepared to go the extra mile – become indispensable

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP114 – Securing Recurring Revenue

Pete Everitt — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 13:56:48 +0000

Through her experience as an actress, the freedom of running her own business and being paid for a single job REALLY appealed.

The mindset shift… From selling FULL websites, to making small changes WITH a care plan and then upselling redesigns, developments, etc…

You need to have a core product that bridges your relationship with your client. That could include an onboarding plan or evaluation, etc that leads them to the core product. Once validated, you can upsell other recurring services.

The Book – The CORE agency framework – https://wpcaremarket.com/what-is-core

WP Care Market: https://wpcaremarket.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP113 - Time For A Change

Pete Everitt — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 11:22:06 +0000

Why this podcast was started…

Growing my agency
Finding likeminded marketing consultants and professionals
Starting to build that “personal brand”

What’s happened over the last 2.5 years:

WHO I serve has changed (a little)
HOW I serve them has changed A LOT

Since starting the podcast, I’ve “doubled-down” into SEO.

Through doing this, supporting agency owners has become more applicable than general “marketers”.

Building Recurring Revenue

Been doing it in every agency I’ve ever worked in
Done it for:
The Charity / Third Sector
In Ecommerce
For Lead Generation
B2B
B2C
Building MRR was the PRIMARY focus when I started my agency, SO…, and in around 7 months I had a MRR based to cover ALL my costs, and that’s never changed.

So what’s going to change…

Not going to give you the full story here (this is a cliffhanger!)
Changes WILL be coming in the next few weeks and months.
There will still be high-quality, actionable advice
The focus will be more at agencies, rather than marketers
The content will have more input on recurring revenue – but it will still always be actionable.

Its time for a change… and I hope you’ll join me on the journey 🙂

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP112 - Being Yourself in Sales

Pete Everitt — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 11:00:19 +0000

Main talking points include:

In setting up any business, there are items that you like doing, and those that you don't. Most of us seem to assume that EVERY job has it's mundane tasks that we have to put up with.

In this episode, I speak to Nick Gulic who explains how he has come to run the business he does (Creative Click) and how he ONLY does the work he enjoys.

Nick and I then talk about how this is achievable through making the right sales – and this include educating your client and being yourself!

“When you’re operating in your sweet spot and not worrying about things you don’t like doing, that is where the magic can happen” - Nick Gulic

Sell By Helping – Nick's Course

Twitter @nickgulic

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP111 – Managing clients at the start of a retainer

Pete Everitt — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 13:45:55 +0000

When any retained agreement begins, there is the initial excitement that the sale has been made, and then the realisation that you now need to deliver… every month… over and over again.

From the customers side, there is also the risk of “buyers remorse” (or that feeling of doubt you get when you make a new commitment to something).

These are the strategies we use at SO and SEOHive to iron out that period of time…

Initial communications
On your website
In your emails
In your documentation (proposals, etc – A “what happens next” section)
Don’t be afraid to tackle these topics head on – if something isn’t going to happen in a single month of work be upfront about it
Priorities big things alongside small things – so you can demonstrate progress
Identify what will demonstrate results fast, vs what’s going to be a longer burn

In reality, clients will accept that some work will take a little longer once you’ve been working with them a while and built up that trust. Use the first three months as its own mini project and prioritise from there.

How you communicate with clients

Longstanding clients are more willing to pick up the phone / drop an email
YOU need to drive the conversation with new clients

Factor in a quarterly review, and maybe even call the first quarter something – like “Start up phase” – so it can then “end” and you can move into more normal operations.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP110 – Dealing with Scope Creep

Pete Everitt — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 15:32:39 +0000

What is scope creep?

Scope creep is the term given to the process of free work being included in an agency project. This might be additional services, extra work, things becoming way more complicated, or any other unforeseen circumstance.

What does scope creep happen?

In my experience, scope creep normally happens because the agency hasn’t been thorough enough in leading the process for the client and itemising the deliverables. This could be both in terms of the actual work to be delivered, or the schedule, or both.

As an agency, it is our job to lead the client through our process. Things that may seem completely straightforward to us, may not be to the client and assuming any part of a project can be dangerous for either side. With a few processes in place, however, scope creep can be overcome relatively easily.

Dealing with scope creep with different types of projects

Small projects – tweaks, fixes, new functionality, etc…

In our agency we have 2 approaches to small projects:

Quote by an hourly rate and invoice when the work is complete.
Sell “blocks of hours” (normally 10) and then take the time off these When the client is approaching the end of the block, we let them know.

In both of these instances, time tracking is key. We use Clockify to track all our time on projects and have zaps set up so that projects are created as we manage things in ClickUp. ClickUp does have time tracking functionality, but we fund Clockify easier (and it was set up before that function was available directly inside ClickUp).

Mid-sized projects

A mid sized project is something like a small website – something that is relatively straightforward and therefore doesn’t need a scoping exercise (coming later).

In our proposal we itemise all the deliverables as far as we can reasonably project them. This includes:

The number of templates
Any additional or modular functionality
The process in terms of design
Things we will NOT be doing (i.e. population)
The allowance for training
Etc…

These items are all set up in our estimate template, so it’s quite easy to whip through and alter them as necessary.

We then have a clause in our terms that reads: “SO… Digital Communications has attempted within all possible reason to make this estimate as accurate as possible. Should anything unforeseen arise, or the scope of the project change, SO… reserves the right to amend this estimate at any time inline with our standard studio rate of X.”

Also note – we send estimates – NOT QUOTES!

Large projects

For large projects (and we are generally speaking 5 figures or more) we offer our estimate alongside a scoping exercise. The output of the scoping exercise is:

A Design Specification Document
A technical Specification Document
An Information Architecture.

We normally charge around 2 to 3 days for the scoping exercise and documentation. With the completion of the documentation we ask the client to approve (and sign) all three documents, and we provide a revised estimate. This estimate is then associated with the specification documents. Should the client ask for anything that is not included in the documents throughout the life of the project, we then deal with them as a standalone project using one of the methods previously mentioned.

Thats right, with large projects, we get paid to write the final estimate…

Retainers

All our retainers work on a time allocation per month. We use clockify to manage this time allocation and then operate it using the methods above. Should the client ask for something “mid-month” we estimate the time and negotiate with the client to either bounce something we were going to do to next month, or do it as a project through either a block of hours or a project estimate.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP109 – Marketing World Leading SAAS Products Through Content

Pete Everitt — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 10:12:09 +0000

Main talking points include:

Pritesh's background is working in mobile app startups – starting with virtual reality software, mainly around facial recognition and then mobile locations.

"The number 1 challenge for most retail businesses is acquisition and number of transactions.” – Pritesh Vora

Speaking to your end clients gives you an insight into what your potential clients need. This gives you valuable insight – as an entrepreneur you can then pivot to address this need. Uninstall.io allowed retailers to track their uninstalls and give them an indication of how to reduce this rate.

BlogVault has just acquired the brand of WP Remote to bring their service level up to a competitor of MainWP or ManageWP. This also gives the company the ability to develop additional features on the top of the platform – visual regression is the first of these updates.

BlogVault spends ZERO external dollars on marketing their business.

Content marketing has been their main traffic driver
Now seeing 1million visitors per year

"Discovery is the number one problem for product creators.” – Pritesh Vora

Malcare soft-launched through content (driven by BlogVault) and through an AppSumo Deal. Along with the AppSumo deal, the team developed an upgrade path. All AppSumo sales were not to make money but for two things:

1. Get users – who may upgrade

2. Get referrals

After that - this was designed to speed up the development cycle. In 1 month they got the users they would have ended circa a year to acquire.

Their content strategy includes:

SEO
Link Building

Their content uses the piggy-back method – they enabled a badge that gave them a backlink. This was completely optional, but gave them an influx of backlinks in 2 to 3 months.

Twitter: @priteshvora

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP108 – Closing SEO Clients (Part 2)

Pete Everitt — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 23:00:09 +0000

Part 2: New Clients

We don’t offer retainers to people we’ve never worked with before – we need to protect ourselves.

We’ve produced a 2 stage sales process for selling retainers to brand new clients

Fixed Price SEO Healthcheck

Before we can effectively cost a retainer, we need to understand what we’re working with. Offering a fixed price SEO Healthcheck makes this part of the process easy.

Create a templated proposal
Offer to run the healthcheck and offer an hour of consultancy afterwards to make a plan
If you have the skill set, you could also offer a few hours to action some of the items on the report and rerun it to demonstrate progress

The SO… SEO Healthcheck offering:

SEO Healthcheck = £395.00 + VAT
Whats included:
Initial Healthcheck
3 hours of work to action primary fixes (additional time can be quoted if necessary)
Secondary healthcheck to demonstrate progress after fixes
1 hour consultancy call to go through results and discuss next steps

Keyword Research and Mapping Exercise

A second one-off project – this time at a higher value (£795.00 + VAT)

The purpose of this project is twofold…

Identify the difficulty of ranking the website in their niche for key search terms
Highlight to the client exactly HOW MUCH work needs to be done – this is the long game

The added benefit to this is that it means should the client agree to a retainer, you already have a head start on the admin, so you can demonstrate results a bit faster!

If we are confident enough after the SEO Healthceck we’ll skip this one-off project and roll it into the first month / on boarding of the SEO retainer. SEOHive’s process works on this basis.

The SO Keyword Research and Mapping Exercise:

Full keyword research and competitor analysis
NB: some competitors are search edge / keyword competitors, not just corporate competitors
Keyword mapping exercise of keyword research to existing content – including notes on actions required. Eg:
Copy optimisation required
Site hierarchy changes
Related keywords (additional copy? See below)
Internal linking
Content Plan for new keywords. A full list of all copy requirements (service pages, blogs, educational pieces, etc) for all keywords not allocated in the map above AND any related keywords (i.e. a new blog post to support an existing service page, for example).

At the end of the exercise we deliver the results to the client (on a call) and delivery our SEO proposal along with it… We then follow up very few days until 10 days or so have passed. We will give one further follow up after 30 days.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP107 – Closing SEO Clients (Part 1)

Pete Everitt — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 13:52:24 +0000

Disclaimer: Before you begin always make sure you’re not promising things you can’t deliver in order to win a client - it’s not good for you or them and only leads to a bad situation in the end.

Secondly, be prepared to demonstrate value upfront in order to get the sale rolling. This is not a one-off project fee, therefore you need to be prepared to put in a bit more work and value up front so that clients can see the value in the future.

Part 1: Existing Clients

Not all clients are a good fit – so with existing clients you are in the driving seat to pick and choose the clients you want to work with.

Our SEO sales cycle for existing clients:

Retained agreements are mentioned in project proposals, but no prices or in depth information is given. We’ve planted the seed, but not all clients will be a good fit.

If their new website is still in production:

Upon training for their new website (it’s not live yet, but we’ve decided they will be a good fit for an SEO agreement with us):
Highlight all the SEO elements that are required in their site / Demo the tools (we do this anyway)
Highlight the workload and ramifications if parts of the SEO work are over looked
Start to mention that you offer these services as an ongoing basis (cite initial project proposal) and offer to put an agreement together for when the site goes live (or even before if you can handle the workload)
Upon going live
Monitor and track the new website through launch and for the next 30 days or so.
Send regular (weekly) updates to the client commenting on their search position
After 3-4 weeks resend proposal for SEO as their website will have settled into its new position
Highlight any areas where you would start (i.e. high volume terms that are on the top of page 2, for example)
After 3 months
Run a free (to the client) audit report on the website after 3 months of activity
Demonstrate their site health and SERP positions since the site has gone live (positive and negative)
If you can, find the data on their main product / service and offer a critique on that (i.e. I know your main service is X and it’s currently on page 3 of the results. Improving this would have a significant impact on your leads).
Re-offer the proposal one last time (at the original cost) and make the point that should the website health deteriorate significantly, then the proposal would need to be readdressed in the future

If their website has been live some time – ie. a new service

Run a free (to the client) audit report on the website
Demonstrate their site health and SERP positions since the site has gone live
Highlight that in terms of site health you’d normally run clients with 90%+ – and their site is X%
Document that in order to make their website really work for them, they need to be:
A - keeping their website healthy
B - generating / updating their content regularly to build authority with the search engines
C - proactively seeking links to build trust with the search engines
If you can, find the data on their main product / service and offer a critique on that (i.e. I know your main service is X and it’s currently on page 3 of the results. Improving this would have a significant impact on your leads).
Put together some sample ideas of where you’d start and what you’d recommend to address these issues first
Offer to prepare a proposal that covers these bases for them
Submit proposal and follow up after a few days
Monitor the website for the next 2 months
After each set of 30 days reach out to the client with updated results – especially if they are WORSE…
On the second iteration: Re-offer the proposal one last time (at the original cost) and make the point that should the website health or position deteriorate significantly, then the proposal would need to be readdressed

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP106 – Communicating with people in various locations

Pete Everitt — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 10:22:12 +0000

Main talking points include:

Setting up your software:

Project Management
Client Communications
Internal Communications

We use ClickUp for all project management and client communications, and Slack for internal communications.

Set up your processes:

Everyone needs to know what they’re doing and when they’re doing it
Dependent items need to be flagged and notified
Item important as the business owner that you can have a full sight over the workflow through your business
If tasks are assigned to or reliant on Clients, what notification, training, education are you giving them to complete them for you?
Don’t be afraid to try, test and re-iterate on them

Regular team communications:

Don’t make it all about work
Have a regular catch up
Know when it’s work time and when it isn’t
Schedule notifications so you all have downtime
Trust people

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP105 – Introducing the Content Planning Toolkit

Pete Everitt — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 15:04:47 +0000

Biography

Martin is the co-founder of Jammy Digital, a web consulting agency in the UK.

Martin, along with his wife Lyndsay, also teach Content Marketing using their membership community, in-person workshops and speaking on stages throughout the UK.

They’re also writing a book about how to use content to attract your ideal customers.

Main Talking Points

First agency – sold websites by convincing people they needed one.

In 2016/17 – Martin and Lyndsay started to take Content Marketing seriously… they were prepared to put everything in their heads on their website.

Book: Youtility – Jay Baer

The first problem Martin and Lyndsay had was getting more sales. This lead to topics around:

Costs
Timescales
Processes

To get eyes on this content, Martin and Lyndsay then also provides content around high volume search terms – like SEO and driving traffic.

“Imagine you are creating a maze and only your ideal client can get to the finish.” – Martin Huntbach

Book: Marcus Sheridan – They Ask, You Answer

Martin and Lyndsay’s Book - Content Fortress:

Out September 2020
Based around 8 pillars of content to fix your business

Content Planning Toolkit – its really easy to create content if you have a strategy!

People’s biggest struggles when creating content:

Time
Not knowing what to write
What am I getting back from it?

Priced at $27 dollars – its a one off!!!

https://www.peteeveritt.com/contentplanningtoolkit

https://jammydigital.com

https://www.facebook.com/JammyDigital/

Shout outs

Lee Jackson – Agency Transformation Live

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP104 – Finding the one thing you can help other people with the most

Pete Everitt — Sun, 21 Jun 2020 23:01:13 +0000

Main talking points include:

Starting with a blank sheet of paper... To begin with, don't worry about:

WHAT it is that you will sell
HOW MUCH you'll charge for it
The AMOUNT you want to earn

... These are all questions you will need to answer, but they're not the right place to start.

Start by asking these questions:

What can I do that will help other people?
How will it help them – what will the gain or avoid?
Will I be happy doing this every day for the rest of my life?
Who are the people that need this problem solving the most?
Where are they? How can I connect?
How can I introduce myself to them, and ratify this idea?

Then...

Start connecting with people, groups, teams online or in real life
Start offering genuine help in or around the subject matter you want to consider
WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT – reach out with your idea (this may need to be to a group leader / admin first)
Prove your worth before you earn the right to sell.
Produce an MVP
It doesn't have to be polished, but it does need to work
Offer the MVP at an entry price point.
If people actually spend real money on it, you have the crux of an idea that may have legs
If people don't:
Was it the right group of people?
Is it not a viable idea

Developing any business idea is an investment in YOU, in OTHERS, and in YOUR FUTURE. Don't expect returns overnight, but by taking action it puts you in the top 20% – the other 80% have an idea and do nothing with it.

Don't be afraid of failure...

"It's better to have tried and failed, then not to have tried at all" ― Sean-Paul Thomas, The Universe Doesn't Do Second Chances

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP103 – Working with other Agencies

Pete Everitt — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 10:02:03 +0000

Main talking points include:

Looking to scale?

Working in partnerships – its an agreement… building a trusting network of relationships with people in the same sector but with a different skillset.

Building a network of rusting relationships:

Contacts from previous agencies
Harvesting the relationships of people you know that already have proven their trust
Don’t be shy to ask

“I treat my contractors like I need to have a pint with them every week for the rest of my life. I need it to not be awkward.” – Robbie Handley

We’re all human, and have the opportunity to build a network that will help all people involved.

Connect with Robbie

rjhdigital.com

Find Robbie on LinkedIn

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP102 – How I structure my day to run TWO businesses

Pete Everitt — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 09:23:39 +0000

Main talking points include:

Following on from a previous podcast about what I learned from launching SEOHive (ep 99), Kyle asked me to share a little more about how I balance the stresses and strains (and even just to workload) of running two businesses in my schedule.

The process/system I have in place a few things I need to rely on:

Awesome teams – people I can trust
SOPs
A rhythm/flow to my day/week
Discipline to stick to it.

The Process

I use a mixture of calendar blocking and a ClickUp board with a weekly plan to manage my time and tasks

Calendar blocking syncs with Calendly so it makes life easier for me to control when appointments can be made.
To begin with, the calendar blocking has time blocked out for SO…, SEOHive, Podcast, Management
3 days are 50 / 50 SO… in the morning and SEOHive in the afternoon
The other 2 days are 25% SO…, SEOHive, Podcast, and Management

After MUCH trial and error, I found my best working hours are 9am to 5pm – it fits in with School and Family so well, and I’m not a pleasant person if I wake up at 5am every day (it’s great for you if you are, but it’s not for me!)

My ClickUp board has the following columns

Priorities
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
With Someone Else
Complete

Every FRIDAY I plan out the week ahead. This means:

I alter some of the generic “pre” blocks in my diary to actual events
I assign work tasks to every day for next week based on the priorities that are in the “Priorities” Column
I never fill every day so I can still handle things like email etc.

A day in the life of Pete (this really isn’t that gripping!)

This is how a day stacks up:

Arrive at work -> put the coffee on (I’m a coffee lover – it’s my thing).
Check Banks / Financials for both companies. Action anything that needs doing.
Check Email:
Do / Delegate / Delete
By 10am start my morning calendar blocks, working through the items in ClickUp).
12:30 break for lunch
1:15pm – Check Emails
Do / Delegate / Delete
By 1:45pm Start my Afternoon calendar blocks
4:30 – Check everything that needed to go today has been sent
4:45 – Check priorities/plan for tomorrow
5pm – finish
Unless I have an SEOHive Team meeting, which then happens and I finish at 6…

Boring it may be, but it works…

Do you have a granular structure to your day? Jump in the group and tell me what it is!

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP101 – When and How to Fire a Client

Pete Everitt — Sun, 31 May 2020 23:00:36 +0000

Main talking points include:

None of us ever want to fire a client, but sometimes it’s the best thing to do for all of us. In this episode I look at why this is good for us and our client, how to spot the warning signs and how to actually go about terminating an agreement with a client once the decision has been made.

Why is it a good thing to fire a client?

Not all clients are a good fit for us, and likewise we’re not always a good fit for them. There can be loads of reasons for this:

Different expectations
Different values
Different work ethics

Benefits to you / your business:

Less stress
Less compromise to your processes
Gives more room to work with a clients that is a better fit

Benefits to your client:

Less stressful relationship
Potential for a better product at the other end

Warning signs that a client isn’t a good fit for you

Long periods where the project goes stagnant
Delayed communications and / or payments
A disregard for the “right” advice
Not being a “partner” to the project
Making demands on the project that are outside of scope, practice or generally outside of your remit as a supplier

How to fire a client

Try to get in there first
Do it in writing
Outline why this is the right decision for both you and them
Offer to refund costs if at all possible
Offer an alternative solution if you have one
Be proactive in the supply of files, assets, access rights etc

Overall – be professional.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP100 - The Live Show

Pete Everitt — Tue, 26 May 2020 15:24:27 +0000

Main talking points include:

Gotta say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who has listened, joined the Facebook group, engaged, sent DMs, generally been encouraging in the founding and development of the podcast… Without the interaction of other people and being able to you through being a community, there’s no way the podcast would have come anywhere near 100 episodes!

How the podcast has changed my business:

Well, it’s given me a brand new business in SEOHive to begin with
Referrals
Authority
A public stage
A reference point
A place for new clients to find and understand me and what I may be like to work with

Where’s the podcast going from here?

It’s sticking around 😉
We’re going to keep focussing on
Marketing Professionals and Digital Agencies
Developing Skills and Resources
Building Businesses that are by people and for people
Creating a safe place for community to happen

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP099 – Lesson learned from launching a productised service

Pete Everitt — Mon, 18 May 2020 10:33:46 +0000

Main talking points include:

Its been 6 weeks since SEOHive was launched. What are the biggest things I’ve learned in that time?

Launching a productised service isn’t HARD, IF you have someone who knows how the productisation process works.
Launching a productised services isn’t that EASY, you need to model all the eventualities
There is less commitment to a productised service than you may think
You can’t communicate enough with your new clients
Having a set scope makes things so much easier, and having these laid out so the expectation is uniform is perfect for systematising your workflow (and giving you space to sleep at night!)

www.seohive.co

Previous Episodes:

Episode #089 – Introducing SEOHive

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP098 – Reflections following #ATLive2020

Pete Everitt — Mon, 11 May 2020 10:26:46 +0000

https://agencytransformation.live/

An AWESOME event – held by Lee Jackson from Agency Trailblazer

Two main reflections:

How the event worked virtually
Themes from the content

1. How the event worked virtually

Lee really did set a new bar to virtual events with a stream of both live and recorded content with a live chat roll.

Everything ran stably on the Event Engine Platform, and Lee mimicked a real event with tables, breakout rooms, meeting features and more!

The schedule worked impeccably, everything was clear and just worked! Congrats Lee!

2. Themes from the content

As in previous years, Lee had a great selection of guests talking around a variety of topics in the themes of the pillars of transformation.

As with many events like this, there were certain themes that came up regularly. These included:

Wellbeing and mental health
Streams of income
Productising
Pivoting / Scaling / Growth
Delivery of value

Next years event is pencilled in for the 7th-8th May 2021 at Wickstead Park in the UK. Tickets will be available soon and I’ll let you know when they’re available in the Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP097 – Why recurring revenue is more important now than ever

Pete Everitt — Sun, 03 May 2020 23:01:52 +0000

Main talking points include:

Current sit rep – does this sound familiar to you?

When Coronavirus hit the UK economy, this is what happened in our agency:

All clients with existing projects in production committed to finishing them, BUT and future phases were put on hold
All clients with projects agreed but not yet started, asked for the project to be put on hold – even if they’d paid their deposit.
All clients with projects on quote, put all quotes on hold until “normal” returns (whatever that looks like).
All clients on retainers continued working (2 reduced hours, but not substantially).

What we can learn from this is that when the pandemic hit, all businesses (in our agency anyway) followed a pattern… If they were already spending, they continued… If they weren’t they paused.

The benefits of recurring revenue

Back in episode 55 we covered:

Why recurring revenue is important for your business.
How we set up and manage recurring streams of income in our agency.
How we sell recurring services at different levels.
How to scale recurring services through outsourcing and partnerships.

BUT – you need to be intelligent about how you set it up.

Key things to remember:

The recurring revenue model works best by serving a reasonable number of clients at a reasonable price point
A recurring model needs to be accompanied by automated payments
A recurring revenue model (like ANY revenue model) works on MARGINS, not solely cash value

The rule of thirds
1/3 - Operating Expenses
1/3 - Taxes
1/3 - Profit <- this is where you get paid!!!

Recurring services are easier to sell to existing customers
Finding outsourced services to help you delivery your services

SEOHive

Profit First – Michael Michalowicz

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP096 – Catching Your Time Dragons

Pete Everitt — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 14:15:00 +0000

Biography

Process engineer with a day job consulting in the oil and gas industry, but secretly a time-dragon catcher at night. I am using my project management and time mastery skills learnt in the engineering world to help online business people find the time they need to get their most important work done. I'm on a mission to help those who want to become time jedis to catch, tame and train time-dragons, and by doing so, empower them with the magic to command time, space and money.

Main talking points include:

Most of Brett’s career in chemical engineering has meant that he’s spent all of his professional life in major organisations doing the 9-5. He’s balanced this with a side hustle and further education. Managing time and massive scale projects became second nature to him.

Working in large institutions is normally great for job security, but when economic downturns happen, it can lead you to be unemployed. Diversifying your portfolio of income streams becomes a very attractive option very quickly.

Time management vs time mastery

George Leonard’s Book on Mastery – you never actually get to the destination.

The art of time mastery is not about fixing it all quickly, but about not taking on too much at the same time. Work on one area, and once you’ve refined it, then move on to the next.

The process of making things efficient is mastering the routines that you use to complete a task.

The difference between projects and routines:

Projects: occur once, and have a defined end, but they are all different
Routines: are repeatable processes that happen again and again

The difficulty most people face is that they have far more projects than routines.

What is a time dragon?

They eat up time in your day
They create distractions
They add tasks to your todo list
They create overwhelm
The create interruptions

Time dragons are a way of externalising time management, so that you can "blame” it.

How do you catch a time dragon?

You set a trap for it!

Catching the overload (overwhelm) time dragon

Using a gate (or series of gates)

Use a number of lists, with criteria for for each gate to move items through the lists.

List number 1: the infinity list
Gate: am I ever going to have time to do this?
List number 2: the maybe list (up to 150 items)
Gate
List number 3: the next up projects list (no more than 12 items)
Gate – this is where you catch your time dragon!
The Work Zone:
Detailed Planning Area (1 or 2 projects)
Action / Execution Area (no more than 5 projects)
Holding Zone (no more than 2 or 3 projects)

The only way to get work off your list is to:

Complete it
Move it back up the list
Remove it from the list all together (least efficient)

Trello Tutorial Available here: catchyourtimedragon.com/peteeveritt

Personal Website: brettdawson.com

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP095 – Ways of demonstrating addition value to clients

Pete Everitt — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 13:28:13 +0000

Main talking points include:

Not necessarily talking about financial value (although SOMETIMEs we are)…

What do we mean by “adding value”?

All the things that you can do that go above and beyond for your client. This is important in cementing the relationship with your client as it means that you can:

Become invaluable to your client, so they won’t look elsewhere
Get a better internal working knowledge of your client so you can be proactive in offering help / service to them – so it’s not really “selling” any more
You can adopt the role of “trusted advisor” and be influential in the development of their business moving forward

Implied and applied value…

Implied value – theoretical or advice-driven value that you can pass to your client, but THEY still need to do something to achieve the results in their business.
Applied value – something you can do that directly has an implication on their bottom line.

How to provide this value…

For ad hoc projects or projects that you have already completed, you maybe need to view this as part of your business development and / or marketing. For retained clients, this becomes easier and can be added on to your normal monthly schedule with them.

Ways of demonstrating implied value:

Run an additional report
Send an example of existing client data (with permission) or a testimonial
Arrange a coffee and discuss “We’ve just done XYZ for a client and it really worked - I think it would be a good fit for your business too"
OR… "ABC is brand new to the market – I have no data to prove it will work for you, but my gut says it will. Would you like to check it out?"
Send a document or SOP

Ways of demonstrating applied value

Run an A/B test
Run a simulation (before applying, I supposed this is like implied applied value!)
Monitor results and make changes on the fly – reporting what you’ve done and the measuring the results
Send a video or screencast

As a general rule of thumb, applied value is more difficult to charge for (unless you’re on a performance-related agreement), where as implied value can lead to an estimate or a quote for parts of the work you can deliver. BUT you need to demonstrate that value up front with is where applied value demonstrates your skills.

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP094 – Best Practices for Working Remotely

Pete Everitt — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 10:22:35 +0000

Biography

Stephanie helps businesses, coaches & entrepreneurs grow their website traffic and their leads using proven content marketing strategies and effective SEO techniques. She has grown a global business from her home in Malta growing website traffic around the world including client work and coaching.

Main talking points include:

Working remotely – from home…

Still be disciplined about your day:
Get up at the same time and focus you mind (read your business goals?)
GET DRESSED!!
Have timeslots
Theme your days:
Monday: Writing
Tuesday: Client Happiness
Wednesday: Content Creation
Thursday: Coaching
Friday: Catchup
Get better at knowing how long it takes you to do “stuff"

The Pomodoro technique:

25 minute sprints with a five-minute break
5 minutes to plan what to do
20 minutes work
5 minute break

Marketing is not an essential service, but even at times of change, there are opportunities for marketing professionals if you’re willing to go looking for them.

SEO companies are doing well right now
Companies reliant on content can’t stop
People are looking to do the “housekeeping” on their websites as the companies are busy.

Look at potential collaborations with other expertise to help you get into other verticals (industries).

Look at ways to send smaller projects through your workflow – if you offer packages, what does an individual part of that package look like as a product on its own?

Set a minimum rate – for example a minimum time unit of an hour.

Having more clients means you have to ensure your workflow can handle it.

Don’t see it as “selling” see it as “relationship building”.

Make sure you log clients so that you can continue the conversations when the economy picks up again – use a CRM?

Include people who are a good fit in terms of chemistry, but aren’t ready to buy yet.
CRM System:
Hubspot CRM
Insightly
ClickUp

Stephanie’s Bootcamp for people finding that they are new to working remotely:

Addresses 2 issues:

Staging professional
Being ready for internationalisation

Stephanie's Business Bootcamp

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP093 – Personalisation and Conversion Rate Optimisation

Pete Everitt — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 10:16:49 +0000

Biography

Andrea Bronzini is an Online Business Consultant & Optimization Strategist.

I've been working with online businesses since 2010 and, after a long time dealing with SEO and content production, I now specialize in conversion optimization & optimization of websites funnels, with a special focus on behavioural psychology and personalization.

Main talking points include:

Conversion rate optimisation differs depending on the type of business you run:

Ecommerce businesses are quite simple to optimise for conversion as there is a defined product in consideration
Lead generation or digital product websites are more difficult to optimise because there isn’t always the buyer intent in play when a user visit the site.

Personality types

People are different – therefore people have different triggers to make a purchase.

Understanding personality types is key to making your website appeal to your target customer.

Andrea is researching whether you can determine a users personality type from their browsing behaviour.

Personality tests – Myers Briggs (MBTI)

There are 16 different personality types

Optimisation on personality types is a method of balance.

By optimising for one personality type, you are “de-optimising” for the others.
The trick is to optimise for your main personality types, and then run a different funnel for each.

How to run traffic to personality type landing page, that then feeds in to the appropriate funnel.

Traffic can be run from SEO, PPC, email, etc…

Traditional marketing focuses on the 46% of users that base their decisions on benefits and emotions, not features and specifications.

Personalisation of web content

Using data available to provide dynamic content to the user based on the information you know about them.

Understanding the number of metrics that the product provides. By building pages with blocks of conditional logic, you can build pages that only display the content that the user needs to see.

There is a development need here, normally reading data stored in cookies and displaying data appropriately.

The bigger question is to do with collecting the data in the first place. There are fours ways to solve this issue:

Using an external, third-party service
Using email automation
Track their browsing
Ask them <- the best way… run a survey on your webpage

Once you have a hyper-personalised page, you can then provide the content that the user NEEDS to see, and then put them into the appropriate version of the personalised funnel.

Once you have this data, the information can be used both on the site and off the site for all client communication.

https://pete.websiteowners.club

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP092 – Focusing on the Priorities in Your Business

Pete Everitt — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 15:34:51 +0000

Process for deciding what to work on:

Identifying priorities
Business Critical
Cashflow
Business Development
Project Management
Identifying quick wins
Whats going to take the least time, but make the biggest impact?
What or who is dependant on me for some of these tasks?
What is non-essential, that would be good if it DOES happen, but isn’t vital.

Before I get on to weekly planning… Handling email / client communications:

Do / Delegate / Delete
Only checking emails twice a day
Using a better email platform
Using a channel other than email for internal communications (Slack)

Weekly Planning Process:

I don’t calendar block
I DO have 2 ClickUp boards
Workflow Board
Weekly Planner

Workflow Board:

All projects / leads including finances
Business Dev Opportunities
Quotes
Project Confirmed
In Progress
With Client
Complete
Retained
On Hold

Weekly Planner:

Priorities
Monday-Friday
Complete
With Someone Else

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP091 – Constructing your offer to work with small businesses

Pete Everitt — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 00:00:20 +0000

Biography

Bob has worked in the field of digital marketing for nearly twenty years, for most of that time running his own consultancy. Latterly he built and ran one of Scotland's largest dedicated digital agencies.

Currently, he focuses on helping digital entrepreneurs, microbusiness and small businesses fine-tune their product or business model, then find and build an audience online and compete against larger businesses with deeper pockets. He does this through his speaking, consulting and workshops as well as group-based or one-on-one programs of hybrid coaching, consulting and training.

Alongside this, he hosts the top-rated podcast, ‘The Digital Marketing Entrepreneur Show’ interviewing stand out practitioners, creators, influencers, consultants and business owners who are leading the charge online. No big brands, just real people playing bigger.

While the podcast scratches the curiosity itch’ for Bob, it also fuels and shapes his client work, keeping him very current and connected to what’s working ‘right now’. The podcast journey has transformed his business, shapes his speaking, his own marketing and most importantly how he selects and serves his own clients and wider audience online.

Main talking points

Bob identified that even though his business was successful, he'd essentially become the "Head of Sales" and not doing the things that he liked doing in his day-to-day life.

Rather than this, Bob decided that he wanted to give proper VALUE to the people he WANTED to work with. As such he had to make some BIG changes!

He now works:

doing some corporate consulting
with SMEs on their digital marketing strategy
with his Amplify Groups for tiny / micro-businesses

"The higher up the value chain you get, the less oxygen there is" - Bob Gentle

Working with mirco-businesses carries more responsibility to deliver true value as the results can either make or break the business completely.

"Action trumps everything in digital marketing. If you're moving, you're winning!" - Bob Gentle

Working with smaller businesses, it's not always the strategic, tactical or technical aspects that are the issue. Instead, it is the emotional insecurities around "getting out there" and becoming personal with their marketing.

Agencies often sell the statistics rather than the transformation. Helping small businesses understand this transformation is like rocket fuel to them.

Offering the right advice doesn't always mean that its the most expensive option for the client. There's a balance between saleable services and education to your clients.

Website : amplifyme.fm

Twitter : @bobgentle

Instagram : @bobgentle

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP090 – Using Productised Services to Market Your Agency

Pete Everitt — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 09:21:47 +0000

Great question – there are loads of good reasons why a productised, lower value offer is a good idea for you to offer to clients:

Helps you vet the clients to make sure you're a good fit for them
Helps earn you some passive income
Gives you a "hook" to use in your own marketing (don't forget you must market yourself too, right?!)

We use versions of a productised service in our agency to help us vet clients for retained services, so we've all worked together before by the time we actually sign a contract that ties us together for an extended period of time.

What makes a good productised service:

Something that takes no (or very little) of your time
Something that gives great value to your target customer
Something that reveals a piece of the jigsaw, and alludes to the rest of the pieces that you can fix for your ideal client

Some examples

Example:

Kyle:
Runs an design / digital agency in Texas
Wants to attract local clients (i.e. within the state)
Specialises in lead generation websites (ie not ecommerce)
Wants to work with SMEs who need high quality leads
Kyle needs to understand the full picture
The right mix of good website design, proper coding and good website content delivery reliable and consistent high quality leads to the client
Kyle wants to offer the website design and coding services, so the "free advice" he wants to give out could be about the content (upstream of his services)
Exmaple Productised services Kyle could offer:
A keyword overview report itemising all the keywords your website currently ranks for, and 3 of your competitors
An email course about how to structure website content, or how and why it's important to run a blog
Some video training about conversion rates and how and where to place call to actions
Some training on how to source keywords that will convert, and how to put a spin on them to attract traffic
An automated SEO review (or copy review) of any page of your website

The point is that the product positions you as the expert and reveals more details into a PART of the process that the client can take action on NOW. You must also make the point that any success the client will see from this training will be LIMITED unless they also address the design and coding parts – which you can help them with.

I'd then follow it up with some emails or a method of validation, before offering to book a discovery call.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP089 – Introducing SEOHive

Pete Everitt — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 00:00:32 +0000

Main talking points include:

Whats the point of this live call?

To introduce to you a new service that will help you build MRR through selling SEO.

Why is MRR important?

Monthly recurring revenue brings the following benefits to your business:

Stability of income
A move away from the peaks and troughs of the feast/famine cycle
The knowledge that your overheads are covered every month, without fail
The empowerment of making business decisions as your MRR grows – you can ALWAYS afford it
A move away from trading “time for money” into value-based profit

What am I referring to by MRR

I’m NOT referring to:

Hosting
Low-value website maintenance plans
Domain and / or license renewals (with a markup)
Affiliate Commissions

What I AM referring to is a definitive monthly recurring service that has a demonstrable effect on your client's bottom line.

Other benefits of recurring services

Positioning you as the expert / authority for your clients
Becoming their favourite / the “go to guy or gal"
Increasing the average lifetime value of your customers – making sales FAR easier than they ever have been before.
Becoming intrinsically linked to your client's success - so as their organisations grow, so can your services to them.

My Story

Setting up SO…

Focus on recurring revenue
Hitting 6 figures in year 1
Growing the agency, team, premises, services as the budgets could afford them
NEVER not paying myself
NEVER being in debt or late paying suppliers

… all through SEO …

Common objections to selling SEO as a service to clients

I'm intimidated by offering SEO
Intimidated by trying to sell SEO
Not sure where to start
Not sure how the “process works”
Seems like a LOT of work for the first few clients
Not sure how to report results
Don’t have enough confidence to give the right advice to clients
What happens if there is bad news?
No time – I’m stacked with projects!

Introducing SEOHive

Teaming up with JP from MaintainPress

Creating productised SEO Service that will grow with you and your business.

Super affordable
super easy to manage
super easy to report back to clients and demonstrate your worth
We will give you the resources to sell and manage SEO services to your clients – all FOC

How does SEOHive work?

Month 1: Onboarding process for EVERY site
Technical SEO Audit
Security Audit
Optimisation Audit
Review and action of all of the above
Months 2 onwards: 3 pathways
Content
Link Building
On Page SEO
Subscription model – that is clear what you get, and help you to calculate ROI.

Why the pathways?

Helps you prioritise the services your client needs
Means that we can ALWAYS be proactive on your sites – we don’t need to WAIT for instruction from you… we can get on with tasks, and then prioritise your requests as and when they come in.

What’s included in each pathway

Content
Upto 2,500 words of copy each month – could be 1 mega article or 4 to 5 smaller blog posts per month
Link building
5-6 quality links per month – all of a domain authority equal or above the client site we’re working on
On Page SEO
Copy optimisation
Site Heirarchy
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Meta & Schema tags
Health monitoring
Keyword research
Misc tasks as requested
etc…

That’s great, but it’s going to be expensive, right?

Pricing model:

Base plan – $250.00 USD per site

Includes on boarding process and 1 pathway.
Pathways can be changed once per quarter

Additional Pathways?

An additional $175.00 USD per month per pathway
So:
$425 / month for 2 pathways
$600 / month for 3 pathways

Our recommendation is that you at least DOUBLE our costs for your clients… making a cool 50% margin (or 2X) as a MINIMUM.

In addition, we’ll be developing all the resources you need to sell SEO, which you’ll be able to access as a customer.

We’ll be launching on a site-by-site basis, but will be eventually putting a minimum base site limit of 3 sites on the platform post launch. To get the single site account you need to be on our mailing list… SEOHive.co

Whats the timeline?

We’re currently working on the beta model and will be testing this in March / April. We will aim to get the service fully live by late April / Eary May 2020.

Want to know more – make sure you’re on the mailing list… SEOHive.co

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP088 – Communicating not so good news to clients

Pete Everitt — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 00:00:23 +0000

Main talking points include:

When unexpected things happen that aren't so great for your clients – how do you go about telling them and keeping them focussed on the good service you offer and the bigger picture?

Things to consider:

It's important that your reporting to clients firstly has context, and secondly is structured in a way the reflects the changing nature of business over time and throughout the year. This could be:

Year on year reporting
Annual accumulations of leads/sales
Quarterly reporting

Month-on-month reporting is one of the worst places you can be in terms of showing your effectiveness try and avoid it, or get out of it, as soon as you can!

Be proactive in sharing the good news as well as the bad news.

Send emails/phone calls with small wins as they happen.
Don't be afraid to pick up the phone and talk with your clients.
Offer solutions to problems, don't just leave the problem hanging
Demonstrate that you\re the expert, you're switched on and in touch with these things
Do not let the client wait to find out, or (even worse) find out themselves

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP087 - The Cornerstones of a Strong Marketing Strategy

Pete Everitt — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:16 +0000

Main talking points include:

Essentially fundraising marketing is “awareness” marketing, specifically with an emotive gist to provoke positive change. In broad brushstrokes this entails:

Understanding / defining your key messages with the correct tonal value
Identifying success stories that demonstrate the good work you do
What objectives can you set / what problems can you solve for your charity by addressing your marketing (more followers/friends, more donations, more sites, etc?).

Things to consider:

WHY should people be bothered, and how can you communicate this in a number of ways (positive, negative, with a CTA, as an educational piece, etc)
WHO are the people that are:
…going to benefit directly from what you do
…going to benefit indirectly from what you do
…going to get the “feel-good factor” and maybe one of the above?
How EASY are you making it for people to take action?
to donate
to follow
to keep in touch ON THE PLATFORM’S THE DONOR / FOLLOWER USES
How can you REPURPOSE your messages across multiple platforms, so they’re not identical, but are consistent.
How can you extend the lifetime value of a donor, so you’re not just chasing the one-off donations, but the regular direct debits, high worth individuals or multi-project supporters
Do you have the infrastructure and skill set for all of the above, if not, how and where can you get help? (SO…!)
Do you have an investment/budget to generate this outreach? If not, can you get one?
Are you looking for a quick time fix or a deep-rooted foundation that will build over time?

Finally, set targets, so you know you’re on the right path and things can be rectified quickly if deviation happens.

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP086 - How to build a PR Strategy

Pete Everitt — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 09:02:51 +0000

John Ozimek - Co-Founder & Director:

John has 20 years of experience in technology PR and marketing, and has worked with global giants such as IBM, Vodafone and Nokia, as well as many incredibly innovative and exciting start-ups.

Previous roles include Co-Founder & Director of Dimoso, Associate Director at Liberty PR, Account Director at Edelman UK, and Head of Marketing at Glu Mobile.

John's skills lie in helping clients to harness digital and online marketing tools effectively, building a transition between traditional and forward-looking communications strategies, and bringing creativity to his day to day work.

James Kaye:

James has 20 years of B2B and B2C marketing experience (which is crazy seeing as he claims he’s only 21), and 10 of these years have been spent working at an international level within the mobile sector.

James worked alongside John, prior to forming Big Ideas Machine, when they co-founded award-winning PR/Marketing agency dimoso.

Over 20 years experience in B2B marketing
In depth knowledge of the Mobile & Games sectors
Worked at the Daily Mirror, BT and Orange
Been a consultant for several companies including Flurry (acquired by Yahoo), Exent and Scoreloop (acquired by Blackberry).

Main talking points include:

The Big Ideas Machine – came from the need of B2B tech companies needing Apps. This has evolved into an agency that pivoted into a PR / Marketing Agency.

The PR industry is a closed industry – there was a need to have a creative approach in the PR industry.

B2B doesn’t need to mean “Boring to Boring” – James Kaye.

The creative industry is a linchpin to the economy, yet B2B companies don’t agree with it.

The PR industry is based around perception – eg: Apple

Apple’s PR is making people have a good feeling about Apple and the quality that they create
Apple's marketing is about showing the benefits of their products and how they can change your life.

What PR can do:

People are looking for PR to have an effect on the bottom line.
PR and marketing are different disciplines and need to be treated as such, but they do need to work together.

Building a PR strategy – needs to be a collaborative process:

What is it you think you want, and what is it you really want?
The PR industry is playing catch up with some of the metrics that the marketing industry.

Inbound PR:

PR used to be simply shouting about what you do.
With social media (LinkedIn primarily for B2B), PR is becoming far more of a trust building factor.
See Ginnie Detrich ??
The PESO model
Book: Spin Sucks
PR has now pivoted to a content marketing process.

The context:

There used to be a lot of trade media that was mixed with product advertising.

With the move to digital, some of these streams of advertising have gone.

When we’re looking at content marketing / PR / etc…

Who is your customer?
What problem do they have?
What problems do they solve?
Why should your potential customer be bothered?

A fundamental part of the purpose of content creation HAS TO BE SEO.

The affects on linkbuilding

The hardest thing in PR is that you can’t guarantee a result… If you want a guaranteed result, you need to do advertising.

Where to start with PR:

What is your perception of PR? It’s not about Media Relations!
Understanding your objectives and the media coverage that can help you get there
Measuring the inbound results of this, right down to the volume and quality of leads that you are generating
Automating the process where necessary

www.bigideasmachine.com

Shoutouts

Brian Dean – Backlinko

Neil Patel

Serpstat

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP085 - Standing Out in a world of Extroverts and Selfies

Pete Everitt — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 00:01:49 +0000

Biography:

Adam King is "The Captain" at Think Like a Fish, a Growth Marketing Consultancy that helps B2B service firms start and continue conversations that turn into clients. He's a big believer that relationships are central to all business. And as relationships come from conversations... Ultimately, CLIENTS COME FROM CONVERSATIONS!

It sounds straightforward... But how do you actually start and continue conversations that can lead to a steady flow of clients? And do it in a way that doesn’t feel all “salesy”, or takes you more hours than you have available in the day to do?

Well, he's developed a Growth Marketing Methodology that does exactly that, called... THE GROWTH ACCELERATOR ECOSYSTEM

This strategy will get you DOZENS of conversations with ideal clients who are looking for what you do every single month, and/or referral partners who can introduce you to them. Adam is also the host of an AMAZING podcast called The Client Catching Podcast, where he shares a tonne of business advice & interviews successful service business owners, entrepreneurs and marketing experts who have scaled their businesses into 7-figures, or are on their way there!

Main talking points include:

How to stand out in a world of "extroverts & selfies” - Authority, Alliances & Assets

“What’s got you here, isn’t going to get you there”

If you’re starting a business:

How are you going to be different?
What specific results can you achieve for your specific client?
What will the achieve from working with you?
Figure out a marketing strategy right from the outset
Where are you now
Where are you going
How are you going to get there

"Your fastest route to growth is your existing clients”

Don’t make your marketing overcomplicated…

Where to start a business

Whoever you look up to, remember they all started at zero and what you don’t see is the hard work thats gone into the background to get them to where they are. Do you WANT to go through it? It’s not for everyone…

Where to start…

Phase 1:
Be specific about WHAT you can do
Make your offer about the outcome you can achieve
Go out into the world (networking, LinkedIn, etc) and test it…
Phase 2:
Have a platform to invite people too… a podcast, for example… (it’s like strategic networking)

"Your network becomes your net worth…"

"Business Development is as much personal development as anything else…”

Don’t think about your products or services in a one dimensional way… There are 3 Growth Accelerators - Authority, Alliances & Assets.

thinklikeafish.co.uk/pete

Shoutouts

Chris Ducker

Think Like A Fish

The Client Catching Podcast

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP084 – 5 Steps to Easy Content Creation

Pete Everitt — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 09:37:21 +0000

Biography:

Helen Pollock is an Amazon-bestselling ghostwriter, non-fiction book coach and business content specialist. Working as The Content Doc these days, Helen’s been writing professionally for around two decades during a career in Marketing and, mostly, PR. Having worked for organisations as diverse as Aston Martin, The Royal Shakespeare Company, computer games companies and Plumb Center, Helen’s passion is writing lively and engaging copy about…well…just about anything. Now, Helen has transitioned to helping business people to write better. She ghostwrites business books and also content like blog posts and articles. Coaching people to write better copy, from a blog post to a book, is something Helen is incredibly committed to. She believes that everyone can become a better writer and that creating a simple framework for content creation is the key to great business writing. If Helen had to sum herself up in three words, they would be as follows: writer, feeder, fighter. Discuss.

Main talking points include:

Structuring content – a 5 step process…

Step 1: Always get crystal clear on your customer avatar.

Creating a customer avatar – give them a:

Name
Age
Location
Car
Life
Children
Job
Hobby
Lifestyle

Don’t be afraid of your customer avatar:

a) you CAN have more than one!

b) you won’t alienate people

Step 2: Create content themes around their pain points

Include your plan for repurposing and the key platforms for distribution.

Step 3: Get your thread sorted

Content Framer Sheet:

Who?
What?
Why?
How?
Where?
When?
So what?

Step 4: Break it down

Do you have a word count?

Introduction – tell them what you’re telling them
Content in the middle – tell them
Conclusion – tell them what you told them

Links to template sheets…

Find a formula… i.e. start with a statistic or a quote.

Always write your title last.

Step 5: Editing

Make sure that every word and every sentence counts.

The number 1 problem is that people write far too “wordy.”

Key editing tips:

Run spelling and grammar checks
Score your copy for ease of reading:
Flesh Concade Reading Ease Scale: Be as close to 100% for ease as possible
Experience writers have a buddy to check their work

"Content needs to be of value to the person that’s reading it.” - Helen Pollock

Download: Business Content Templates

Contact Helen on LinkedIn

www.thecontentdoc.com

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP083 – Growing and Sustaining Your Business

Pete Everitt — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 00:00:27 +0000

Biography:

Roland opened Benson design in 1985 in San Antonio Texas with one goal in mind to help small businesses promote themselves, develop strong brands, and accomplish their missions through message-driven design and marketing.

How I do this is by looking at their products and services the way the customers do, seeking an understanding of their business from the perspective of the people that they are trying to reach. Using this vantage, we begin creating: a unique identity, compelling messaging, and practical marketing tools.

Main talking points include:

Roland grew up with a number of learning difficulties, including dyslexia… having to adjust his life to accommodate this and become a better communicator. In the 1970’s this wasn’t an accepted form of need. Roland started using storyboards.

Two things happened to Roland:

Zig Ziggler – How to train a flea
Business Coach
Overcoming nervousness in talking to people

Talking to people:

What makes YOUR CLIENTS the most money

The key thing to grow your company is to focus on your clients.

When your clients make more money, they will give you more money.

Set a big audacious goal – to add $1,000,000 turnover to 100,000 businesses.

Roland’s passion is entrepreneurship and the influence that has with the people – looking at mass audiences.

Speak at 32 conferences in 2020
Speak on 50 podcasts including this one!

Roland's website: bensondesign.com

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP082 - Keeping Content Real

Pete Everitt — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:02 +0000

Biography:

Helen Pollock is an Amazon-bestselling ghostwriter, non-fiction book coach, and business content specialist. Working as The Content Doc these days, Helen’s been writing professionally for around two decades during a career in Marketing and, mostly, PR. Having worked for organisations as diverse as Aston Martin, The Royal Shakespeare Company, computer games companies, and Plumb Center, Helen’s passion is writing lively and engaging copy about…well…just about anything.

Now, Helen has transitioned to helping business people to write better. She ghostwrites business books and also content like blog posts and articles. Coaching people to write better copy, from a blog post to a book, is something Helen is incredibly committed to. She believes that everyone can become a better writer and that creating a simple framework for content creation is the key to great business writing. If Helen had to sum herself up in three words, they would be as follows: writer, feeder, fighter.

Main talking points include:

Helen wanted to work for herself to have a “portfolio lifestyle” – found working in a corporate job really boring…

Helen lived in Dubai as a child and took to learning languages. This progressed to getting a degree in French and German. After the birth of her child, Helen wanted to become self-employed, and found a gap in the market for teaching Mandarin in a fun way… the only issue was that she didn’t speak mandarin.

Helen overcame this by employing mandarin speakers and working with them to put the curriculum together. After five years of tweaking the business plan and running the company alongside a part-time job, Helen faced a number of challenges, and in the end, wound this stream of income down.

Just because a business idea doesn’t work, don’t mean you’re a failure:

Helen learned a lot about running a business
Helen and her team reached thousands of children with learning mandarin in a fun way – where are they now?

The Content Doc brought aspects of her corporate job and what she’d learned from running her language school.

Keeping content real

Finding the “story” within the topic and understanding the audience.

You start writing content by sorting some “lenses”

Who is your audience?
What are their pain points?
What's the outcome of your product that will help them?

Finding the “thread” in your messaging

Understanding what’s in your content for your audience.

Before you put “pen to paper” think about how are you going to use the content you create?

Helen likes using videos, especially short videos on LinkedIn

An example structure:

A long-form article
On LinkedIn
On your blog (maybe an abridged version)
A 3-minute video
On LinkedIn
On YouTube
On Facebook
Taking individual points from a blog post and putting those out on social media.

Start of by doing ONE THING and DOING IT WELL – you will know which one by doing your research.

John Espirian – Linkedin training

The biggest lesson that has come out of this for Helen through her entire entrepreneurial journey is the consistency of creating content.

The Content Structure Buster – Mini-Course

www.thecontentdoc.com

Shoutouts:

Bob Gentle

Amy Woods

Alex Curtis

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP081 – Whats in store for 2020

Pete Everitt — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 00:00:28 +0000

Main talking points include:

Understanding who you want to serve, and how to serve them best. For me, this is:

Those who do marketing on a day-to-day basis
Those who need to advise others on their marketing or marketing strategy
Those who tactically deliver marketing content regularly
Those who run marketing agencies
Those who need to be accountable to marketing results

Looking back at 2019:

Launch of a course went extremely well
Growing the podcast community and providing a safe place for questions to be asked
Identifying trends in practices, questions, and content
Delivering content through different media

What's coming in 2020:

Trying something new – business masterminding
Launching something new – a new course / product?
Building my agency
Better marketing / lead generation
Better delegation
Less reliant on me
More recurring revenue
The same podcast
More guests
More advice
More community

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP080 – Setting Goals for 2020 and Beyond

Pete Everitt — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 15:56:09 +0000

In this episode I share how I plan my goals starting with my family – my biggest stakeholders – and then work them backwards into weekly and daily tasks.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP079 – How we understand our clients marketing requirements

Pete Everitt — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 11:26:39 +0000

Main talking points include:

Understanding the priorities and ethos of a client is VITAL to any marketing project or client that you take on. Even if it's your own business (or that of your employer), being objective and taking an "arms-length" approach to understanding who you/they are and why you/they do what they do is imperative, but it's also some of the hardest information to get to.

In this episode, I give a breakdown of our marketing questionnaire that is sent to all retained clients either just before or just after we quote them for the project (I explain why that is in the ep too!), and how we use this information to give them the right advice and mix of services to achieve (or exceed!) their business goals.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP078 – Principles of Business from Batman

Pete Everitt — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 12:03:47 +0000

Main talking points include:

“Knowledge isn’t power, it's implementing it” – Todd Herman

Alex’s journey:

Freelancing – working 9 days in 6…
Example of overworking: Alex's daughter arrived on a Sunday, back to work on the Tuesday!
A few days later, Alex's wife fell ill, and Alex was back at work…

Essentially Alex didn’t know HOW to get more (and better!) clients. He didn’t know how to specialize and was, therefore, losing out to companies that offered an inferior product.

Alex's journey led him to the point of identifying and confronting his failures, but this didn’t make him change… He then watched Batman Begins…

“If you devote yourself to an ideal, you’ll become something else entirely” – Liam Neeson

Batmans 4 business principles:

People buy from people
Everyone loves a specialist
Giving without expecting anything in return
Failure breeds success

What is your “why” – make your “why” all about your client…

Where to start…

Start by giving information without expectation, and then start bringing your personality into it.
Choose one area, and run with this privately…
Only modify your entire brand, until you have a working model

Top tip – doing a 1-minute Instagram video every working day for a month…

Connect with Alex

YouTube Channel

Shout outs

Bob Gentle

Chris Ducker

Todd Herman

Mike Green – The Secret Millionaire

Philip Van Dusen

Simon Sinek

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP077 – Marketing your own Agency or Business

Pete Everitt — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 10:56:16 +0000

Biography

Jim Galiano is an Internet marketing consultant, web developer, author and podcaster who started doing business online in 1998. His consulting, marketing and publicity services have been used worldwide since 2002. Jim has been interviewed by a variety of media sources including the Wall Street Journal and CBS News in New York.

New Course: The Solopreneurs Guide

Website: jimgaliano.com

Main talking points include:

Solopreneurs Guide to launching a Digital Agency

10 module course:
Powerful business plan
Pricing
Marketing your agency
Getting free publicity
Contracts and proposals
Cold calls – sell without selling
Video System
Templates to release to the press

All for $97!! First delegates have free training LIVE with Jim!

Get the course here.

Marketing your own agency

Where to start – which “child” is going to mature the fastest?

Commit to a single path and a single strategy… and commit to it for the first 3 to 6 months – this is becoming 12 months. Dig deep into this, rather than wide.

Find a channel that allows you to provide the most value to your audience in the easiest way.

Developing your personal brand as this makes you have the longevity of a career that passes paradigms and shifts in trends.

The problem most people have is that they don’t make a plan… but making a plan doesn’t need to be difficult!

Making your marketing proactive rather than reactive.

Ultimately life is about the way you treat the people around you.

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP076 – Knowing when to pivot your business

Pete Everitt — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 08:57:47 +0000

Biography

Chris is a hopeless millenial (his words, not ours!). Careers never really agreed with him – he hopped around a bit, giving law a chance for a while, but he had itchy feet syndrome. Chris started limber to help more people lead a more varied worklife (including himself). If Chris could be anything, he'd be a tennis player / golfer / life coach – all he needs is some talent and a time machine.

Main talking points include:

Limber – invoicing and payroll tool for entrepreneurs, solo-preneurs, freelancers and slashies – https://limber.work/

Having your reasons and finding your lightbulb moment.

Starting Limber: The first product was a little different – focusing on hospitality.

"Your ambition has to be big, but your execution needs to be narrow.” – Chris Sanderson

The product development process:

Build quick
Iterate often
Refine as you go

If you’re building a business to prove you’re right means you will fail. All you have to do is to listen to your audience and serve the needs they have.

What is a slashie?

Someone who decides to live by running two or more sources of income either by choice or through the consequence of their life choices.

Limber takes all your income and pays it to you in a single payment with PAYE, holiday pay, pension contributions, etc all with a payslip, etc which helps you get loans, mortgages, etc just as if you were employed!

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP075 – Why a Marketing Strategy and Digital Marketing Strategy are different

Pete Everitt — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 07:21:03 +0000

Main talking points include:

What is a marketing strategy?

"A marketing strategy refers to a business' overall game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of the products or services the business provides.” – Investopedia

Typically, a marketing plan consists of these seven broad areas"

Business Goals and Financial Targets
Target Audiences (Buyer Personas)
Competitor Research
Value Propositions and back story (Your “Why”)
Marketing Channels
Tactical Plan – also known as a marketing plan. This is where your DIGITAL MARKETING strategy fits in
Measurement / Success Metrics – your Key Performance Indicators (or KPIs).

What Is a DIGITAL marketing strategy?

(Aka Data-Driven Marketing)

Really, it would make more sense to call it a Digital Marketing Plan as to not confuse the terminology – it is a tactical and considered process that focuses your digital and online marketing through THREE phases:

Traffic generation – how are you going to get the right people to look are you stuff?
Conversion to customers – how do you get those people to buy your stuff?
Improving customer experience – turning one time customers into multiple purchasers and brand advocates

Mapping these elements out as a funnel map (using something like Funnelytics) can really help your thinking…

Typically, a Digital Marketing Plan / Strategy includes the following themes:

A strategic plan for your website
Structure
Levels of Conversion
Customer retention
Customer service
SEO
Keyword research and mapping
Competitor research and tracking
Technical (on-page) SEO
Content Guidelines
Inbox (off-page) SEO
Content Marketing
Content plan for various phases of the Digital Marketing Plan
Evergreen content vs seasonal content
Types of content
Copy
Video
Audio
Imagery
etc…
Email Marketing
Details of platform and opt-in processes
General news
Lead generation
Lead nurturing
Service communications
Social Media
Channels
Types of content
Themes / Purposes per challenge
Pay Per Click
Channels
Budgets
Retargeting
Landing pages

According to Smart Insights, 45% of companies DO NOT have a Digital Marketing Strategy / Plan – is that you / your client? Without one, your efforts are haphazard and without direction…

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP074 – How I would start again (if I had to...)

Pete Everitt — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 00:01:10 +0000

Main talking points include:

Paul Jarvis – A Company of One

Don’t ask the questions “what would you do differently?”, instead ask the question “How would you begin again?”

Hindsight:

A great thing
A curse

The truth is this:

You can’t change the past, so don’t wish you had
You CAN shape the future – and this works best if you have a picture, vision or goal that you are aiming for.

So what is my vision? (Don’t worry about being selfish with this!)

Mortgage-free by the time I’m 41
Retire between 50 and 55 from “Everyday business"
Get to a place where my wife doesn’t have to work
Either live or have a holiday home by the sea (and have the freedom to operate from either place)
Drive a nice car (I’m a petrol head)
Make lifelong memories for my children
Be in a position where money isn’t an issue

What am I going to do to get there?

Starting again...

IF I was to start again I’d:

Identify my most marketable skill – web development / SEO
Identify how I can demonstrate the MOST VALUE to my new customers as fast as possible – demonstrate an ROI -> increase enquiry rates
Identify a niche (or niches) who experience this problem and where I can offer the quickest return – B2B owner/manager businesses
Validate the idea by offering to work for 3 clients for free…
Identify the process to doing this in the smallest amount of steps:

SEO Healthcheck
User experience on the website
Landing pages / bounce rates / etc

Put a reporting metric in place so that the evidence is clear
Productise this and optimise my website for the terms, questions and results from the three free clients
Put a marketing strategy in place

Outreach
Social media
Podcasts
PPC?

Identify levels 2 and 3 of additional services I could offer
Review my own results and pipeline
Refine my processes, price, client base (niches)
Repeat steps 3 - 11…

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP073 – Releasing No Stress WordPress v2

Pete Everitt — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 09:02:44 +0000

Biography:

Dave Foy is a course creator and online educator for non-coders who want to learn how to build faster and more profitably with WordPress and Elementor.

As a former primary school teacher, Dave started out teaching 5-11 year olds in the U.K. so he knows a thing or two about breaking down tough-to-grasp concepts in ways that literally anyone can understand.

20 years ago, he built his very first website. Then in 2003 he left teaching, turned pro, and spent 15+ years hand-coding websites in-house and latterly for the micro agency he started with a friend.

Dave’s the creator of three online courses, The Perfect Starter Site, No Stress WordPress, and No Fear Funnels, all designed to help non-coder designers build their businesses faster and more profitably with Elementor.

He’s also co-created High Ticket Sales Funnels with his good mate, Troy Dean from WP Elevation.

Main talking points include:

Teaching people how to build websites in Wordpress more quickly and more profitably.

Seeing the potential that non-coders could just build their ideas with page builders in Wordpress, Dave started teaching people how Wordpress works!

Why NSWP v2.0

The new tech – Gutenberg, Elementor 2.0
The potential of doing something with WordPress is greater than it has ever been

Covers the questions that you don’t even know how to google!

Bonuses include:

The Perfect Starter Site
DNS & Domains
10 minute CSS Crash Course
Global Styling
Lifetime access
Facebook Group

The importance of cementing real relationships with meaning in real life.

Register for the masterclass / Get the course!

The Masterclass

29th October 2019
30 to 40 minutes of teaching
Completely Free
No Stress WordPress will be offered during the masterclass
The 5 blockers people hit when they try to use Wordpress for their business
A free enrolment (at random, by refund) to someone who purchases off the back of the masterclass

Register for the masterclass / Get the course!

Shout Outs

Simon Sinek: Start With Why

Dan Malby: WP&UP

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP072 – Serving the niche you operate in

Pete Everitt — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 09:16:00 +0000

Biography:

Vito started his marketing journey leading a hard rock band from a small band in Tel Aviv to releasing albums and touring the world to thousands of people.

Later he applied his skills to grow a web agency to a team of 12 in 3 years before launching WP FeedBack, a communication tool for WordPress professionals, becoming the first plugin by a new company to reach 6 figures within 30 days.

Main talking points include:

Finding a pain point in your niche

Finding a problem from within the inside of your community
If you try to “jump in” to a different industry or niche, you can find a lot of resistance – look into your own community
Do a survey – this is even less than an MVP (minimum viable product), BUT it validates an idea!
Developing a product
Scaling without the need to hire too many additional staff
A product doesn’t even have to be developed web SAAS, it could be anything!

"An idea should have merit on its own”

Vito Peleg

Sell before you build

Book: The Lean Start-Up – Eric Ries

Knowing when to pivot

People focus on the result too much – you need to enjoy the journey

Imagine your day - don’t manufacture vending machines

People need to see you at least 5 times before they care. You need to be out there on different channels.

Facebook remarketing
Google remarketing

Ask the question: how can you 10X the ripple effect?

Building your client's avatar – put pictures on your wall.

No external money was spent on initial advertising – do this organically so you validate the idea with real followers.

Book: Dotcom Secrets – Russel Brunson

Nurturing the attractive character
“Become the guy”…
Keep the conversation going…

Automating the conversation:

Facebook groups, etc – safe places to keep engaged users in the conversation

Accept the pivot process

Connect With Vito:

Twitter: @feedbackwp

Website: wpfeedback.co

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP071 – Scoping out the competition

Pete Everitt — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 23:00:21 +0000

The key to scoping the competition – DO NOT get obsessed with what they are doing. You are marketing YOUR BUSINESS or YOUR CLIENTS BUSINESS, not the competitors.

What you want to achieve from scoping:

Their priorities
The things they are doing well
The things they’re not doing well
The things they haven’t thought of yet

The plan

Go into your competitor research with the following method.

Their structure
Their Keywords
Their CTAs / Boosts / Popups
Their Ads
Their Social Media

How to do it…

Tools:

SEMRush or Ahrefs (or SERanking, but it won’t do the ads!)

Process:

Browse their site - maybe even draw their sitemap
Note any messages or popups
Look at the Ads – its where they’re spending money
Do some secret shopping – make an enquiry, get a quote…
Do you own independent keyword research (you could do this first or at the end)
Identify the holes – what’s the new angle?

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP070 – Introducing the Bible of Repurposing Content

Pete Everitt — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 23:00:32 +0000

Biography:

Amy Woods is an expert in content repurposing and the founder of Content 10x. She helps online content creators grow their audience by maximizing their return on every piece of content that they create. Content 10x provide content repurposing services to podcasters, video content creators and bloggers.

Amy is also the host of The Content 10x Podcast, where she teaches all that you need to know about repurposing your content! She is the author of the book Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results.

Amy lives in Manchester, England and before setting up as an entrepreneur she spent 13 years as a management consultant, working on post-M&A restructuring for Fortune 500 companies.

Main talking points include:

Content 10x – a repurposing agency.

Growing the team
Content 10X Toolkit (it’s coming!)

Content 10x - THE BOOK:

A resource guide – the “Bible” of content repurposing
The systems, processes, budgets for repurposing

How to get the most out of the content we create both in terms of intellectual value and time.

The book covers:

Blogs
Podcasts
Webinars
Emails
Social Media
Live streams
eBooks / Books
Flash Briefings
Speaking at events
Repurposing time
etc...

It also covers:

Tools
Systems
Processes
Places you can get help
How you can review your archives of content
How to make the most out of your time

Get Content 10x on Amazon!

The process of repurposing INTO a book…

Amy had around 50 different episodes of podcasts that had already been repurposed
Sit down and figure out the structure of the book
Cross-reference existing content into the structure of the book – where are the gaps?

Amy was able to spot the gaps in the content she’d already created – she then created the external content BEFORE creating the chapter in the book.

Understanding the reasons WHY YOU are writing the book

A book-sized business card?
Or a bestseller?

MDP027 – The Benefits of Repurposing Content

Connect With Amy:

Twitter: @content10x

Website: https://www.content10x.com

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP069 – Finding a work / life balance that works for you

Pete Everitt — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:01:03 +0000

Biography:

Founder of Angled Crown, the Agency Trailblazer Podcast and Agency Transformation Live – Lee Jackson talks about the process he underwent to create a business that works FOR him, so he can be with his family when they NEED him.

Main talking points include:

Understanding what you WANT so that you can make your work fit around your life, not vice versa.
Defining what success looks like for you, and then working back from there to make decisions
Life is too short – what quality of life are you modeling to your family?
Making small decisions that have a big impact
Set working hours
Travel with your family
Creating Processes
Focusing on work being done, not working all day
Increasing prices to reflect the value of your time
Bring that ethos to your staff and sales
Be nimble with overheads
Stop comparing yourself to other people
These changes take time – be prepared to work HARDER for a short time to achieve the work / life balance you desire

Lee's Podcast Episode – You are not a failure

MDP061 - Creating a live event for your niche

MDP046 - Transforming Your Business

MDP003 - How mentoring changed my business

Connect With Lee:

https://angledcrown.com/

https://agencytrailblazer.com/

https://agencytrailblazer.com/group – FB Group

https://agencytransformation.live/

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP068 – Fear and Failure

Pete Everitt — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 16:12:39 +0000

Main talking points include:

Ant Middleton – The Fear Bubble / Mind over Muscle –

Failure:

Failure is THE BIGGEST hurdle to people progressing in business. Whether thats starting ut, or developing new services and streams of income.

The risk of gettings things wrong
Worrying what others may think

Don't let the FEAR of FAILURE hold you back... instead, take on a positive mental attitude and follow a PROCESS that allows you to track your progress and change your stance over time...

Dealing with failure

Accept it – it's going to be with us for a LONG time
Learn from it – if something doesn't work, that's fine... What can make it work next time?
Embrace it – if you're not moving forward, you're not moving... It's better to try and fail than not to try at all.
Build in measures to protect you from it...
The example of a new idea
What's the smallest possible version of your new product / service
Who would buy it?
How can you deliver it in the fastest possible time (with no bells and whistles)
What does success look like?
If you meet success, what does version 2, then version 3, etc look like?

Fear

In business, this can be VERY closely linked with failure, but maybe there are other things that scare you...

Speaking publically
Being direct in meetings
Creating strategies (what if they won't work?!)
Live social media posts

The problem with fear (and where it links to failure) is that it focusses on the destination – if you're scared of heights and you go to the grand canyon, have you "failed" if you don't stand at the edge.

Break your fears down into bite-sized chunks and normalize them by spending time in that space, and then celebrate overcoming these chunks - the destination will come round soon enough.

Gary V – "Entrepreneurs get hooked on the destination and forget to enjoy the journey."

ENJOY THE JOURNEY – it's up to you to make of it what you will... Money will come if you TRUST in the PROCESS. But if you're too afraid to step out of your comfort zone, then you won't move any further forward.

Understanding yourself

This is where it really gets tough... be honest with yourself about your own emotions and shortcomings.

Emotions – understand when and where you are TOO emotional. In places, emotions aren't a good thing IF they overrule your head
Shortcomings – we all have them, and that's fine – where is there someone better than you at a particular thing that you can plug into your product / service so that you don't have to do it.

Ultimately, with a few strategies in place and the acceptance of fear and failure in yourself, you make both of them work to further you and your business beyond places you could ever imagine.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP067 – Constructing Recurring Revenue Products

Pete Everitt — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 06:10:47 +0000

Biography:

Jason helps developers and designers discover their niche, plan out and market themselves to build recurring revenue, and stay in the feast. So that they can live the life that they want and ultimately reach the goals of why they started their own business in the first place.

He has run his own web development business since 2010 helping established online businesses, increase sales through optimization, conversion, and behavioral strategy. He does this through on-site personalization, email, and marketing campaigns to learn more about the potential and existing customers to decrease the time to first purchase and increase repeat purchases.

He's an avid baseball fan of the NY Mets, loves to travel and spend tons of time with his family.

Main talking points include:

Keeping in touch with client work

Helps you stay relevant and real with your peer group.

Being able to talk the language of your clients.

Word of mouth only works for so long. You need to develop a new method of keeping on top of leads…

Constructing Recurring Revenue Products

It’s not money for nothing – you DO have to work!

Recurring Revenue and Predictable Revenue – they are ultimately the same thing!

What kind of people do you like to work with?
What kind of projects do you like working on?
What are you good at doing?

In a predictable income stream, you need to have inputs to create an output. You need to know all the inputs and the timeframe to get to the output.

Red flags list – the non-negotiables you can’t compromise on. If a client raises a red flag, you’re probably not a good fit.

Then you list your products / services… Where can you add the value?

Knowing what your client wants and what they expect helps you build your systems

Systems REALLY work when they serve you AND your clients.

Jason’s processes include:

Weekly phone call
Communicate by email
Onboarding

… all because his CUSTOMERS told him so!

Communication is key – build this into your service contracts.

You have to think about the OFFBOARDING as well as the ONBOARDING…

Pricing structure

A tiered model:

One-off projects – for people with nothing to get something
Retained – Budget vs value… but value includes strategy, research, tech support, etc…

Shout outs

Connect with Jason:

Website: rezzz.com

Podcast: Live In The Feast

Twitter: @rezzz

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP066 – Introducing Deer Designer

Pete Everitt — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 05:45:24 +0000

Biography:

Thiago Carvalho is the founder at Deer Designer, former Head of Creative at the Daily Mail (a UK Newspaper) and has been Digital Specialist for over 20 years.

Main talking points include:

Deer Designer – a service for anyone that needs design work

The idea is for you to get a personal designer for as long as you are a client.

The challenges of finding a freelancer:

Holidays
Finding a Job
Other clients

The process:

You send an email
The PM and designer check the task
The designer works up some options
The quality team checks it
All assets are delivered to you

Clients can work on multiple brands all for one account.

"An ego-free designer”

All designers are around the world are given a fair wage and are given options in what they do and how they want to work. They are also paid above an average wage for the locale that they’re in.

Connect with Thiago:

Website: deerdesigner.com

LinkedIn: click here

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP065 – Breaking catch 22s in your business

Pete Everitt — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 06:55:43 +0000

Biography:

Andrew and Pete are the fun business duo who help small business owners scale their business so they can stop swapping time for money. They have a weekly YouTube show and run one of the UK's leading marketing membership community, called ATOMIC. Winners of the 'Digital and Social Media Company of the Year Award', and also 'Business Personality of the Year Award'.

As the authors of two-hit books, 'The Hippo Campus' and 'Content Mavericks' they regularly keynote international conferences such as Social Media Marketing World and have been featured on sites such as Inc., Huffington Post, Social Media Examiner, Convince and Convert, Entrepreneur on Fire and Kim Garst. They are ranked in the top 100 digital marketers in the world and host one of Europe's largest small business growth conferences, ATOMICON happening in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. You can find out more about them at: www.andrewandpete.com

Main talking points include:

Andrew and Pete run a business that helps businesses scale…

Atomic – membership
Atomicon – Annual event
Books

Scaling by productising on the one-to-many services

"Don’t try to do everything because you end up doing everything averagely”

Get strategic about what makes you the most money…

If you don’t have a big audience, trying to produce a course is missing the point

Theres a problem with the hustle mentality – it never stops!

If you’re not charging your clients enough, then you don’t have the time to build the rest of your business…

The catch 22

You don’t have time to market

You can’t afford to outsource

You can’t fire a client because you haven’t got time to market

The things that have the biggest impact in our business are often the “scariest” to do…

The solution: find the fear and follow it…

Breaking the catch 22

Get some encouragement – you can do this…

This is why communities are so important to business owners
Encouragement can come from demand – if you can prove the demand, then you can have confidence in the delivery

Consequence forecasting – look at all the unknowns and plan out the possible routes through them.
Do a proof of concept test

Taking the emotion out of the decisions, instead, look at the facts and make a decision on that too…

Connect with Andrew and Pete:

Website: andrewandpete.com

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP064 – Why Recurring Revenue Is Vital For Your Business

Pete Everitt — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 15:07:35 +0000

Main talking points include:

What recurring revenue IS NOT:

Money for nothing
Service Fees
To be taken for granted

What recurring revenue IS:

Predictable
Built to scale
A means to deliver ONGOING VALUE to your clients
A benchmark to provide security for you / your staff / your family

Do a quick calculation – how many people depend on your company?

Number of staff + their spouses / dependants (animals?!)

SO… = 10 staff = 24 lives dependant on our income

Recurring Revenue and Me…

Freelance Business:

Started with £10.00
NEVER lost a quote on price
Triggered the feast/famine cycle in my business and my family life
Built a successful “freelance” business, but didn’t have the overheads to employ anyone
Built it into low six figures

Ecommerce Agency:

Team of 16 when I started….
Turnover of around £600,000 with around £240,000 (£20K / month) of this being recurring
When I left (2 years 3 months later):
Team of 36
RR of £96,000 / month (or £1.15M)

SO…

Started in 2016
By month 7 RR covered the overheads of the business
Y2 - six figures of RR
Y3 - multiple 6 figures…
I have NEVER not paid myself or my team
The team started as 2… it’s now 9.

What RR gives you that's MORE THAN MONEY

Business Value
Looking to sell your business 1 day, contracted RR is the second biggest multiple of business valuation (after property)
Freedom
The power to make decisions
Commitment
A platform to add and demonstrate value to a select group of clients
The ability to charge what you’re worth, rather than racing to the bottom
A means to get out of the feast / famine cycle

You’re talking just about agencies, right?

WRONG!

I AM talking about service based B2B business…
Consultants
Copywriters
Designers
Developers
Marketers
Social Media Managers
Bloggers
Course Creators
Researchers
SEOs
Lead gen
Photographers
Illustrators
Authors
Translators

How do you get started?

Design
Market
Deliver

Sound good?

www.marketingdevelopment.academy/renegade

Unpack the themes of designing, marketing and delivering RR services IN YOUR BUSINESS

12 weeks

6 x 1-to-1 calls

Practical applications

Identifying your customers

Delivering Value

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP063 – Understanding that Marketing takes Time

Pete Everitt — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 23:00:28 +0000

Biography:

Born in California and raised in Texas, Kyle is a husband and proud father of three. After spending 15 years in graphic design and acquiring a business degree, Kyle launched OGAL Web Design in 2017. Kyle is passionate about helping small businesses succeed online through custom websites and digital marketing campaigns.

Main talking points include:

Strategic ways to use digital marketing tools – doing fewer things more effectively.

Understanding your audience

"Businesses don’t know what to post on social media"

Digital marketing has a snowball effect.

Connect with Kyle:

Websites: ogalweb.com / theadminbar.com

Facebook: The Admin Bar

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP062 – How to be consistently active on Social Media

Pete Everitt — Sun, 04 Aug 2019 23:00:25 +0000

Biography:

Nicole Osborne is a personal brand and social media coach based in London and the founder of Lollipop Social. Nicole helps entrepreneurs get sweeter marketing and social media results.

Originally from Eastern Germany, Nicole works with entrepreneurs and small businesses to increase their influence and visibility on social media with stand-out personal brands and engaging content marketing.

Nicole’s marketing career started at the Financial Times nearly 20 years ago. She is a Chartered Marketer and has successfully delivered marketing plans for leading brands, social media marketing agencies and tech start-ups.

Nicole loves to share sweet tips and has been a guest on numerous Twitter chats and marketing podcasts. She is a regular marketing events speaker talking about how to increase visibility and get better results with on brand and non-vanilla content.

Nicole launched her vlog series: Wunderbar The Marketing Efficiency Show with time-saving tips for people who want to grow their audience and feel proud again of how they come across on social. Sign up to the Sugar Rush, Nicole’s weekly newsletter to be first to find out about new episodes.

Nicole is a co-founder of GoWithThePro a brand-new online membership group which helps social media and digital marketing freelancers to grow their businesses.

Main talking points include:

If you’re in digital marketing, you need to be active on social – it’s your best shop window. You NEED to make time for social.

Planning your time:

1/3 your time working on your business and business development
1/3 your time delivering work
1/3 your time marketing / social media!

Where does your audience hang out… pick two platforms and commit to them. Don’t get fear of missing out for the platforms you don’t use.

Which part of your personal story do you want to share and which parts do you want to ring fence?

Making consistency:

Think about your tone of voice and your visual assets.
Awareness calendars
Post ideas – content download
Behind the scenes content
Curated content

Tools:

Trello
ContentCal
TwitterChats
Twitter Smarter
Google Alerts
Social Media Examiner
Google Analytics

Content Repurposing:

Take your main content and then choose one level of content repurposing. When you’re comfortable with that, and then add another.

Shoutouts

Philip Van Dusen – Episode 50

Janet Murray

Connect With Nicole:

Website: lollipopsocial.co.uk

Twitter: @lollipop_social

LinkedIn: click here

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP061 – How to put on a Live Event for Your Niche

Pete Everitt — Sun, 28 Jul 2019 23:00:11 +0000

Biography:

Founder of Angled Crown, the Agency Trailblazer Podcast and Agency Transformation Live – Lee Jackson – talks us through the process he underwent to deliver a successful live event for agency owners from around the world.

Main talking points include:

The 5 stages of transforming your business

Identity
Value
Platform
Output
Future

Why you should put on a live event…

There are some things that you just CAN’T do online. Live events help you:

Meet new clients
Find suppliers
Make plans

Live events also MAKE people invest in their business

“Feel the fear and do it anyway”

“Be seen to sell"

Releasing the event:

Having the plan on the content and structure
Announcing it to the audience
Further growing to your audience:
Month 1: build the audience through Facebook retargeting
Growing your pixels and custom audiences
Month 2: tell people the content of ATL
Messaging tailored around the audience pixels that you’ve grown
Month 3: the countdown for the event
Targeting natively and through the pixels
Using magazines to find your audience

MDP046 - Transforming Your Business

MDP003 - How mentoring changed my business

Lee’s review episode on the Agency Trailblazer Podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP060 – Why Design is vital for Marketing

Pete Everitt — Sun, 21 Jul 2019 23:00:36 +0000

Biography:

With a background in art theory, Piccia Neri has been a practising designer for over 2 decades, working with major cultural institutions as well as top London agencies on global brands. Piccia led the creative direction of the design department at the British Film Institute, London. She was vice-president of the Chartered Society of Designers (UK) 2013-16.

After 20 years in London Piccia currently runs her own global web, UX & design consultancy agency from Spain. Besides building websites, apps and brands, she educates developers, techies and marketers as well as clients on design, running workshops and courses, and speaking at international conferences on design topics.

Main talking points include:

Why design is important for marketing

Design is not styling.

Design starts way before that with the process and the planning – this is where it starts from.

With digital products you need to take things into consideration:

Accessibility is an example of this…
E.g. the apple original logo

To put it simply – “good design is good marketing"

What is the thought process that goes behind good design?

Planning is the key – what is the experience you want them to have? What emotions do you want to evoke in your clients… Creating empathy with the target audience.

User experience is not just on the page – it’s about how you communicate.

UX is NOT just for big corporations – it’s for everyone…

Piccia’s Courses:

– The mini (free) course – the framework of good UX

– UX For Everyone – paid course… a deep dive into the entire UX process that you can use AND sell as a team of one (or more)…

Understanding your target human

How everything to do with marketing, design, copywriting, etc… comes down to understanding your target audience(s), and finding EMPATHY with them.

The process:

Research
Planning
Testing

Empathy leads to accessibility…

Shoutouts

Lee Jackson - Agency Transformation Live

Kyle Van Deusen – The Admin Bar

Andrea Zolner

Don Norman

Connect With Piccia:

Website: piccianeri.com / designforgeeks.com

Facebook: Design for Geeks, Devs, Techies and Marketers

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP059 – Keeping Marketing and Business Simple

Pete Everitt — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 23:01:57 +0000

Biography:

Roger helps people keep their marketing simple in a world where business bullshit and complexity threatens to stifle success.

An experienced marketing professional helping businesses with their marketing strategy, content, and social media, Roger clocked up many years in the ‘big corporate’ world as marketing director of several UK financial services brands before getting out of all that and starting his own consultancy.

He now uses his expertise to guide his clients in designing engaging campaigns and is known as a prolific content creator and podcaster, and as a speaker. He’s the host of the popular Marketing and Finance Podcast.

As a qualified yoga and exercise teacher, Roger has also been known to ask his clients to take off their ties and put on their trainers, taking their fitness, as well as their marketing, to the next level.

Main talking points include:

In a small business, you have the ability to be nimble. The bigger a business gets, the hard it is for a person to be unique and the more red tape there is. The further away you get away from the customer.

Starting the entrepreneurial journey

You need to start with a plan!

Either leverage your existing network or profile
Or… start to think about exactly who your target customer needs to be

Start with your “Customer”

Marketing is so much more than just communications. Marketing is:

Understanding your customer
Finding out their problems
Creating a product or service to address that problem
Market that product / offer to your chosen market

Keeping Marketing Simple

With all the shiny toys, its easy to get hooked on the tactical delivery of your “marketing” – but starting with a strategy keeps things simple.

Strategy is a word that scares people.

The concept of strategy is sound:

Have your offer
Have a goal

With these two, you can start putting the communications together.

Goals are essential – and they need to be aligned to your offer.

Having someone to keep you accountable to your goals.

Traditional marketing was far more interruptive marketing. “New” marketing is far more education through content marketing.

Connect With Roger:

Website: rogeredwards.co.uk

Twitter: @roger_edwards

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP058 – The Foundations of Good Design

Pete Everitt — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 23:01:19 +0000

Biography:

Mor is the owner and lead designer of The Branding Designer, a flourishing branding agency, and FlixFrame, a successful web design agency. Her sites are showcased in GeneratePress Premium library. She is on a mission to share her extensive experience and expertise to help you excel and level-up your design skills through her design-focused course.

Main talking points include:

The foundations of good design

“The way we present words can make or break a project”

Typography
Colour
Layout
Spacing
Brand

Understanding who you are talking to… it all starts with the audience

How do we know that the design isn’t working?

Firstly – it’s not converting!

"Design is a symphony coming together"

Creating a style guide for you PROCESS… this becomes a roadmap.

Join Mor's Design Class

Shout Outs

Google Fonts

Unsplash

Connect With Mor:

Website: flixframe.com

Twitter: @FlixFrame

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP057 – FOMO Marketing for Personal Brands

Pete Everitt — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 14:53:10 +0000

Biography:

May King Tsang is a FOMO Creator and Social Media Correspondent. Her role is to Live Tweet, and broadcast live on Facebook and Instagram all from her smartphone!

She’s been Live Tweeting professionally for many years helping conferences, fesTEAvals and workshops trend with their hashtags in Australia and the UK.

She also trains and mentors Social Media Managers to produce the right content for their clients, and produces Social Media Review and StraTEAgy reports for business owners across the major Social Media platforms.

You’ll mainly find her tweeting at @maykingtea.

Main talking points include:

Twitter

Always THE place for breaking news
National / International
In your niche / industry
It's in the moment, it is live
Twitter’s algorithm has tools that allow you to find extra exposure for your tweets
Its where the journalists hangout
You need to work strategically

May King's story:

Moved to Oz in 2010 with her husband. They divorced in 2012 which lead to an immigration issue.

Final settlement came in 2016 – which lead to her to a place of depression and low self-esteem. In 2016 May King came back to the UK and had to rebuild her life and business.

This became an opportunity to become more strategic and more focussed on her business, her marketing and her business development. This lead to working with Google in 2017.

In Australia, May King had been a people pleaser, whereas coming back to the UK, she understood that she was going to have work really hard to change this to have more focus.

Marketing through social media

Business owners need to be in more than one place, maybe even three networks.

Start engagement by being complimentary

Using Hashtags for tweets and searches

Repurposing content (especially video) is happening more and more regularly and is becoming far more accepted.

Tools

Lately – http://bit.ly/LatelyMKT

Shout Outs

Alex Curtis

@BizPaul

Book: How to win friends and influence people

Chris Ducker / Youpreneur

Andrew & Pete / Atomicon

Lucy Hall / Social Day

Connect With May King:

Twitter: @MayKingTea

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP056 – Using Journalism to tell Stories in Marketing

Pete Everitt — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 05:28:05 +0000

Biography:

Rachel Extance is a business storyteller. A professional journalist for 15 years, she now helps organisations create content tailored to their audience. Rachel has worked in print, digital and social media for newspapers across the UK. The stories we tell are powerful. They create connections, change opinions, inspire and delight. Rachel will show you how to use storytelling to build your business.

Main talking points include:

Taking journalism into marketing

Your personal story
Your business story
The stories of your customers

How to start turning marketing into a story

Start with your own story
Knowing what your “why” is
Start with first impressions

Start with a strategy and find your medium…

Going to big events

Putting yourself out there
Networking with delegates
Giving yourself some confidence
Thinking about how you build a business and pivot as and when you need to

Connect With Rachel:

Website: click here

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP055 – Generating Monthly Recurring Revenue

Pete Everitt — Sun, 16 Jun 2019 23:01:08 +0000

Main talking points include:

Why recurring revenue is important for your business.

How we set up and manage recurring streams of income in our agency.

How we sell recurring services at different levels.

How to scale recurring services through outsourcing and partnerships.

Connect With Pete:

Website: click here

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP054 – Video Marketing is really Video Customer Service

Pete Everitt — Sun, 09 Jun 2019 23:01:29 +0000

Biography:

Pascal Fintoni is a professional trainer and speaker specialising in helping business owners get more enquiries from the Web. He started his career in 1994 in London working for a well known holiday company creating campaigns for TV, radio, newspapers and of course the Internet.

Pascal quickly developed a passion and unrivalled knowledge for digital content marketing and his time is shared between speaking at conferences and delivering interactive and practical programmes for marketing consultants and professionals as well as small business owners.

Pascal is also a video producer and director and he has successfully introduced many of the storytelling techniques used by filmmakers into his coaching to help his clients create better online content faster.

Main talking points include:

Starting your own business.

Didn’t want to chase work to pay the bills
Wanted to give a better service to clients and spend time with them, regardless of what the quote determined.
Be clear about what you want to do
Pascal wanted to work with owner/managers
Didn’t want to get involved in the implementation
Reconnect clients with who their clients actually were
Learning how to say “no"

Staying as a consultant – not growing to an agency

Staying as a critical friend help elongate client relationships
Freedom within service offerings to change things as he wanted to

Shaping your model and your personal brand

Politely decline the offers for coffee, etc… they DO NOT help YOU build YOUR business!
Define the things that are for you and what are the things you use

Something brave for 2019… what could you STOP to free up time and value?

As much as you work hard to look after your customers, what are you doing to look after yourself?

Video marketing

Your level of enthusiasm equates to the same level of fear in your clients
DON’T call it “video marketing”, instead call it “video customer service"
You can’t argue with good customer service
Is good customer service to send links to high-quality tutorials or videos that would be useful for your customers
Would it be helpful to save that video for future use and future customers?
Why not create a youtube channel of curated videos, tutorials, etc…
The better ones can then be embedded in a blog post
Over time you can introduce making your own videos, or co-create your own videos
People are the best in conversation mode
After a few of these, people may want to move to solo shows

Connect With Pascal:

Website: click here

Twitter: @pascalfintoni

Join our Facebook Group

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP053 – Integrating processes to life as well as to business – Jessica Barron

Pete Everitt — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 08:37:47 +0000

Biography:

Jessica is the founder of Super Mum Society, a motherhood empowerment brand, with the sole aim of helping mums realise that they truly are super and that their superpowers are based on being themselves.

She is a professional speaker, who has appeared for big names such as The Inspiring Success Club and Marks & Spencers. Jessica also runs a YouTube channel on self-development for mums, a podcast called Motherhood Motivation, is a time management expert and has been a successful professional in health & fitness, hospitality and event planning industries.

Main talking points include:

Launching the first paid product – not a high ticket item that can always been used as a freebie if needed.

Jessica had to face the realisation that she probably wasn’t going to be a Mum, yet it was something she desperately wanted. She came to terms with the fact that she may not be able to do this without adoption, but then the miracle happened and she fell pregnant. Having planned this journey for 15 years, Jessica had a plan on how motherhood was going to work. She therefore applied everything she had learnt in business to parts of her life and the planning of their home for family life.

The Super Mum Society fills the void in giving Mums a place to go and to share these tips that Jessica has developed over time.

Planning your time and your business:

Beginning with the end in mind
Finding out what you WANT to do, and then put them into order
Thinking about how pieces of your business go together
Have a rhythm to how you review your plan
Don’t spend your time on things you don’t need to.
Two things your planner MUST include:
Self care
Time for planning

Motto: ‘Know thyself’

Applying systems to your life:

Start with trying something small, and then scale it up
Only apply processes that you are all prepared to adopt yourself
Ask yourself the question: “Why is this taking so much time?"

Connect With Jessica:

Website: click here

Youtube Channel: click here

Podcast: click here

Blog: click here

Instagram: @supermumsociety

Download: Feel less tired on less sleep

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP052 – Productizing to scale with Damien Schreurs

Pete Everitt — Mon, 27 May 2019 21:53:26 +0000

Biography:

Damien is a Belgian expat living & working in Luxembourg. Previously a Physicist engineer with an 18 year corporate career in Research and Development, and a 30+ years passion for technology and IT in particular.

Damian started EasyTECH part-time in 2013 as a side hustle and finally left his employer in September 2016 to work as a freelance Apple tutor and consultant.

Since June 2018 Damien has been hosting the Macpreneur podcast, a show for entrepreneurs who run their business on Apple gear.

Main talking points include:

Helping entrepreneurs run their businesses with Apple products. Damien wanted to start a business in the technology space. This started with consultancy and personal coaching, which has expanded over time.

Damien reviewed the market and found a lot of competition with Windows PCs, but not for Apple products.

Starting out

Mum was self-employed and this was instilled from an early age… It was a goal in life to run his own company.

Family circumstances in 2007 lead Damien to a point of making a decision about becoming serious in starting a company.

Starting with clients was a side hustle on top of the day job.

The tricky part came in deciding when to go full time – initially, this was a financial revenue goal, but this didn’t work. This lead to a change of focus to a financial runway… Building security was important for family life.

The mistake was thinking that the momentum was scaleable in its current form. The problem was prospecting.

Finding clients

First clients were purely friends, family and word of mouth – basically leveraging his own network.

After going full time, Damien joined his local BNI group. This move meant Damien could move into B2B clients which is more profitable for him.

Launching a podcast was the next phase in prospecting and is allowing him to move towards online courses, online training and additional streams of income that are lower cost, but more profitable.

New prospecting strategy: Providing value in free content that leads to productized offerings.

Connect With Damien:

Website: click here

Podcast: Macpreneur

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP051 – Why using funnels in sales makes sense

Pete Everitt — Mon, 20 May 2019 08:39:09 +0000

Biography:

Matt is a web designer, marketer, agency owner since 2006 and worked in the digital space since the year 2000. As a passionate advocate of lead generation and marketing funnels, he wants to help every agency owner to generate more leads for their business.

Main talking points include:

What is a funnel and why is it important to marketing?

In its simplest form, a funnel is a means to provide the solution for a problem that a customer has. It’s an awareness cycle
The main issues of a funnel are that they need a time investment to create, and without a core strategy, they become laborious and unfocused
The Feast and Famine Cycle

Introducing FunnelPacks.co

What's included:

Lead magnets
Landing Pages
Welcome email
Nurture Email Sequence
CTA offer emails
Tutorials

Is running a funnel expensive?

You CAN run a funnel absolutely free, but a little investment makes things run more smoothly.

Matt's bigger picture – changing the opinions on mental health and teaching in school.

Funnel Packs:

www.funnelpacks.co

Founder Offer (Available until 31st May 2019)

SEO Funnel Pack

Wordpress Care Plans Funnel Pack

Website Audit Funnel Pack

Web Design Funnel Pack

Shoutouts:

Matt on The Admin Bar

Connect With Matt:

Website : click here

Email: support@funnelpacks.co

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP050 – Branding for Personal Brands with Philip VanDusen

Pete Everitt — Sun, 12 May 2019 23:01:00 +0000

Biography:

Philip is a highly accomplished creative leader and expert in brand strategy and graphic design for some of the world’s most successful global agencies, retailers and consumer products companies, including P&G, Gap, Inc., Petsmart, PepsiCo, GE, Chevron, Safeway, Delmonte, Diamond Foods, and Johnson & Johnson among many others.

Philip has helped Fortune 100 companies and entrepreneurs alike create and revitalize brands, identities, websites and launch new products for 20+ years. He has served as VP of Design of Global Snacks at Pepsico, VP of Design at Old Navy and Executive Creative Director for the global branding agencies Landor Associates and Anthem Worldwide. Philip is currently the founder and principal of Verhaal Brand Design which specializes in strategic brand development, graphic design and marketing.

Main talking points include:

The importance of support and networking in the entrepreneurial journey.

Offering your services to the entrepreneurial community:

Becoming an expert
Giving value without EXPECTING return

This sets the premise of content marketing – giving value to the world… This helps you build a brand in your niche.

Building a content library takes time

Branding for the personal brand

Branding is branding - it's just a question of scale.
The three Rs
Recognised
Remembered
Revered

Recognition and remembrance come through consistency, colour, placement, iconography, etc… The visual components need to be consistent. Not doing this is simply limit the effectiveness of everything you do so far.

How content marketing vets your leads and enquiries

Starting out with your own branding as you start your business.

Smaller agencies are starting to pick up the work from the big brands by the smaller, faster and cheaper smaller and virtual agencies.

The rise of the consultant and the global digital economy has had a remarkable effect in the marketing industry.

Making your online presence robust

“Prepare to suck"

Connect With Philip:

Website : click here

Youtube Channel: click here

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP049 – Making Time with Business Automation – Jimmy Rose

Pete Everitt — Sun, 05 May 2019 23:01:54 +0000

Jimmy is lazy. He likes automating things or creating processes so he can do less boring work. He helps business owners be more efficient so they can focus on the parts they actually like doing.

Main talking points include:

Why automate your processes?

Where to start and what to automate?
It can take a number of hours to start automating your processes.
The time saving
Which directly relates to the cost saving

Where to start:

What an automation is:

Start with a trigger
Then perform an action

Example – lead scoring

Check for companies that have more than 20

What to automate:

Double handling of data
Eg Social Media
Back and forth email
Eg Bookings
Collecting Content
Anything tedious
Eg following up emails
Anything you have to do manually
Eg Roll up triggers in to a digest
Eg Mentions of your brand on twitter

Connect With Jimmy:

Website : click here

Podcast: click here

Youtube Channel: click here

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP048 – Becoming a Content Creator – Kim Doyal

Pete Everitt — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 09:41:45 +0000

Kim is an online entrepreneur and content marketing specialist. Having pivoted and moved her business around a number of ideas (discussed in the podcast!), Kim discusses how she has now moved to the point of creating a physical product and how she uses her understanding of content marketing not only to inform the product itself but also to sell it to a global audience.

Main talking points include:

"Success is not the destination but the quality of the journey”

Mastering the craft

Just show up
It may be crickets when you start – but you start to learn what DOESN’T work…

Content Creators Planner

A content creators planner based around your business goals

Structures content
Calls to action
End goals

Content strategy plan that breaks down monthly and then weekly

Content marketing is simply marketing – it’s all intertwined now.

Using funnels

Combining paid traffic with organic traffic is how you scale your business.

Shout Outs:

Overdeliver – Brian Kurtz

Connect With Kim:

Twitter: click here

Website : click here

Podcast: click here

The Kim Doyal Show: click here

Content Creators FB Group: click here

Content Creators Planner: click here

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP047 – The Personal Brand Journey – Chris Ducker

Pete Everitt — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 10:18:11 +0000

Chris Ducker is a serial entrepreneur who has worked his way up as an entrepreneur working 14 hour days 6 days a week to become a virtual CEO. Chris has also written a book on becoming the go-to leader in your industry and build a future proof business. Not only is Chris an author he also runs the YouPreneur podcast where he introduces his audience to some of the top online business minds, as well as fellow personal brand entrepreneurs from around the world.

Based in Cambridge, England, he owns and operates several businesses, that combined house over 350 full-time employees around the world. He’s also a trusted international business mentor, keynote speaker, podcaster, blogger, as well as the founder of Youpreneur.com.

Chris hosts the annual Youpreneur Summit, which is held in London each November and is the self-proclaimed ‘Proudest Brit’ doing business online!

Main talking points include:

Building businesses around personal brands

"Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not there."

Content marketing is the only real marketing out there – P2P (People to People Marketing)
Looking back is just as important as moving forward!
The journey is about the long term game.
Your customers play 100% role in growing your business

Connect With Chris:

Website: chrisducker.com

Book: Rise of the Youpreneur

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP046 – Moving from Freelancer to Business Owner – Robbie Handley

Pete Everitt — Sun, 14 Apr 2019 23:00:53 +0000

Robbie is the founder of RJH Digital – originally a freelance company, but now a full-service digital agency. almost 12 months after his previous appearance (in episode 007!), Robbie returns to the podcast to update us on how life and business are going...

Main talking points include:

Growing an agency

The journey is a change in mindset from “this is a freelance gig” to “this is an agency business"
From the “I” mentality, to the “we" mentality
Process
The Team
The Process
The Sales
The Finances

Where to make the investment in your team

What does your day look like and where do you spend your time?
A six week time study

"Don’t waste your energy on things you don’t need to”

“Freelancers won’t care about your business the way that employees do”

The vibe of the company lifts with employees.

Using a Business Coach:

Helps with mindset
Helps with understanding
Helps with structure
Keeps you accountable
Helps with team culture
Keeps focussed on Business Growth

"Act more like a business owner and think more like a business owner."

You need to be open for YOUR ROLE to change

Moving away from execution
Moving towards account management / strategy / personnel development

“Good managers manage themselves out of a job”

Connect With Robbie:

Website: rjhdigital.com

Social: LinkedIn / Facebook

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP045 – Integrating Marketing Automation – Magnus Unemyr

Pete Everitt — Sun, 07 Apr 2019 23:00:30 +0000

Magnus' skillset is founded in software development, marketing automation and AI and he works to assist other companies in using these tools to improve customer interactions and grow revenue.

Main talking points include:

"Building a flow chart of logic that changes based on the needs of the user”
Content recommendation engines (similar to product recommend engines).
AI bots to recommend SEO optimisations to content.

Book: Data-Driven Marketing

Connect With Magnus:

Website: unemyr.com

Course: Marketing Automation Made Easy

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP044 – Finding Your Purpose – Michael Killen

Pete Everitt — Sun, 31 Mar 2019 23:00:57 +0000

Mike wants to get sales training into the hands of every child and school in the world. He believes confident people don't make stupid decisions, and they're confident if they can sell. He's the world's #1 sales coach for funnel builders and the author of From Single To Scale.

In this episode, we talk about how entrepreneurship is MORE than just making a living – it's about finding your PURPOSE.

Main talking points include:

Sales training to be on schools curriculum

Build yourself out of poverty

Sales is about serving an audience.

Funnels have nothing to do with the systems or tools. It’s about reaching people who don’t know who you are.

How funnels work:

People need to find me
Become a subscriber
Become a lead
Become a customer

The sale is just the end of the beginning

The FIRST marketing campaign you should build for EVERY new client is to their CURRENT customer base.

Mike's Book – “From Single to Scale”

"It’s often not a marketing problem, but a PROCESS problem" – Mike Killen

Selling Funnels:

– addresses the set and forget mentality.

– is VERY lucrative

– more scaleable income

Shout outs!

Book: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Book: Seth Godin – This is Marketing

Documentation Program: Quip

Dave Foy

Troy Dean

Lee Jackson

Connect With Mike:

Website: sellyourservice.co.uk

Youtube: Sell Your Service

Twitter: @Mike_Killen

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP043 – Transforming Your Business – Lee Jackson

Pete Everitt — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 00:00:13 +0000

Lee Jackson is an agency owner, podcaster, solopreneur and business transformer. He runs both Angled Crown and Event Engine (his two agencies) alongside becoming a leader in the digital agency space. in this episode, we explore why Lee HAD to transform his agency, and how he's helping others to do the same thing!

Main talking points include:

“Everything is driven from your mission”

Agency Reset Roadmap - deep dive found in episode 200!

Transformation happens in small steps… 20% changes

Comparison is a killer

The importance of making time out for your family. What can you do:

Holiday
as house sitters for family
staycations
Meal planning

24th April – Agency Transformation Live

Goes through all 5 pillars of transformation – use the code: ilistened for £75.00 off!

Shout outs!

Martin Huntbatch

Tim Ferris – The 4hr work week

Connect With Lee:

https://angledcrown.com/

https://agencytrailblazer.com/

https://agencytrailblazer.com/group – FB Group

https://agencytransformation.live/

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP042 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY! How I produce the podcast

Pete Everitt — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 00:01:00 +0000

Today the podcast turns 1!!! It's been a fun and sometimes scary journey, but it's amazing how something is ingrained in your life and you start to love it! In this episode, I briefly explain how I produce the podcast – including the tech and the software – and how it gets syndicated to all the awesome people that listen to it!

Main talking points include:

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP041 – Determining Your Success – Bob Gentle

Pete Everitt — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Bob is a digital agency owner who has been on a journey through the scaling process and has experienced the successes and the challenges of running a full-service agency. Bob and his team have now moved on to specialise in digital marketing, and have restructured their offer accordingly. Bob also helps digital agency owners and solopreneurs build a business based around their own success.

Main talking points include:

Making success in the DM space comes down to:

Specialisation
In skill set
In a vertical market
Bob’s Market – Business owners who want to be at the front of their business and courageous in their marketing
Amplify Me!

"Success is a moving target”

Russell Brunson – books – Expert Secrets

Finding your audience:

1/3 won't like you
1/3 won't notice you
1/3 will love you

Connect With Bob:

Website: bobgentle.com / studionec.com

Podcast: Gravity Digital Agency Podcast

Reflections on Youpreneur – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwLJ3nAIr5g

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP040 – On-page SEO – Stephanie Fiteni

Pete Everitt — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 00:00:33 +0000

Main talking points include:

Tools:

Including some of the main keywords in your Main Menu

Each keyword should have no more than 50 blogs on a single topic

Map keywords to the content you already have

If you have a page already, you can optimise this content already.
If you don’t you will need to create new content in a structured place on your website.

3 phases:

Top of funnel
Middle of funnel
Ready to buy

Provide a freebie at each phase of the funnel so you can monitor how the downloads are working based on your content

Using bots…

Automating communications to improve conversion

The regularity of content

Short and frequent (twice a week)
Long and less frequent (twice month)

Link to pages from within existing content

Structuring content

Sub titles are VERY important
The first few (two to three) need to include your keyword
Include keywords in links

Key tools for monitoring

Connect With Stephanie:

Website: stephaniefiteni.com

Facebook: facebook.com/stephanie.fiteni

Twitter: @StephanieFiteni

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stephaniefiteni

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP039 – Mixing Business and Pleasure

Pete Everitt — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 10:05:52 +0000

Jeanet is a serial entrepreneur from the Netherlands. She has written numerous books and worked on numerous business projects over the years.

Her latest project mixes two of the things she loves the most – business and cruises!

In this episode, Jeanet unpacks some of her story and how she's gone about setting up this lifestyle business that allows her to enjoy the finer things in life.

Connect With Jeanet:

Website: freedomentrepreneurcruise.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jeanetbathoorn/

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP038 – Introducing Outsource Services – Chris Castillo

Pete Everitt — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 00:00:57 +0000

Chris is a digital marketer that owns a small agency by the name of Propel Digital Media Solutions. He recently turned his side hustle into a full-time affair and actively try to help others do the same.

Main talking points include:

Growing a Facebook audience:

“Facebook SEO”

Starting a business:

Started as a side hustle
80 hours a week for 2 years
Finding a structure
Implementing sales systems

Running a business is just as much about the journey as it is about the end goal – Gary Vee

Launching a side hustle… Outsource Services

Addressing a need from within the facebook group
The plan was to do something accessible only though Facebook
Platform for the entire creative industry to collaborate and find the services they need to grow their business
Performance metrics:
Quality of work
Value
Turnaround
Responsiveness

Determining your target market:

Solving the problems of your customers is easier if you have experienced their problems first hand

Connect With Chris:

Website: https://outsource.services/

Agency: https://www.pdms.ca/ – Propel Digital Media Solutions

FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/superchargewebagency/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/propeldms/

Shout Outs:

The Admin Bar

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP037 – How Entrepreneurs 'Do' Marketing

Pete Everitt — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 00:00:38 +0000

Nicole is an award-winning Travel & Sales Consultant and Travel Business Development Coach with over 15 years of travel marketing and sales experience. Her expertise has taken her all over the world and her newest venture sees her helping solo entrepreneurs compete with the big hitters in the travel marketing space.

In this episode, Nicole and I unpack the truths behind how entrepreneurs market themselves and how an objective view of the target market can help solo entrepreneurs and small businesses compete well above their weight.

Main talking points include:

Why and how entrepreneurs should market themselves
Becoming fearless in your marketing space
That done is better than perfect
Some of the lengths entrepreneurs go to market themselves
Marketing yourself doesn't need to be expensive or complicated

Connect With Nicole:

Website: espyglobal.com / nicolesbarrett.com

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP036 – Creating Online Courses

Pete Everitt — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 16:52:20 +0000

Louise Brogan is an Irish Entrepreneur who works with business owners to establish their businesses online. As part of her repertoire, Louise has released multiple online courses and grown a significant audience and email list. In this episode, we unpack what that means and how she has gone about establishing herself in this area.

Main talking points include:

Online summit – coming up in 2019… https://socialbeeni.com/raising-your-visibility-online-summit/

Social Bee Hive – Free Facebook Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialbeeni/

Growing an email list:

Webinars
30 day challenge
If you are going to run a course, run a webinar based on a related topic FIRST to test the idea

Lousie is running a course on how to develop an online course…

Test videos – https://socialbee.teachable.com/

A beta course….

You seek it BEFORE you create it… Once you sell it you create the course as you go…

Connect With Louise:

Website: socialbeeni.com

Facebook: Social Bee NI

LinkedIn: Louise Brogan

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP035 – Positioning yourself in your niche

Pete Everitt — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 09:14:51 +0000

Mel is a fitness trainer and business coach with one hell of a story! Having recently gone through some major changes in the focus of her business and her business strategies, Mel and I discuss the reasons for determining and defining your niche and how to position yourself into it.

Main talking points include:

Gathering good people around you
Not being afraid of change
The security of multiple streams of income
Thinking laterally as well as deeply

Connect With Adam:

Facebook: The Mummy Trainer FB Group

Instagram: @TheMummyTrainerUK

Website: themummytrainer.co.uk

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP034 – Introducing SplitHero - Adam Lacey

Pete Everitt — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 09:34:01 +0000

Agency owner and digital entrepreneur, Adam Lacey, is on the brink of launching a new SAAS product designed to make split testing (or A/B Testing) an easy and effective process for agencies, freelancers and even businesses themselves.

In this episode, Adam discusses the launch of SplitHero and their founding member offer that he is releasing, along with part of his journey and also the importance of split testing within the marketing process.

Main talking points include:

Why launch a SAAS product
The importance of A/B / Split Testing
What SplitHero does and why it is so easy
How split testing helps marketers demonstrate value
Who SplitHero is for and how it can benefit them
Founding member pricing and offer

Connect With Adam:

Social: @SplitHero

Website: splithero.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP033 – How and Why Logos Work – Ian Paget

Pete Everitt — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:01:51 +0000

We see them every day, they influence us, change us, evoke emotions and say something about us. They help us build businesses, and give us a flagship to be proud of. They unite and divide. But why and how exactly do logos work?

To dive into this topic, I spoke to the Logo Gook himself, Ian Paget.

Main talking points include:

Goals for a logo:

It needs to accurately represent who you are (the aesthetic)
It needs to differentiate against the competition
It needs to resonate with the target audience

The logo design process:

Creative of Goals
Research and Discovery
Idea generation and Design
Presentation of Design
Creation of Logo files

Other talking points;

What a logo needs to reflect
How to critique a logo

Connect With Ian:

Social: @Logo_Geek

Website: logogeek.uk

Podcast: The Logo Geek Podcast

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP032 – Planning Engaging Content

Pete Everitt — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00:31 +0000

Generating content can seem like another hamster wheel that business owners (and marketers) can understandably be wary of. Author, journalist, marketer and podcaster, Janet Murray, is on a mission to make this process easier while making content more engaging at the same time!

Main talking points include:

4 things to promote your business everyday:

Content
Email
Social
PR

Journalists will now find you if YOU are generating the best content you can!

Twitter – #journorequest for exposure…

Content planning – 4 step process

Create an annual plan into quarters
What's happening with your client in each quarter? (3 or 4 key things)
Pick out relevant key dates or awareness days
Should take 5-7 mins
Flesh out the quarterly plan
What are the key questions?
Generic questions
Specific questions
Can you tie any content to your business objectives
Weekly content plan
Daily plan

Dan Knowlton:

General awareness content
Consideration content
Purchase content

Making engaging content:

"I need to know this" content
Practical / actionable advice
Ask a question / controversial statement with a poll?
Instagram stories
“I know about that” content
Janet’s dress poll for Youpreneur
“What do you think” content
Controversial / strong views
“I know how that feels"
Personal stories

"How can I make this content about my audience?”

Abr “How can I make it about them?"

Connect With Janet:

Social: Linkedin | Instagram

Website / Membership: www.janetmurray.co.uk

Podcast: The Janet Murray Show

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP031 – Generating Authentic Leads

Pete Everitt — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 00:00:53 +0000

Every business needs leads – people who need what you have to sell. Alex Curtis – founder of The Lead Engine Marketing Agency – has made it his mission to deliver authentic leads into a specific niche. In this episode we unpack some of the process from consideration to delivery in terms of gathering leads for your own business, or the businesses of your clients.

Main talking points include:

Figure out the basics yourself BEFORE getting an agency involved
Selling yourself
Communicating with clients
Weekly communication
Phone call
Reports
Important stuff
Number of leads
Good leads
Bad leads
etc...
Target is CPA

iubenda – cookie policy generator

Connect With Alex:

Social: Linkedin | Instagram

YouTube: Talking Ads

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MDP030 - Setting Goals (and Happy New Year)

Pete Everitt — Mon, 24 Dec 2018 00:01:39 +0000

In this episode, I share how I personally go about setting and mapping my goals for the next year. Some of these are for business, others are personal.

Christmas is such a good time to unwind, but it's also a great time to plan. I share the process I use to set my goals that doesn't make it too onerous or 'heavy", and then how I filter these into quarterly, weekly and ultimately daily targets.

Oh, and this is released on Christmas Eve – so I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and New Year.

Connect With Pete:

Twitter: @petejeveritt

Facebook: Pete Everitt / Marketing Development Podcast Group

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

029 – Bicycles and Business

Pete Everitt — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 21:45:20 +0000

Those of us who have taken the leap into self-employment, or even into careers in social media, content creation, digital advertising, etc, probably won't have had the helping hand of someone who has paved the way before us. There is a whole tranch of new (and some not-so-new) paths for careers that don't necessarily have an obvious path into them. Explaining this to a new generation of could-be entrepreneurs has become the mission of JP Quinn – content creator, entrepreneur and general nice guy

Main talking points include:

Our cycling exploits across Europe
The place of self employment – the pros and the cons
A new generation of entrepreneurs – empowering them into a new career path

Connect With JP:

Social: Linkedin | @jpquinn1989

Podcast: PinotPhiles

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#028 – Selling and delivering websites – Justin Meadows

Pete Everitt — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 09:22:52 +0000

In this episode, we meet Justin Meadows – founder of TunedWP. We discuss the process and methodology Justin uses to sell and deliver successful websites through his agency.

Main talking points include:

6 factors to successful websites:

Conversions

Design
Authority / Trust & Social Proof
People do business with who the know, like and trust
Strategy / Funnel

Speed

Is now a ranking factor

SEO

Structured correctly from the start

Security

Responsiveness

User experience across user devices

Control

The control you have over your website assets

Connect With Justin:

Website: tunedwp.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#027 – The Benefits of Repurposing Content – Amy Woods

Pete Everitt — Sat, 01 Dec 2018 09:25:19 +0000

In this episode, we meet Amy Woods – founder and mastermind behind Content10X.com and content repurposing service based here in the UK.

Main talking points include:

Where Content10X came from and Amy's previous background
The benefits of repurposing content for individuals and organisations
Different starting points for different types of initial content
Expanding your reach with different formats of content
The 90/10 rule – putting 90% of your effort into creating content that you and your audience love!

Connect With Amy:

Twitter: @content10x

Instagram: @content10x

Website:Content10X.com / Podcast

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

026 – Different Types of Website Traffic

Pete Everitt — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 13:40:56 +0000

This episode is the audio from an online workshop covering the different types of website traffic, and how to leverage them in your digital strategy.

Main talking points include:

The differences between owned, paid and earned traffic and how they can work together.
What are some key tips when it comes to structuring your website hierarchy.
Why a shallow website is more preferred over a deep website.
The pros and cons of Google Adwords, LinkedIn, Facebook Ads and retargeting.
The importance of why you shouldn’t share the same message twice and how to get your message out there.

Connect With Pete:

Twitter: @petejeveritt

Facebook: Pete Everitt / Marketing Development Podcast Group

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

025 – In-Person Networking

Pete Everitt — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 09:42:50 +0000

In this episode, we meet agency owner and all-round nice guy, Kyle Van Deusen of OGAL Web Design.

Kyle and I discuss the benefits of networking in person and talk about some of the tips, practical advice and headaches that we wish we'd been told before we went to our first meeting.

Main talking points include:

The goal of going to a networking meeting isn't to win business.
The goal of networking in person is to get people to:
Know you
Like you
Trust you
The power of networking for your business is in referrals. And you may need to make referrals FIRST before others refer to you.
Different structures of networking meetings
BNI
Private Groups
Chambers of Commerce
Free vs Paid
Breakfast :)
Identifying others who may be new – start with them!

Connect with Kyle:

Websites: ogalweb.com / theadminbar.com

Facebook: The Admin Bar

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

024 – Reflections on the Youpreneur Summit 2018

Pete Everitt — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 15:59:09 +0000

Following attending the Youpreneur Summit 2018 I briefly consider how I'm feeling, the benefits of events such as this and how, as an entrepreneur and business owner you may process the information at a large scale conference and try to apply it to your own business.

FULL DISCLAIMER – this episode has more questions than answers!

Connect With Pete:

Twitter: @petejeveritt

Facebook: Pete Everitt / Marketing Development Podcast Group

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Proposals & Contracts – Pete Everitt

Pete Everitt — Mon, 29 Oct 2018 00:00:46 +0000

This episode addresses a burning question for some of our listeners – how do we create proposals and contracts for the work we carry out in our agency?

Main talking points include:

#1. The structure of our proposals

The Cover
The Covering Letter
The Snapshot
The Business Needs
The Solution
The Specification
The Process
The Pricing
The Additional Services
The Agreement
The Terms

#2 - The delivery of our proposals / contracts

In person vs PDF

Connect With Pete:

Twitter: @petejeveritt

Facebook: Pete Everitt / Marketing Development Podcast Group

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

022 - Launching and Marketing a Product

Pete Everitt — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 11:21:31 +0000

Main talking points include:

A damage assessment
The marketing doesn't fit the product
The process is broken
Bad copywriting / difficult conversion process
Follow a product launch process

Develop some high-level teaching content to generate trust with your list (the pre-pre-launch)
Different types of launches:
Email Launch
Webinar Launch
Video Launch

Roll out the product
People dream about what they don't have – you don't sell the product, you sell the benefit.
EMail is where it's at – because it converts 10x better than social media... Simple!

Although its harder to start a conversation this way, it's more profitable

When you announce your product you don't need to sell it straight away...

Connect with Tyler:

Website: tylerbream.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

021 - User Experience could be your biggest growth hack

Pete Everitt — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 09:29:55 +0000

In this episode, we meet Paul Lacey – founder and developer at The Dickiebirds Studio, user experience and WordPress Design and Development Agency in the UK. We talk about how prioritising user experience throughout a web project (or even retrofitting it to an existing website) can have a massive impact on your business.

Main talking points include:

Why user experience is so essential to business
How to integrate a process such as this into a new business / freelance venture
Stages of designing through User Experience:

#1 – Define the strategy and some deliverable goals
#2 – Research your audience – creating your personas and then good and bad scenarios for the personas to create user flows
#3 – Gather the personas as an audience (or audience segments) and put a digital marketing strategy together to reach the audience(s)
#4 – Design and build the project based on your research to date
#5 – "traditional" growth hacking (split testing)

Connect with Paul:

Twitter: @wp_paullacey

Website: The Dickiebirds Studio

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What I've Learnt from 20 Episodes of Podcasting

Pete Everitt — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 12:03:51 +0000

We're at episode 20 – it's here!

In this episode I look at the lessons I've learnt from podcasting regularly over the past 6 months, and the effect the podcast has had upon my business.

Main talking points include:

Why I started - creating content regularly - and blogging didn't work
Podcasting is FUN!
Consistency is HARD
I meet great people - guests and listeners
I learn LOADS from experts in their industries
It helps my business - and it changed my business
Starting a podcast is hard - it feels really weird and vulnerable
Starting a podcast is easy - from a technical point of view anyway
Watching the stats is futile
The FB group brings the podcast alive
It's here to stay...

Connect With Pete:

Twitter: @petejeveritt

Facebook: Pete Everitt / Marketing Development Podcast Group

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

019 - Helping People Solve Problems

Pete Everitt — Sun, 30 Sep 2018 23:00:30 +0000

This episode features serial entrepreneur, author, podcaster and general "good gal" Alexia Leachman.

Alexia and I go on a journey through Alexia's own career, and then end up in a personal branding / business masterclass.

As an experienced marketeer, Alexia got to the point like a lot of us that she just wanted to do something for herself – she talks about how she initially became a branding consultant, and then a personal branding consultant, and then through a series of events in her life, became an author, podcaster and community owner.

We then go on to discuss how any entrepreneurial journey starts by identifying your skills, passions and beliefs, and then finding a group of people who you can help – and this could be from anywhere!

Talking Points:

Introduction of Alexia and her background
Her current business, upcoming book, her community and her consulting
The process of setting up a personal brand and what that brand might "do"

Connect With Alixia

Website: alexialeachman.com / headtrash.co.uk

Twitter: @AlexiaL

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

018 – The Importance of Wordpress Maintenance and Project Management

Pete Everitt — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 23:00:11 +0000

This episode features agency and SAAS owner Jeffery Patch from MaintainPress.

Jeffery and I talk about the importance of Wordpress maintenance and the benefits of Wordpress maintenance plans, and then we deep dive into the project management workflow that Jeffery uses across both of his businesses.

We also heavily discuss the use of the project management tool ClickUp as we both use it in our agencies.

Talking Points:

Introduction of Jefferyand MaintainPress
The reasons why Wordpress websites need maintenance plans
Multi-project management using online tools – especially ClickUp
Using Slack as a means of integrated communication for remote teams – and automating it into ClickUp

Connect With Jeffery

Website: maintain.press

Twitter: @jeffdoozy

Facebook Group: Digital Agency Profits

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

017 - Content and Business are an Evolution - Todd E Jones

Pete Everitt — Sun, 16 Sep 2018 23:00:02 +0000

This week's podcast features copywriter, entrepreneur and all round nice guy - Todd E Jones.

Todd run's copywriting agency Copyflight and the Uncommoners Facebook Group. He is also an author at MainWP and ConwayScene – a local project he's working on in his home town.

Todd and I discuss his current business and the means to which he arrived at this point in his career. We talk about the process of niching down and the fact the the entrepreneurial journey is an evolution.

Talking Points:

Introduction of Todd, Copyflight and his own journey
The purpose of copy within a website
The evolution of copywriting inline with new marketing methods and the importance of storytelling as content
How the purpose of copy within organic SEO has changed from pure search engine rankings to a long term play

Connect With Todd

Website: copyflight.com

Twitter: @tejones

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

016 – Why headshots are good for business – Laura Pearman

Pete Everitt — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 23:01:17 +0000

"A picture tells a thousand words... so why not choose what those words are?" – Laura Pearman, a UK based headshot photographer, discusses the importance of headshots to business – especially in the life of the solopreneur.

We discuss how business revolves around trust and the potential headshots have to build that trust from the outset.

Laura also discusses her own journey into headshot photography and leaving the "hard sell" world of portrait photography for a more easy going (and profitable) business in headshots.

Connect With Laura

Website: laurapearman.com

Twitter: @lpearmanphotos

Instagram: instagram.com/lpearmanphotos

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

015 - Choosing an Agency - Rob White

Pete Everitt — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 17:52:37 +0000

Following on from last week's episode considering working with an agency, this time I spoke to Rob White – group marketing manager of Superior Spas – abut why he chose our agency to be his agency of choice.

Rob covers his process and the things he considered from an outsider's perspective both for and against a group of agencies to settle on working with us.

Connect With Rob

Websites: tridentspas.co.uk / superiorspas.co.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marketing-consultant-derby/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

014 - Working with an Agency

Pete Everitt — Sun, 08 Jul 2018 23:01:11 +0000

Working with an agency can be expensive, right? So if you’re going to do it, what’s the best way to get the most out of the process for the benefit of everyone?

Following on from a discussion I was having with a client, we spoke about the different scenarios businesses / marketers find themselves in, and the key four principles for working with an agency that help both sides develop a lasting relationship, rather than a simple client / supplier contract.

Connect With Pete:

Twitter: @petejeveritt

Facebook: Pete Everitt / Marketing Development Podcast Group

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

013 - How we do Keyword Research and Keyword Mapping for our Clients

Pete Everitt — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 08:40:41 +0000

One of the most common queries I’m asked when working with clients is “How do you know which search terms to rank for?”

Following on from episode 005, today I look at the process we use in our agency to undertake keyword research for our clients. From the initial discussions to delivering the keyword research and keyword map, this episode covers our process that we use time and time again to help our clients rank for the keywords they NEED to (which are more often than not different from the ones they WANT to rank for).

Mentions:

SEMRush

Google Keyword Planner

Keyword Mapping Template

Connect With Pete:

Twitter: @petejeveritt

Facebook: Pete Everitt / Marketing Development Podcast Group

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

012 - Where to start with Marketing Automation

Pete Everitt — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 23:01:26 +0000

Nathalie Dorémieux is co-founder of New Software Marketing with her husband Olivier. Together they specialise in marketing automation and the build of membership websites.

In this episode Nathalie and I discuss the process of marketing automation, how it can be used not only to build a list, but also to monetise your brand, and engage customers throughout the entire sales funnel. We also speak of membership websites and the importance of multiple streams of income for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Mentions:

Connect With Nathalie:

Website: newsoftwaremarketing.com

Facebook: newsoftwaremarketing.com/live

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

011 - Understanding Your Purpose - Kelly Baader

Pete Everitt — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 15:46:22 +0000

Kelly Baader is an international entrepreneur, business coach and fellow Youpreneur…

In this episode Kelly and I talk about understanding your purpose and the freedoms and challenges to setting up your own business. Kelly has an incredible story coming from the far east under difficult circumstances to becoming senior player in fortune 500 companies in the USA before venturing on her own.

Mentions:

Simon Sinek – How Great Leaders Inspire Action (TED Talk)

Chris Ducker

Youpreneur Community / Youpreneur Summit

Connect With Kelly:

Website: https://kellybaader.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KellyBaaderPage

Twitter: @KellyBaader

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

010 - Using Facebook to plant 1Million Trees

Pete Everitt — Mon, 14 May 2018 08:17:48 +0000

Sophie Jane Mortimer is a marketing consultant and facebook trainer based in the UK. She talks of her experiences with Treesisters and her previous roles and how she has utilised this to start her own consultancy.

Sophie also discusses the process of her Facebook training and the principles to building an organic Facebook audience.

Mentions:

Brené Brown – Ted Talk

Connect With Sophie:

Facebook: Sophie Jane Mortimer

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

009 - Dare to Dream Bigger - Clare Josa

Pete Everitt — Sun, 06 May 2018 23:01:27 +0000

In this episode we speak to Clare Josa - Author, Speaker and Mentor - regarding the challenges entrepreneurs and professionals face when they consider going it alone.

Clare offers her insight and practical advice on how to deal with imposter syndrome and other thought processes that that can limit your success.

Clare has prepared a set of resources that accompany this episode - they can be found here: http://www.clarejosa.com/mdp/

Mentions

Clare's Book – Dare to Dream Bigger

Connect with Clare

Website - clarejosa.com

Twitter - @clare_josa

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

008 - GDPR for Marketing

Pete Everitt — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 23:00:00 +0000

In this episode we consider the roll out of GDPR to your marketing process, including an overview of GDPR, a look at what it means for marketers and a checklist for marketing professionals to keep themselves on the right side of GDPR legislation.

Mentions:

Lee Jackson – GDPR for Websites

ICO - Guide to the General Data Protection Regulation

Connect With Pete:

Twitter: @petejeveritt

Facebook: Pete Everitt / Marketing Development Podcast Group

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

007 – Taking The Leap & Social PPC

Pete Everitt — Sun, 22 Apr 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Social PPC expert, Robbie Handley, reflects on his first year in business and how his network has enabled him to build a lasting business to support him and his family.

Robbie also unpacks some of what it takes to run a social PPC campaign and offers some great advice on how to cope with recent changes in social paid advertising.

Connect With Robbie:

LinkedIn: Robbie Handley

Website: RJH Digital

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

006 - The only differentiating factor is YOU

Pete Everitt — Sun, 15 Apr 2018 23:00:00 +0000

The (former) WordPress Chick, Kim Doyal, talks through her life in content. From consultancy, to Facebook groups, to courses, and now to a SAAS product, Kim encourages entrepreneurs and business to create content as a means of positioning themselves as an authority.

This episode moves to consider the place of the personal brand, and the fact that “the only differentiating factor is YOU!”

Mentions:

leadsurveys.io

Content Creators Summit

Everything is Content

Connect With Kim:

Twitter: @kimdoyal

Facebook: Content Creators Facebook Group

Website: TheWPChick

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

005 – How to optimise a web page for SEO

Pete Everitt — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 23:00:00 +0000

Taking on my first solo episode, I take a look at one of the questions I’m most frequently asked by the Marketing Professionals and Marketing Consultants that I work with – namely, “how do you optimise a web page for SEO?”

In this podcast I outline the factors we look at in our process, including the basis for our process from Brian Dean’s Anatomy of a perfectly optimised page

Mentions:

Google PageSpeed Insights

Connect With Pete:

Twitter: @petejeveritt

Facebook: Pete Everitt / Marketing Development Podcast Group

Join our Facebook Group!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

004 – Speaking Publicly – Piers Lane

Pete Everitt — Sun, 01 Apr 2018 23:01:00 +0000

Entrepreneur and English Celebrant (in France), Piers Lane, gives an insight into the training he offers to help people speak publicly, be it for presentations or speeches, or even just in meetings. Piers offers some excellent valuable advice that we can all take actions from.

Connect With Piers

Twitter: @pierslane

Email: pierslane@gmail.com

Facebook: Real Men: The Flawed & The Fallen

Websites: https://pierslane.wordpress.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

003 – How mentoring has changed my business – Lee Jackson

Pete Everitt — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode Lee Jackson gives some of his backstory and the means by which he started is digital agency. He then discusses his most recent venture, the Agency Trailblazer Community, and the importance mentoring has had on his latest pivot, and how it has changed his perspective on life and business.

Connect With Lee

Podcast: Agency Trailblazer Podcast

Twitter: @wpinnovator

Facebook: Lee Jackson

Websites: https://www.angledcrown.com / https://www.agencytrailblazer.com

YouTube: Agency Trailblazer

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

002 - Working with different size companies - Rob Watson

Pete Everitt — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 11:30:00 +0000

Rob now works as a Digital Marketing Freelancer in West Yorkshire, UK – but this hasn’t always been the case! Starting his career with some of the world’s biggest brands, Rob talks us through the differences of working in huge organisations, and working in smaller ones, both in terms of marketing provision and career development.

Connect with Rob:

Digital All Rounder https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/digitalallrounders-podcast/id1350270713?mt=2

Twitter: @clicktosale

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/digitalmarketingleeds/

Website: https://www.clicktosale.co.uk/

Mentions:

‘Made to stick’ – Chip & Dan Heath - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Made-Stick-ideas-others-unstuck/dp/009950569X

Commander’s Intent - https://hbr.org/2010/11/dont-play-golf-in-a-football-g

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

001 - Building your marketing career

Pete Everitt — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 23:44:16 +0000

Many marketing professionals feel that they have side-lined themselves by working in a single niche for a period of time. Rob talks about how he has moved niches but carried his experience of marketing with him, and speaks of the strengths of working together whether that’s with an agency, freelancer or other marketers. Collaboration however, especially with an agency, needs to be a managed process and Rob offers his experience from both sides of the argument.

Connect With Rob

Websites: tridentspas.co.uk / superiorspas.co.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marketing-consultant-derby/

Mentions

Simon Sinek – How Great Leaders Inspire Action

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

000 - Intro

Pete Everitt — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 23:44:00 +0000

Welcome to the Marketing Development Podcast – meet me and find out a little about our upcoming plans for the podcast!

Join our Facebook Group

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.