In episode five, we tackle the challenge of how to stand out in a saturated market.  The issue begins to arise when we spend too much time paying attention to what our competition is doing and not enough time focusing on ourselves and our unique differentiators.  Although you may offer the same products or services as other businesses, you can stand apart based on your own unique qualities, experiences, and expertise. As you’ll hear in this episode, Dawn is an experienced Realtor who is looking to provide value to people who are just beginning their house buying journey so that she can cement herself as the local trusted expert who is dedicated to providing a top-quality service.

Guest Bio – [From her website] “I have had the privilege of assisting people in buying and selling homes for over 14 years. As a dedicated mother, wife, daughter, and friend, I have learned that multitasking, balance, and negotiation keep me at the top of my game in all aspects of my life. I have built my business on trust, integrity, and always putting my clients’ interests first. From first time buyers to downsizing sellers, I am always working hard to make their dreams come true.”

Host Bio –  Rhi and Pete [Rhi-Pete – now you’ll remember] are a wife and husband team who have been in business together for over a decade.  They run a creative media agency [Do Something Different Media] that provides strategy and consulting, video production, website development, photography, graphic design, and content writing for small businesses.  

Episode 5 Summary

• Understanding triggers that will make you more memorable 
• Brainstorming your service differentiators
• Niching down your audience 
• Breaking down audience buying habits
• How to use your experience to your advantage
• How to use Facetime or video for client communication
• Brainstorming custom content
• Using Meet Up to create in-person groups
• Breaking down your ideal client experience
• Using stories and visual descriptions to make yourself more memorable
• Developing your brand voice and branding yourself 

The Challenge & The Next 3 Steps

Dawn does a great job providing top-notch service to her clients, but she’s looking for ways to connect to buyers earlier in the buying process so that she can provide education and insight to her clients earlier on to ensure a more successful process. 

1. Use video to send responses to digital messages from potential new clients so that you can stand out among all other agents.
2. Niche down your audience and outline where they spend time digitally and physically
   1. Be as precise and specific as possible
   2. Outline a few profiles so that your messaging can speak specifically to them
   3. What experiences have you had that make you unique and different and how can you use that to relate to a niche audience?
3. Create a content strategy to get people into your sales funnel much earlier
   1. Write out your content for the month at one time so you don’t get burnt out
   2. Use messaging and topics that your niche markets would be interested in

Recommended Resources 

Dawn at Coldwell Banker Classic Realty

Dawn on Zillow

Pat Flynn – Smart Passive Income

MeetUp.com

The post Episode 5 – How to Stand Out From Your Competition & Show Your Value appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

Let’s Define Social Media

By now most of us are accustomed to using social media (at least personally) and we know that it seems important to be on there in some capacity.  We see it everywhere, we hear about it, read about it, and we certainly know that it’s here to stay, but almost all of us have zero ideas on what to do or even where to start.  

These are all frequent questions that we are asked during consulting meetings:

• Should I get a Facebook Page? 
• What about Twitter? 
• How do I get immediate business from Instagram? 
• I set up some accounts but that’s basically it. Now what? 
• Should I have a Linkedin because it’s about business?

Before we get into any of this, I want you to understand a realistic perspective that you should have about social media and what it can do for you as a self-employed business owner. 

What Social Media is.

It’s a tool that is used to engage with people. 

That’s it. Think of this as a tool and only a tool. 

It creates top of mind awareness among your customer base.  

Word of mouth referrals happen because of top of mind awareness.  When the timing is right for someone to need your product or service, they will probably talk to someone about how they are looking for “X Product/Service.”  Your followers will be more likely to refer you and your business because they are seeing your regularly posted content, which allows them to recall who you are, what you offer, and why you’d be a good solution for their friend in need.  It’s all about “Top of Mind Awareness.” If you and your business are at the top of their mind, they are MUCH more likely to refer/hire you.

For Example – You own a chiropractic business.  Your patient Jody loves your service and follows you on your social accounts.  You post about your practice and general body health regularly. Jody has a friend Taryn who was mentioning over a luncheon that her sciatic nerve has been bothering her and she needs to find someone to do some bodywork on her.  Jody will most certainly recommend you and your services and she’ll remember to do so because you were at the top of her mind.

It is a resource of information for prospective customers. 

When people go to look up a company, brand, product or service they usually type it into google and look for RELEVANT and RECENT information.  This is incredibly important to understand. You’re creating your own database for your brand. You get the opportunity to educate your clients about who you are, why you do what you do, why they’d want to work with you, and what overall solutions you can provide them. People like to use social feeds to see how legitimate a brand seems before reaching out.

It creates a brand voice and a perceived brand value.

Your brand voice is what will turn casual followers into fans.  People want to be educated and entertained and you get to choose how you present yourself via your messaging.  Perceived brand value comes when people believe something is valuable based on the way that it’s presented and understood.  We all know that a pair of gas station sunglasses cost $5 and we’re totally okay with the fact that a pair of Rayban Sunglasses can cost upwards of $200.  That’s brand value and it begins when people assume value and are 100% excited to be a customer.

It helps create brand fans and convert them into customers.

This is your chance to build a relationship with your customers and fan base through conversations.  The more you engage with your audience, the more meaningful of a relationship you create with them. When your audience becomes champions for your brand, you’ll certainly begin to see a lot of word of mouth (WOM) referrals and repeat business.

What Social Media is not.

It is not a gauge of your success

Do not use followers or likes as a business thermometer. We’ve seen it hundreds of times where our clients will wonder what they’re doing wrong in their business because they’re not amassing followers like they thought they would.  The internet is a busy place and it takes a lot of time and money to grow a social account. On the plus side, there are a lot of people there too, so be sure to regularly post valuable content and you’ll start to see followers convert to customers over time.

It is not the be-all-end-all of your business

Do not put all of your stock into social platforms.  You do not own your accounts and you can’t control what happens to algorithm changes, ad revenues, etc. A lot of people think that likes, followers, fans, and re-tweets are a measure of success and that is simply not true.  So much of these “metrics” are meaningless and the statistics hold no weight for your business. It’s much better to have meaningful conversations with a smaller number of followers than to have an inflated following of random people with little to no engagement.

It is not an immediate ROI

It takes a lot, I mean A LOT, of time and energy to successfully build and run a social account.  It will be extremely beneficial and valuable to your business, but not immediately. Again, initially, we’re looking for the top of mind awareness among our followers and we’re posting as an informational resource for prospective followers to read up on you and your brand.

It’s not worth stressing or obsessing over

Just know that you should be posting regularly and don’t worry about likes, engagements, stats or metrics.  To be clear, we’re not looking to post our valued content into the void of the internet for no one to see it.  You should be posting once a day or once every other day in order to keep your brand current and relevant. Regardless, it’s important to not beat yourself up about a lack of engagement or viewership on what you post.  Just focus on the goals and keep sharing valuable content for those that do see it…it will all work itself out over time.

Mindset

We often lose sight of why we’re on these social platforms in the first place.  The endgame with social media is to create more customers. That’s it. 

The problem that arises is that our ego takes over and we begin to seek external validation.  While doing this we begin to compare ourselves to everyone else, and it’s really easy to fall into the trap of envy and comparison. Likes and follows are not a metric that should be driving your business strategy.  Genuine conversations in comments or groups, email subscribers, and direct messages are how you can get the most “ROI” from social platforms.  

Unless you are a 100% Social Media brand and putting in 100% effort daily, it’s not worth the constant let down, especially while you’re in grow-mode.

That said, it is extremely important to have a social media strategy.  If you do not plan your content, implement a content creation strategy and distribution workflow, you WILL get BURNT OUT VERY QUICKLY!  If you think that you just need to sit down each day and write a quick post, I’m here to tell you that it’s much harder and more time-consuming than that.  You should be able to write out a month’s worth of content in one writing session and then use a scheduler to ensure that you’re not chasing your tail each day trying to keep up with your daily posts.

Even if you don’t have many followers at the beginning, it’s easy to overlook the people who are constantly interacting with you.  Don’t write them off, they are actually the people that matter the most. Each person that is a fan of your business is connected to at least 200 people.  Just remember that there is value in each and every person who supports your business. Stop worrying about who isn’t there yet and nurture those who show support.

The moral of the story.

Understand that this is a long game of creating a brand voice, brand value, and loyal fans of your brand.  Having an active social media account does matter in today’s landscape, but it should supplement what you’re doing offline and you shouldn’t get caught up in chasing likes or getting let down when your accounts don’t grow as fast as you thought they would. Keep yourself focused on providing value and getting new customers, both online and offline, and you’ll begin to see your business grow to new heights.

The post As a Self-Employed Business Owner – What’s Your Social Media Mindset? appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

In episode four, we tackle the dreaded “elevator pitch”.  We’ve all been in a situation while networking when someone asks you what you do and you either spout off some generic answer or you’re just too long-winded for it to be effective.  We talk with Pam about how to overcome the hurdles of talking about her services, which deal with the taboo topic of money. Whether your service is hard to talk about with strangers, or you haven’t mastered your one minute pitch, this episode is a must-listen!  We touch upon many ways to connect with people, how to introduce topics, and why storytelling should always be your go-to move when getting your message out there.  

Guest Bio – [From her website] “With a background in social work, an MBA in Business Administration, a Master’s degree in Education, and training with Dave Ramsey, I’ve got the resources to prepare you to succeed financially while ensuring that you feel comfortable during this transitional process.

Host Bio –  Rhi and Pete [Rhi-Pete – now you’ll remember] are a wife and husband team who have been in business together for over a decade.  They run a creative media agency [Do Something Different Media] that provides strategy and consulting, video production, website development, photography, graphic design, and content writing for small businesses.

Episode 4 Summary

• Understanding triggers that will make you more memorable 
• Brainstorming your service differentiators
• Using terms, phrases, and examples that people will immediately understand 
• How to use testimony and transformations in networking
• Making people comfortable and confident in your service 
• Using forms to help do some self-research
• Using stories and visual descriptions to make yourself more memorable
• Developing your brand voice

The Challenge & The Next 3 Steps

Pam does a great job providing top-notch service to her clients, but she’s noticed that she has trouble describing her services in live networking situations in an effective way. 

1. Make a Typeform questionnaire to get your audience warmed up to you and your services.
   1. Get people to think about the questions that you’d ask to get to others to understand what you do. 
2. Reach out to all-star clients and ask them how they would describe you.
   1. Reach out to 5 clients and pay attention to the language that they use to describe you in their responses.
   2. Ask them things like: What is the #1 service I provided you? What was your biggest challenge and how did I help you?  What was your ah-ha moment? What prompted you to reach out and work with me?
   3. What 3 words would you use to describe me and my service?
3. Create a document with these words, phrases, and language.
   1. Use this document to create your brand voice in-person and digitally.
4. BONUS STEP! Test your new phrasing and descriptions at networking events! 

Recommended Resources 

Money Mastery With Pam

Typeform – for forms and questionnaires

The post Episode 4 – How to Effectively Pitch Your Biz When Networking appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

1. Understand that tasks take time

We’ve all made the mistake of saying “give me 10 minutes,” only to realize an hour later that you totally lost track of time.  When we used to photograph weddings, we’d have brides tell us that the church was “5 minutes away,” and on the day of the wedding, we’d be scrambling into the ceremony with seconds to spare because NOTHING takes 5 minutes. Remember that things DO take time and even writing a short email takes longer than 2 minutes, so be sure to schedule your time accordingly ; )

If you have a To-Do list sitting on your desk, do yourself a favor and write a number next to each task so you can be realistic about your day.  Resist the urge to underestimate the length of time you need. In fact, OVERestimate. No one has ever been upset that they completed something earlier than they anticipated and I assume you aren’t the first one out there who would be.

2. Be reasonable about your To-Do lists

It’s also important to break down your tasks into “accomplishable” chunks.  For example, rather than putting a giant task on our list like “edit John Smith’s video,” which could take days of work, we learned to break things down into manageable tasks that take less than 2 hours. For example, instead of:

• Edit Video A 

We’d break that major task down to:

• Load Footage (30 min)
• Organize Footage into folders (20 min)
• Make a Project file and sync footage (20 min)
• Create Markers and label favorite takes (1 hr)
• Cut the video (2 hrs)
• Edit the Audio (1 hr)
• Color the footage (2 hrs)
• Add Graphics and Text (1 hr)
• Export Draft for Review (20 min)

Not only will you be more organized about where you are in the project, you’ve now created clear start and stop points that will allow you to come back to your project, which helps you schedule realistic timeframes to get things done. 

You’ll find that once you start checking tasks off your list, you’ll be more motivated to keep going, rather than staring at the same task on your list for 3 days while you’ve been continuously working on it.  Break your TO DO list down into tasks that take 20 minutes to an hour (2 hours max) and you’ll find yourself becoming more productive and more aware of what you can handle on a normal workday, rather than totally overcommitting and coming up short and stressing out. 

Bonus Tip: Make sure to [especially if you work at a desk or workstation] get up between tasks, have a stretch, drink some water, have a snack and give yourself some credit for what you’ve just accomplished.  It’ll help keep the positive energy flowing right into your next task.

3. Control your own schedule

We used to think that we had to work around our clients’ schedules in order to be a quality and accommodating service provider.  In a lot of ways, this is true. If you are trying to win someone’s business, you want to be able to meet them where they are and work around their needs.  However, don’t let this hurt you and your business. Sometimes we feel like adjusting our schedules to help others is the only option, but the reality is, you can totally set reasonable boundaries that allow you to be more efficient without compromising your ability to accommodate the requests of your clients.

For your client, there is a very slight difference between you saying, “I’m going to be in your area on Tuesday and Friday this week, would there be a time those days that would work for you?” and saying “Whenever you are available this week, I’ll be there.”  On the flip side, there is a HUGE difference between those two scenarios for your schedule and sanity.

Do yourself a solid and resist the urge to make open-ended scheduling for your clients, partners, and colleagues.  When it’s time to schedule a meeting, always lead by providing a few options and asking if either of those options work for the person you’re meeting with.  Worst case scenario: they say those don’t work and give you some options or ask you for some more options. In both cases, YOU are in control of your schedule and still providing an awesome service.  

Bonus Tip:  We actually found that by giving the options it was actually easier to schedule with our customers and potential clients.  Giving them an open-ended option provided too many choices and proved overwhelming and easier to put off. Giving a few choices makes it an easier decision for them and a more efficient way for you to manage your days for productivity!  Win-Win!

4.  Start to automate or simplify repetitive tasks

Think about the things you do over and over again and find ways to automate them.  How could you use a software, template, process, or video to make your repetitive tasks take less time?

We work with an awesome graphic designer that sends us videos of her recorded screen while she explains her design work rather than scheduling a meeting with us to review over the phone or in-person.  This is such an efficient way to manage all of our time. We are able to move projects forward without meeting and getting distracted with side conversations, plus we can refer back to these videos at any point.

Another way we’ve improved our productivity is to create templates for emails we have to send regularly.  You may customize these messages each time depending on the details, but if there is a large chunk of what you say that is the same every time, create an email template that you can start from and save yourself a ton of time doing things over and over again.

Lastly, see what you can do to avoid wasting time on travel and unproductive meetings.  When we first started our business, we were more comfortable in person and every time we had to talk with a client or a subcontractor/team member, we’d schedule an in-person meeting.  This meant preparing for the meeting, packing up our stuff, driving to another location (dealing with traffic, etc), arriving early, conducting the meeting and then often letting things get off-topic or letting a meeting take a full hour or more even though we accomplished the goal in the first few minutes, etc.

Think about meetings you schedule that could be more productive through video, email, over the phone, or through Skype/video chat.  A meeting that could take up 2 hours of your day could be shortened to 1 hour or less if you don’t have to leave your office!

Now that we’ve shared a few ways to improve your productivity (and sanity) let’s put this stuff to good use.  Start to use these tactics in your business and let us know how they work for you! Or, if you have any other tips you’ve implemented that have worked well for you, we want to hear about them.  

Let’s get more done in less time!

The post 4 Simple Tips to Be More Productive! appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

In episode three, we talk about how to organize and strategize your service offering to enhance your client experience with Donna Briggs, the owner of Harmony Massage.  It happens all too often that we get our businesses up and running by taking the path of least resistance and that isn’t always in the best interest of your client experience.  In many industries, service providers tend to use a cookie-cutter approach to their content and marketing, and in almost every case, it isn’t what’s best for your particular business and customer experience.  In this episode, we tackle how to educate your clients so that they know what you offer, why they’d want to work with you, and what’s in it for them.

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Spotify

Guest Bio – [From her website] “Owner of Harmony Massage, Donna Briggs, is an NCBTMB Board Certified massage therapist, licensed in the state of New Hampshire. Donna graduated from the Northeast Institute of Whole Health in 2010 and has since acquired extensive experience in therapeutic massage, to include Lymphatic Drainage Massage, Sports Massage, and Cupping Therapy. Donna is also certified in Thai Bodywork and The Auth Method of Deep Tissue Massage. She is skilled at providing massage to enhance wellness, reduce stress, assist in rehabilitation efforts and deliver therapeutic touch; providing balance and harmony for each client.  In her time off, Donna enjoys kayaking, road cycling, and training in Muay Thai.”

Host Bio –  Rhi and Pete [Rhi-Pete – now you’ll remember] are a wife and husband team who have been in business together for over a decade.  They run a creative media agency [Do Something Different Media] that provides strategy and consulting, video production, website development, photography, graphic design, and content writing for small businesses.

Episode 3 Summary

• Write to your audience just as you’d talk to them 1 on 1
• Focusing on the value of the transformation/solution
• Create client confidence
• Saving time, stress and energy with forms
• Using email to create educated clients
• Blogging: Storytelling vs cookie-cutter explanations
• Share testimonials and client case studies that people can relate to
• Share tips with your digital audience – just like you would in person
• Give your audience a quick win
• Create fans of your brand
• Remember your brand voice needs to be genuinely you
• Set proper expectations with your marketing and brand

The Challenge & The Next 3 Steps

Donna does a great job providing top-notch service and being the trusted advisor for her clients, but she realizes that her current service offering is creating a roadblock that leads to client confusion — which then leads to Donna spending more time and energy explaining her different services.  In order to help her solve this roadblock, we created these next 3 steps to help her create a better client experience.

1. Audit your service descriptions and re-write them for your specific clients or customers.  Ask yourself questions like: 
   1. Who is the specific person that this service is for?
   2. What are they feeling physically and emotionally?
   3. What transformation will they go through or what solution with they find?
   4. Add photos or videos to help show what to expect.
2. Use forms and questionnaires to help save you time and energy.
3. Write blogs that describe your services 
   1. Use stories to engage the reader and speak to them like you would one on one.
   2. Make an ongoing list of topics and batch writing your blogs for each month so that you’re always playing from ahead.

Recommended Resources

Harmony Massage 

Typeform – for forms and questionnaires

The post Episode 3 – Organizing Your Services to Enhance Your Client Experience appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

Learning how to control your schedule is crucial to being in business for yourself.  Without setting proper processes, boundaries, and expectations, you’ll soon find yourself running in circles and spending most of your day in between productive activities, rather than getting things done and feeling accomplished. This is a lesson we learned (the hard way) when we were running our measuring business.

How We Learned This Lesson The Hard Way

As we described in Episode 0 – Who are Rhi & Pete and What’s this Podcast All About? we started a side business doing carpet estimates for multiple carpet installers who were contracted with a box home improvement store while we were in college.

Every week, we’d be sent the contact information for 20-40 people in the New Hampshire and Northern Massachusetts areas that we had to schedule appointments with for that week.  Our territory included 9 stores that spanned 86 miles at their furthest points. In order to effectively schedule ourselves, we had to account for: 

• The location of the home we were measuring
• Any traffic or construction we might encounter on the way
• What we had to measure and how long that might take 
• Hoping the people we were meeting weren’t running late or not showing up
• Using map books, printed directions and old school GPS devices without real-time traffic updates.  

Needless to say, scheduling all these appointments was quite the cumbersome task.

When we first started, we would simply call each person in our pile of paperwork and ask them when they were available, and put them in our calendar.  We’d write down the list of appointments we’d scheduled in order, print out directions from the internet, hop in the car and hope for the best.

Before long we realized there had to be a better way.  We’d run into traffic, no-shows, incorrect directions, and endless days full of stress, running late, and rescheduling.  Our days were long, stressful, and inefficient and we realized that it was costing us time and money. It was pretty agonizing at first…what had we gotten ourselves into?!

So how did we attempt to fix this problem?  Well, we started by sitting down and outlining all the places where we were running into issues.

Once we outlined our major issues, we decided that if we could improve our ability to estimate how long tasks actually took and improve our customer process, we could get more estimates done in less time, and create days with less stress and more productivity. 

Sound like a dream come true?  Well, it certainly was for us! We went from barely getting 25 estimates done in a week to easily scheduling 50 estimates and working fewer hours…this was like doubling our income without increasing the number of hours we were working!!  It was all about efficiency.

So, let’s take a look at how this could be applied to your business to save you time, decrease your stress, and increase your productivity (and hopefully increase the amount of money you’re making)!

How We Solved This Problem

1. The first thing you need to do [and as we did in our situation] is to define the problematic areas of your scheduling process.

Take a hard look at what processes or routines (if any) you use to schedule yourself.  

• Is it first come first serve for your time slots?  
• Do have dedicated days for certain clients, geographic areas, meetings, or work? 
• How do your personal obligations fit into this schedule? 
• Are there certain tasks or obligations that keep being bumped for “things that come up?”

Consider your answers to all of these questions and try to pinpoint the places that are creating the logjam and stress for you.

For our measuring business we uncovered that our biggest roadblocks were:

1. We were constantly underestimating the amount of time it took to complete a measurement, travel between point A and B, and stop for lunch/gas, etc.
2. We were assuming that every appointment we made was going to be kept by the customer without any sort of reminder process.
3. We were letting each customer set the day and time when we would come to them, rather than being more efficient and scheduling similar locations in the same time window (kind of like batching our stops together based on location).

2. Second, we brainstormed solutions for each of our roadblocks.  

Problem 1: We realized that it was extremely important for us to be realistic about estimating the amount of time we needed to do our jobs correctly.  In order to do this, we recorded the time each task took us for two weeks of measuring (because each job and destination was different every time) and we used the averages to help us schedule and plan.  This is what we came up with: 

Time spent measuring

• Single Room: 10 minutes
• ½ house: 25 minutes
• Whole House: 45 minutes

Driving Times

We used MapQuest at the time and just added a 15-minute buffer for each stop.  This gave us time to get gas, eat and helped with any traffic we encountered.

2 Hour Window

We gave our customers a 2-hour window on when to expect us.

Having these numbers allowed us to use a formula for scheduling. We’d just plug the numbers in and know exactly how much time we needed and it saved us from guessing or trying to figure it out every single time.

Problem 2: We encountered a lot of no-shows.  Most of the time people just forgot because they too, are bad at making or keeping a schedule.  So to fix this issue, we told each customer that we’d call when we were about 15 minutes away and we made sure to get the phone number of the person that we’d be meeting.  This is twofold — first, a lot of people were meeting us and this 15-minute heads up ensured that they’d have time to still get there if they forgot; second, we weren’t always meeting with the person who we originally scheduled the appointment with.

Problem 3: We’d just start calling the customers as the jobs came in and asked when they’d like us to come. This made for total chaos in our schedule and made for very long and stressful days.  To solve this issue, we batched together when we made our phone calls. We decided since the store’s policy is to call the customers within 48 hours of receiving their paperwork that we’d wait until multiple jobs came in so we could organize them by geographic location, map out our ideal itinerary and begin making calls.  

We also decided that we were going to give the customer two options for the appointment (ie. We’ll be in the area on Monday morning or Wednesday afternoon, do either of those times work for you?).  The majority of the time those time slots did work and that’s the moment when we started making our schedule on our own terms.

Realizing that our clients don’t know our schedule and don’t assume we are always available for them was a big lesson.  We always felt like we needed to accomodate them in order to provide an awesome service, but the truth is, the more efficient we are the better service we can provide.  It’s also so much easier for our clients to choose between two options than to review their entire schedule and toss out their own ideas. We assume that their suggestions are convenient for them, but sometimes they are just as random as you allow your schedule to be when you don’t control it.  Giving a few options shows that you are organized, efficient with your time, and accommodating because you are giving them options.

Improve your process to get more done

Lastly, think about ways in which you can improve your process to control your schedule more.  For us, it meant letting our customers know the window during which we would arrive, and telling them we would call them when we were on our way to their location with an exact time.  It didn’t really take extra time on our end because we were already in the car. What it did do though, is allow some flexibility for us if there was traffic or other unforeseen reasons why our day was running a bit off schedule.  It also meant that our customers knew exactly what to expect, knew that we valued their time, and made our “no show” ratio almost zero!  

Now, if you’re schedule meetings with your clients, no-shows may not be a big issue for you.  But I am sure we have all had meetings cancel last minute, or arrived at a location to find that our client was running behind or no longer had as much time to meet with us as we or they had planned.  This can really mess with your schedule and efficiency. Think about simple ways you can improve or add to your client process in order to improve your efficiency and I am sure you won’t regret it!

Let’s do this!

Now that we’ve outlined a few ways you can audit and improve your processes, habits, and management of your schedule, it’s time to put it into practice.  Take a few of these tips and start implementing them in your business and see how you can start to be more efficient, avoid unnecessary stress, and take control of your schedule!!  

Have you tried any of these methods before?  Have other ideas you want to share? We want to hear what works and doesn’t work for you!  Comment below to share the scheduling challenges or successes you’ve experienced.

The post How to Control your Schedule and Accomplish More Each Week appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

Why did we decide to write our first course on “How to Write, Shoot, Edit & Share Videos for your Marketing?”  

The answer is pretty simple.  Professional video is pretty expensive — however, extremely beneficial.  A lot of business owners see the price of video production and immediately dismiss it — completely ignoring how effective it can be for their business.

In addition, every single one of us has the means to create effective video content with the device that is in our pocket right now.  By now, we all know the statistics that video marketing far outweighs plain text and graphics — but still, tons of business owners drag their feet when it comes to creating video content for their marketing.

IN-HOUSE TRAINING

For over a decade now, we’ve been producing professional video content for small businesses.  During this time we’ve also been hired to train marketing teams and employees how to create effective videos.  Most of those companies had us come in and teach the basics of how to produce a video in a four-hour training session.  By the end of the session, our students were able to film and edit a quick video for social sharing on their own.  

Once we knew it would work, we decided that we’d not only teach people how to film a video, but we’d focus on how to write and plan a video.  You’ve never watched a video just for its quality, right? You usually watch it because of its content. So we took our 4-hour, in-person video training outline, and wrote an entire course on how to write, shoot, edit, and share videos for your marketing.

We want everyone to be able to use video to help their business grow.  Why? Because we know how valuable it will be for you. There are numerous applications [testimonials, sales, promotions, training, reviews, etc] for video, and most importantly, it allows you to engage with your audience in a way that other media can’t.

CASE STUDY 1

During our Beta-Test group for the course, we sent the course to a friend of ours who is the head of marketing at her company.  Since her company was trying to incorporate more video content into their marketing plans, she asked if she could share the course with her team members, to see if they could learn exactly what they needed in order to make quality video content for the company on their own.  

After taking the course this is what one of her team members had to say.

“This course covers most, if not all, of the information I spent weeks going over in college classes that were very expensive. Pair this material with some practice making your own videos and you will have a recipe for success. – Liam M.”

Just a week after finishing the course, her team member Liam was able to create and fully produce a Team Member Spotlight video with interviews, B-roll, and basic animation that they were able to share socially and on their website blog!

Now the team can produce their own in-house videos for their daily social sharing and they’re seeing their social post engagement grow.  In addition, their C-Suite is very excited to jump into regular video production both in-house and professionally produced. That’s a Win-Win.

CASE STUDY 2

Another member of our Beta-Test group is a self-employed business owner who provides IT consulting for local businesses.  He took the course thinking that he could use it to help train his internal team and save himself some time repeating certain processes over and over.  While taking the course, a client of his needed to know how to set something up on their computer for a new employee. Rather than packing up and heading to their office, he decided to give video content a try!  Using what he learned in this course, he recorded his screen and walked the client through each step of the process and sent it over via email. The client was instantly able to see how to do the process on their own and now will always have that video as a reference when this particular need arises again.  This saves the business owner time and it saves their client money. Another Win-Win!

WHO IS THIS FOR?

Whether you are a self-employed business owner, a small business owner, or you’re in charge of a marketing department — you will benefit from this course.

We’ve broken our entire creative process apart into bite-sized pieces so that you can learn how to come up with ideas and organize your script and plans, all the way to how to edit and upload your video to different sharing platforms.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How to come up with good ideas for video content
• How to write a script
• How to plan your shoot
• What gear you need to be successful
• How to get good shots
• How to load and organize your footage
• How to edit your story
• How to prep your video for sharing

WHAT ARE THE DETAILS?

This course is entirely self-paced, meaning you can go through it as quickly or slowly as you would like.  Once you purchase the course, you will always have access to it, so you are free to take your time with the material and come back to it for reference at any time.

This course is filled with video explanations, written lessons, PDF downloadable worksheets, helpful visuals, and sample videos that peel back the curtain on every step of the video-making process.  By the time you finish the course, you won’t only have learned how to make a video for your marketing, you will have already made your first video!  This is why throughout the course we created DO IT assignments that walk you through each step of the video-making process with examples, visuals, and hands-on worksheets.

HOW DO I GET STARTED?

Our course, “How to Write, Shoot, Edit, and Share Video Content for your Marketing” is available on our website at www.LearnIt-DoIt.com/courses for $499.  This price includes forever-access to the course, and a 20-minute, ideas consult call with us, where we can help you generate video content ideas for your specific business to help you get started on your video making journey!

The post Enhance Your Brand’s Visibility with Video appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

In our maiden voyage of the Learn It – Do It Podcast we introduce ourselves and give you a little insight on what this show will be about.  We’re a husband and wife team who’ve been in business for ourselves since the fall of 2008. We share our story of how we jumped feet first into being self-employed entrepreneurs and discuss how we navigated the challenging task of creating our own opportunities in business.  Over the last 10+ years, we’ve worked with hundreds of clients and we noticed that almost everyone struggles with similar challenges. We decided to focus this podcast on the topics of Content & Marketing, Business Strategy and Personal Development, because no matter what industry you are in or what your business is, these topics play a crucial role in running a successful business.

Episode 0 Summary

• We introduce ourselves as business owners and podcast hosts
• We talk about our qualifications and experience in this space
• We share why we wanted to start this podcast
• We tell you what this podcast will be about and talk about who it’s for
• We describe the show format and episode details

Recommended Resources 

Check out our creative media agency: 

Do Something Different Media – www.dosomethingdifferentmedia.com

If you want to apply to be a guest on the podcast head over to www.learnit-doit.com/podcast

The post Episode 0 – Who are Rhi & Pete and What’s this Podcast All About? appeared first on Learn It - Do It.

We are launching a podcast!  Our goal is to provide resources and education to the self-employed business owner who’s in the trenches day in and day out.  And to that end, we figured that in addition to the online course material, blogs, and free downloads, we’d create a bi-monthly podcast to provide you with more real-life, valuable information.

WHAT IS THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST ABOUT?

(the official Podcast Intro Description)

“Welcome to the Learn It – Do It Podcast. We focus on content & marketing, business strategy and personal development for self-employed entrepreneurs. Each episode will feature a live coaching call with a small business owner just like you – where we will tackle a specific challenge and develop a plan of action to overcome it.”

We want to unpack what it is like to run a business day-to-day. There’s so much involved with running a business that most of us are never taught, and being in business for yourself is challenging. Each week, we’ll roll up our sleeves and pull back the curtain into real small businesses so that we can help solve problems and develop solutions for growth.

No matter what industry, or whether you’re a product or service provider, we all face similar challenges each day — especially if you’re the one wearing all the hats.

WHAT IS THE FORMAT FOR THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST?

Each episode will be hyper-focused on a particular topic [or challenge] faced by our guest.  Rhi and I will introduce the concepts and premise of the topic and then we’ll share a live coaching call with a real business owner.

Our guest will introduce their business and describe the main challenge that they are currently struggling with.  We’ll have a conversation that dives deep into the specific topic and by the end of the episode, we’ll come up with the next three steps to solve it.  The whole point of this coaching call is for our guest to leave the call with an action plan that they can start implementing right away.

As a listener, you’ll be able to relate to similar challenges you face with content & marketing, business strategy, and personal development and you’ll immediately be able to utilize the next three steps for yourself in your own business.

WHEN WILL THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST BE AVAILABLE?

Twice a month we’ll be publishing new episodes of the Learn It – Do It Podcast.  Each episode will be 30-60 minutes in length [mainly because some topics are cumbersome and we want to make sure that our guests get a proper plan of action before the end of the episode].

HOW DO I GET ON THE LEARN IT – DO IT PODCAST?

In order to be a guest on the show, head over to the podcast page and fill out a brief digital interview.  If you have more than one challenge you’re interested in discussing, feel free to fill out more than one form.  While it is not guaranteed that every applicant gets a coaching call, we will be reading each submission and truly appreciate your interest in being a guest.  We rely on submissions from listeners just like you and will choose the topics that we know will best suit our listeners and help us cover a variety of challenges that are relatable.

WHERE CAN I LISTEN IN?

Our podcast will be launching in September and will be published on our website biweekly.  You can also subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.

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Why did we decide to read this book?  What prompted us to pick it up?

In February 2019, Rhi and I attended a conference called “Think Better, Live Better,” hosted by Marc and Angel Chernoff [of marcandangel.com].  One of the distinguished keynote speakers was Humble the Poet, who is an author, rapper and spoken word artist. Humble, or Mr. Poet (we’re basically besties by now), presented on how to overcome fear and adversity to stay creative.  Most notably, how to overcome failure, which is bound to happen at some point.

During his presentation, he discussed his upcoming book Unlearn and shared a few chapters with the audience and we knew immediately that this was definitely something we’d be interested in reading.

During the break after the afternoon speaking sessions were completed, we got to meet Humble and talk to him briefly about creativity and pushing forward even when you think you’ve hit a dead end.  He was extremely eloquent, helpful and insightful [and we thank him again for taking the time to meet with us!. 

We waited until the US release of his book and immediately snatched it up and read it in a day and a half.

Who would get a lot out of this book?

This book is a collection of his social media posts and they can be read as daily lessons.  I chose to read it cover to cover, but you can literally pick it up and open to a random page and get some great life knowledge. Humble The Poet doesn’t spout off puffy cliches, instead, he tells it straight and lets you know that you’re not alone in whatever pain or suffering that you endure.

I think that anyone in the trenches of a creative career will absolutely get a lot out of this book.  The author is extremely transparent about the battles that we face internally and externally as we continue our creative journey.  Through both the ups and downs, his lessons ring true and they serve as a great daily reminder to stay on the level and to remember what we’re actually doing here.

What are our takeaways and how will we apply them?

I’ve paraphrased my favorite takeaways, but really, each of the 101 lessons are true takeaways.

1. The only truth to life is death – everything else is what you decide to make of it. This message is incredibly helpful, especially when you find yourself in a distracting cloud of stress and fear.  It allows you to center yourself and remember the big picture.
2. Our minds are the cause of our unhappiness – not the actual world around us.  We can’t expect life to be the fairytale that our brain feeds us. We’ve got to cut the cord of the rom-com expectations that we’ve created for ourselves and actually take a good look at how fortunate we are in our own lives out here in reality.
3. We all experience pain – it’s how we grow, push our boundaries and do extraordinary things. If we spend our time building barriers of protection we are just setting ourselves up for catastrophic failure.  We only learn from stumbling and falling here and there. In addition, the happiness and sense of accomplishment that we’re all striving for only comes when we step out of our comfort zones, experience new things [good and bad], and notice that this journey is exactly what we’ve been looking for all along.
4. Don’t allow the opinions, expectations or narratives of others to affect you and your day to day life. You have to remember that each person lives their lives inside their own head and they’re only concerned about themselves.  When you view it from this perspective, the weight of opinions and expectations of others is lessened. It is up to you to live your own life and make it what you want.
5. You are the only thing or person that can make you happy.  This is a big one.  Our reaction is to look outward for happiness, but the truth is that it can only come from within.  So in order to get a head start on your own happiness, immediately stop looking to any person, product, or vacation to create happiness.

Uncover your favorite takeaways by visiting Humble’s website and/or ordering the book Unlearn here.

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