The Tech Of Business Podcast

I have to say I’m SO excited about today’s episode.  This podcast is a result of a lot of thinking that I have been doing.I have to say...I know there are so many things that might stand in your way of outsourcing your tech. You may some assumptions about what happens with you get out of the realm of DIY and into the realm of Done-For-You. BUT… are those assumptions true? Today we’re going to debunk the stigma of outsourcing your tech and other aspects of your business. Here’s the thing, all business to business service providers provide a service that could technically be done yourself. Whether it’s your copywriter, your graphic designer, your bookkeeper, your executive assistant or your ads manager. You could technically do these tasks on your own. These are all roles that we could technically do ourselves, BUT for the benefit of our clients, our sanity, and the health of our businesses we outsource them.  It’s even easy to justify outsourcing building your initial website or setting up your email marketing

Have you ever launched a product and said to yourself, “I really hope someone buys this.”?  I think we all have at some point in time. Wouldn’t it be great if you could understand the thought processes your customers have when they are deciding whether or not to buy your product or service?  I think we could all benefit from learning a little bit about mindset, your brain, and online sales tactics. I was so excited to have a conversation with Melina Palmer about these exact things!    Melina Palmer has a background in branding and marketing.  She worked in this for a decade. She decided to go back to school to get her Master’s Degree in Behavioral Economics.  You may be saying, “What is that?” Melina explains that behavior economics is the psychology of how people make buying decisions.  Melina specializes in how the brain works when making choices.     She then works with businesses to help them understand the way the brain actually works.  And the way it works typically isn’t the way YOU THINK it would or s

We’ve had a couple other episodes on Virtual Summits. So for today, I want to break down the tech you’ll want to get working together to have a fully functioning summit. **A quick clarification before we get into the tech. There are a few schools of thought on what makes a summit!.  So for the purposes of this conversation, we’re talking about pre-recorded interview or lecture style summits.  Those that are consumed on a website (rather than Facebook or YouTube).  And that are free to attend for a limited time. These summits also always offer an extended access to the summit content through an All-Access Pass or other aptly named purchasable digital entity. And communication with your summit attendees will be done through an EMS and a closed Facebook group. We’re going to start with the end in mind – all summits need to lead the attendees somewhere. It is vitally important to know the customer journey. Are you going to send your attendees to a course? A membership? A group program? A done-for-you service? The

Sure this is a podcast about the tech of business but so much of what we need to work through is the strategies in the business – the tech fulfills the strategy not the other way around. And that leads into my new offering and why it came to being in the way that it did. As of about 10 days ago as of the time of this release, I started selling website hosting. So, over on the resources page at https://techofbusiness.com/resources/ you’ll now see three options for hosting instead of just two. The two that were there before I started hosting were WP Engine and A2Hosting. They are both affiliate links and are great for those of you who want to keep things streamlined and not have any “middle men” or “middle women”. But what was lacking and the need I realized was that I was perfectly poised to fill for many of my clients was that of taking something else off their plates. I’ve spent a lot of time in different hosting platforms, both the two I mentioned above as well as SiteGround, Bluehost, Cloudways, GoDaddy a

This episode is covering an important topic: how to know when you’ve outgrown the way you’re currently using the technology in your business. What I mean is, when we start our online businesses, we made some technology decisions to get started. And as we ebb and flow and grow and change, those tools might no longer be a good fit – and this episode is going to help you figure out how you can look at your tech stack, or lets be honest, your tech pile, and figure out the golden gems and the deadweight. It’s not only important to know when the time is to look at your tech, but also what to do about it. This episode, as well as many other deep dive episodes that come out just after I’ve been on vacation, came from a trend that I notice on social media. I spend way,way more time scrolling social media when I’m sitting by the pool than I do when I’m working on client projects! And with that endless scroll, what I get to see is a lot of people asking questions about this tool or that tool. We covered that topic in Ep

Are you ready to take control over your sales process? Yes -- then today’s episode is going to give you a boost in that direction! Meet Nikki Rausch! And she is Your Sales Maven. She is a sales coach, an author, and a speaker. Entrepreneurs hire her to teach them how to sell their product in an authentic way so that they are able to build rapport and relationships with their leads and build their client roster. The sales process is a critical component of being an entrepreneur. Having an online presence is only good if you can get people to sign up and take action!. If customers only get to the point of being interested and never sign up and invest their time and money in your product then you aren’t doing everything you can to grow your business. Nikki believes, by having a sales coach and learning how to have sales conversations, it equips you to convert your prospects to customers. As a Sales Coach, Nikki has plenty of tools at her disposal to begin sales conversations. The one that I’m most interested in

Last week, we talked about 5 tools that create the foundation of any online service business. Today we’re talking about 5 more tools that many people use but that are absolutely not necessary to your success! This episode is going to be extremely valuable for you if you’re feeling FOMO as you get more integrated into the online service provider community. The first tool we’re discussing is landing page software. Landing page software gained huge traction when leadpages came on the map. These tools make it quite easy to build a freebie opt-in or webinar registration. There are decent templates available and they integrate with many of the email marketing providers. So, why don’t you need this tool? Well, quite simply it’s because website builders are way more robust than they used to be. And many of the email marketing platforms also have great forms for opting in for freebies and webinars. I would always recommend using WordPress + Beaver Builder or another page builder tool over a page builder tool. It’s als

Today’s episode is one of those foundational episodes. We’re discussing the 5 most important online tools you need in your business. These are tools that your business couldn’t run without. These are fundamentals… and they are where proficiency is required because they will be touched on a regular basis. The first of these tools is your online home – that is your website. This website must live on it’s own domain but can either be self-hosted WordPress or a hosted solution like Squarespace, Wix, Weebly or even a builder through your hosting platform. It doesn’t really matter how your website is constructed. What matters that you have a consistent and reliable home base which can be the central hub for all the other online spokes. Your website can do a lot for you, but regardless of where things are at with regards to SEO and content marketing, having a place to call home online is super important. If you’re not on a self-hosted WordPress website and want to delve into SEO and Content Marketing, make a plan to

Have you ever thought about creating and teaching an online course, but thought it was just too much to take on? Or that there would be so much involved that you just couldn’t do it? Today we are talking with Dr. Lindsay Padilla the mastermind behind the Build a Better Beta Program. Lindsay’s program is all about creating a simple Beta course with minimal tech. Let’s get into it! Rather than starting with something new, Lindsay built her business from the in person classroom as a sociology professor at a community college.She recognized that entrepreneurs weren’t sure how to teach, organize content, and what technology that they needed in order to be able to deliver content. This led her to create her signature “Build a Better Beta” program. It’s all about how to launch a course as quickly/easily as possible with as little tech as possible. She is excited to help people who have been sitting on courses too long because of all the things they thought they had to have ready in order to launch their program. You

So here you are… You have decided to bring on a new piece of tech or software tool. Naturally, the next step is getting it fully set up integrated. Are you going to DIY it? Or should you outsource the implementation of the new tool? For the sake of presenting a scenario, I’m going to use the tool ThriveCart throughout this episode. ThriveCart is a tool I use extensively with my clients. It is a stand alone shopping cart. And you have decided that you want to use ThriveCart to sell whatever it is that you offer to your customers. You have purchased ThriveCart and now it’s time to set it up. So, you log into your account and see all the tabs. Quickly, you realize it’s going to take lots of work to get it set up. Are you going to DIY it? Or are you going the DFY route? Essentially, it’s a decision on whether to spend time or money on implementing that new piece of software. Because I know that YOUR TIME is valuable I believe that DIYing the implementation of a new piece of technology is not the right course of a

Guess what? You’re like everyone else who is reading these shownotes and has listened to the podcast … you’ve bought into courses, masterminds, and programs that are delivered in an online capacity. There is a lot of overhead that goes into using those courses and full taking advantage of everything you want to learn when you are running a business. Let’s break it all down! "The world online with online business is really changing and people have so much information and it can become very overwhelming." - Jessica Wayman We start our conversation off with talking about online courses… There is just so much to consume and often we don’t get through everything that we purchase or want to spend our time on for one reason or another. Maybe we just want to learn all the things so we buy all the courses! Jessica is a professional student. She went through 50 online courses in a very short amount of time. And by doing so, she realized she had TOO MUCH information to consume. She now leads a mastermind for peo

Today, I’m talking with Sara Kappler of Sara Kappler Consulting. Sara is all about systems and tools to help your business with the back end -- KPI dashboards and CRMs. As a software consultant, she helps business select and implement technology to help them grow. Just as my business has evolved, so has Sara’s -- the pain point she saw over and over was keeping track of where her clients were with new leads and with clients. Sara found an opportunity to delve into CRM software -- CRM is the acronym for Customer Relationship Management -- at last count, Sara knows of over 600 different CRM options! Sara focuses on helping the business and team members have the tools they need to help them be productive and have metrics and insight into the business and sales processes. I brought Sara onto the podcast because my audience has been asking about CRMs and I needed to bring on an expert. According to Sara, any business that has more than 30 customers could benefit from a CRM. It’s businesses that are interacting wi

I met today’s guest, Kronda, online a couple of weeks ago. She had reached out to me because we use a lot of the same tools and philosophy and said “we just have to meet!” Almost immediately after we got on a zoom call, I knew I wanted to have her be a guest on the podcast. Kronda is a web developer turned marketer. She helps service based business owners learn to use content marketing to sell their services. Kronda and I share the same root in our business journey because we were both developers. I transitioned to integration and systems. Kronda shifted her focus to content. It’s so neat how we both started in the same place, but ended up in different places. Nobody’s business is a straight line from “I want to start a business” to “I’m doing what I love and providing my audience exactly what they need.” Kronda’s journey: Developing WordPress websites for clients. Maintenance of websites (to try to create recurring income.) Niche down to marketing focused websites (because there her clients would understa

This episode is the first of its kind on the podcast -- an ON AIR TECH TOOL AUDIT. I am SO excited to share with you this REAL tech audit that I did with Kickstart Accounting’s co-owner Danielle Hayden.  Danielle graciously accepted my invitation to expose the technology she’s using in her business so that we can find the hidden gems and where she can double down on her efforts.  This is so she can do that much more with the technology that she is already using OR how to switch things up so that she is using technology to support her business goals that much more. If you are interested in a Tech Audit for your business please visit https://techofbusiness.com/audit If you think a Tech Audit might be a great step for you -- or if you’re not entirely sure… download the freebie that will help you start putting the pieces in place and looking at your tech objectively.  You can get that by going to https://techofbusiness.com/impact This is going to be a bit of a peek behind the curtains of how I love to work with m

I am really excited to bring this content to the Tech of Business audience because I know that every single person listening or reading right now has created a piece of content at some point in time and it’s just sitting there not doing as much as it could. Today we are talking to Stephani Roberts. She is a Digital Content & Visibility Strategist and podcast host. So often, we create content and then we let it sit for whatever reason and then the content that we created has been sitting there not doing enough for you. I love the idea of having a strategy behind using that content. The best starting point… Look at your own tech and content that you have shared and dig for the gold. Look for the things that you shared that got the best reaction and use that again. You know that this type of content clicked with people. So, for instance, when you have a FB Live Video or a podcast, starting with a transcript is a really good thing to do. The reason for this is because a transcript can help you spin content ou

This is our sixth and final episode in the Email Marketing series on the Tech of Business podcast. I’m your host Jaime Slutzky and today it’s just me and the mic, wrapping up the conversation to make sure that you have all the tools in your arsenal to make the advice and conversations relevant and actionable. Let’s talk about tackling segmentation and tagging your subscribers so that you can increase the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. The very first and easiest group to segment and identify are the people who you’re currently doing one-on-one work with. They are your VIP clients. And right on the heels of that group are other clients or purchasers… these are your group participants, course or membership site purchasers or those who have bought a digital product from you and currently have access to the material they purchased. Start by looking at these people. How would you characterize them? What term do you use to talk about them with your mentor or coach? That’s the term that you’ll want to

Beyond the Broadcast- Doing More with Email Marketing Welcome the 5th episode of our 6 part series on Email Marketing. This is the final interview with an expert from one of the email marketing companies in this series. We are talking with Ramon Darling from Keap. In this conversation with Ramon we discuss things that help to bring forward the power of email marketing and using email throughout the customer journey. Specifically, we’re talking about after the purchase. Typically entrepreneurs don’t plan for after the purchase because once you take payment and somebody becomes a customer the customer experience often times will be less than perfect because you have exhausted all of your efforts just getting the customer. What happens once you take payment is the actual customer experience on their side. Everything up to that point was YOUR effort to make them a customer. "When you think about customer experience don’t think about it as a seller… think about it from the perspective of the buyer." -Ramo

Beyond The Broadcast- Doing more with email marketing Today we are tackling the 4th episode of our 6 part series. We are talking with Tyler Sutton with the email marketing company Emma. Emma creates beautiful emails. Emma registered on my radar about 10 years ago, which in internet years is a long time! There is so much that Emma is doing that is effective, compelling, and pushing the needle forward. The experience that Tyler brings with him to this conversation is all about what you can do with email marketing regardless of the platform. All About Emma Since about 2003, Emma has evolved with online marketing just as everything online evolves. The initiative behind the platform itself was to create a really user friendly tool to conduct email marketing to help you reach your audience. One thing stressed from the beginning was the user friendliness of it. They wanted to make it easy to get your content into email. They created emails that are appealing and professional which makes them feel like they come with

Beyond The Broadcast - The Email Marketing Series This is the third episode of our 6 part series on Email Marketing.  Chris Vasquez from AWeber and I had a great conversation and I’m thrilled to bring this conversation to you! Chris loves to have fun with email ~ yup… he thinks there is a noticeable effect on your engagement rates when you are true and authentic to yourself and have a little fun doing it.  Chris is the Director of Products at AWeber.  He started on the design team and migrated to products at the beginning of last year.  Chris’ role is to work with other product managers to make sure they are listening to their customers and the market, identifying the problems they have, and then building solutions to those problems.   AWeber, started as an email service provider 20 years ago, and they do the same thing today… help their clients deliver emails.  It was one of the first EMS (Email Marketing Systems) to build in auto responders. This functionality came out of customer service. The customers ask

It’s Episode #2 of the 6 part series we are doing on Email Marketing. Today we are talking with Kelly O’Connell. She is the Principal Product Manager for ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation software platform that started as an email marketing platform and quickly moved into automation focusing on segmentation and optimizing customer journeys. They focus on small/medium size businesses. My first introduction to ActiveCampaign was years ago at a time when it offered more than what my clients needed. But now… it is what I use and is what I highly recommend. We use it in virtual summits automation because there is so much power in that. ActiveCampaign is one of the ones at the top of my list because you can use it as simple or more in depth as you like. There are alot of great tools out there, but it’s important to find one that works with you. Segmentation within your list with ActiveCampaign Everyone has gotten used to that batch and blast mindset where you send a message out to a large lis