Norman Crowley is a serial entrepreneur who founded and sold three companies for over $750 million before the age of 40 including Inspired Gaming Group – the world’s largest company in the server-based gaming domain and The Cloud – Europe’s largest WiFi operator. Today Norman is on mission to cool the planet (CoolPlanet) and he helps businesses such as Google, Johnson & Johnson and GE Healthcare lower their carbon emissions and energy use.  

He is also the founder of high-end electric car brand AVA. AVA creates the world’s ultimate electric cars, with the world’s greatest car designers, so you can have a great car and help the planet at the same time.   

Resources:

https://www.coolplanet.io/ - Check out CoolPlanet

https://www.studioava.com/ - Check out Ava Cars

Actionable Take-aways:

1. To find a real billion dollar idea, find one that can make an impact on 1 billion people.

2. Share your ideas as soon as you can and do not be afraid of people copying your idea. People are too busy to copy your idea and if you are successful, people will copy your idea anyway.

3. No matter who you are, your health and how you lead others will shape how far you can go with your business.

Daryl Gormley, the CEO of Aquamar Inc, the second largest Surimi producer in North America shares his passion for the food industry and how he is bringing Surimi to more consumers with innovation and sustainability. 

Resources:

https://www.aquamarseafood.com/ - Check out Aquamar’s offerings!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. The way you brand your product will have a big impact on how others view it. If it no longer serves you, work towards a rebrand that showcases your product in a better light.

2. Different consumers have different needs. Make sure you cater to their palettes to maximize chances for success.

3. The best innovation pays close attention to what are the problems that consumers face.

Daniel Nicholson, President and CEO of Nadamoo, shares Nadamoo’s journey spearheading the diary free ice cream movement in North America and how it took him 10 years before he eventually found success. 

Resources:

https://nadamoo.com/

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Success doesn’t come over night, like Daniel it can take up to 10 years. Focus on building your foundations so that you are ready for the explosive growth when it comes.

2. Understand who your core demographic of clients is and cater your message to them. You cannot cater to everyone and expect to resonate as strongly with them.

3. You don’t have to be a Founder to be a success entrepreneur.

Curtis Morley is a seasoned entrepreneur, educator, thought leader, patent holder, and innovator. He is the Founder and CEO of The Entrepreneur’s Paradox and is the author of the best selling book with the same name where he shares 16 pitfalls that companies make in their startup journey.

From fear and imposter syndrome, to ripping out one’s identity and draining the swamp, Curtis shares his stories and walks us through how to apply the principles in his book in this interview.

Resources:

https://www.EntrepreneursParadox.com – Check out Curtis’s work       

https://www.entrepreneursparadox.com/SuccessFormula – Check out the success formula Curtis discussed in the interview

https://www.amazon.com/Curtis-Morley/e/B08L8G6WFJ?ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share – Grab a copy of The Entrepreneur’s Paradox.

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Fear and imposter syndrome are common problems that all entrepreneurs face. Release yourself from these limiting emotions and beliefs by understanding that no one can be an expert at something new.

2. If you are always spending time on “wrestling alligators” by working on the day to day problems in your business instead of working on growing your business, you will be the limiting factor in your business.

3. Goals that are not tangible are not goals, but mere hopes and dreams instead. Find out your goal and whether it is reasonable with the help of the  success formula (how much, by when, for what and why).

Jordan Bass, Co-Founder and CEO of Hop Wtr, shares how he set out to create a calorie-free beer-alternative that consumers can look forward to enjoying that still offered a functional benefit beyond what sparkling waters and non-alcoholic beers deliver today. As the previous head of Ecommerce of Fiji Water, Jordan shares how he leveraged Ecommerce and various partnerships to grow his brand to be in over 1,000 retail stores in less than 2 years.

On today’s business audio masterclass, Jordan shares the exact gap in the market he noticed and has filled with Hop Wtr, his process behind formulating and validating his new product and his best growth strategies.


https://hopwtr.com/ - Check out Hop Wtr.

 
Actionable Take-aways:

1. When conducting product surveys (especially with friends and family), avoid asking for feedback when you are directly in front of them to get more honest feedback (nobody likes to hurt your feelings!)

2. Creating digital assets early before your official product launch can not only allow you to start capturing the emails of customers who are interested and invested in your product, but can also help you fine tune your marketing and message for your official launch.

3. Running out of product is dangerous for any business. You may lose you customers and shelf space, and replacing any product on short notice will cost you more.

Kison Patel is the Founder and CEO of M&A Science and Dealroom, and is an M&A industry veteran having acted as an M&A advisor for ten years in which he sold larger companies such as commercial banks and hotel chains. Through developing technology, educational content, and industry training, Kison aims to bring better practices to an industry with growing market pressures, transaction values, and competition.

In today’s business audio masterclass, we cover tips on maximizing your M&A exit price and how this will differ depending on whether you are looking to make an exit in the short term or long term.

Resources:

https://www.dealroom.net/ - Check out Dealroom!

https://www.mascience.com/ - Check out M&A Science!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kisonpatel/ - Connect with Kison on LinkedIn!

Actionable Take-aways:

1.  To maximize your sale price when you are looking to exit with a long term view, put yourself out there and start communicating with potential buyers to get an understanding on what a potential exit may look like and navigate it to get your best price. 

2. If you are looking to sell with a short view, run a competitive process with investment banks to and choose one that is most experienced for achieving exits for your companies in similar industries and deal sizes as yours. Auction bids can help to also increase the sale price.

3. Entrepreneurs tend to neglect the integration process that comes after a sale. Avoid this by asking questions and getting clarity at the start of the negotiation process to make sure that there is a good fit between you and the buyer, especially if you want to see your company being acquired by someone who you can trust to grow it.

Christina Lenkowski, the Founder of PublicityXChristina, is a podcast pitch pro who helps entrepreneurs get the visibility they need to build their businesses. With hundreds of successful placements and bookings, Christina shares the entire process that goes behind a successful podcast pitch. From choosing the right podcasts, to crafting the perfect pitch, Christina breaks down what are the important considerations that you need to be aware of to help the podcast host you are pitching to say yes.

Resources:

https://www.publicityxchristina.com/ - Check out Christina’s Podcast Booking Agency.

https://publicityxchristina.mykajabi.com/services - Check out Christina’s services.

https://www.instagram.com/publicityxchristina/ - Connect with Christina on Instagram.

Actionable Take-aways:

1. To find out which podcast shows to appear on, talk to your current audience and ask them who do they listen to. Reach out to these hosts and start building a relationship with them. 

2. Systematize your podcast pitch by preparing a template. The first paragraph of your pitch should be personalized to the host you are pitching to. Next provide a paragraph of credibility markers so people can recognize they can understand that you know what you are talking about. Next add 4 to 6 solid topic ideas that you can speak about that will resonate with listeners and this makes it easy for the host to say yes.

3. Don’t let imposter syndrome or the fear of public speaking hold you back from speaking on podcasts. Shift your mindset to have an attitude of gratitude and look to provide service instead of promotion.

Sara Raymond is a trained hypnotherapist, pilates, yoga, and meditation teacher. As Founder of The Mindful Movement, she has become an oasis for those looking to tap into their inner calm, develop a positive mindset and heal from the stress that’s blocking fulfillment. Sara has discovered that simply knowing what you want isn’t enough and has committed her life to helping others break free from the inner turmoil that is keeping them stuck.

In today’s business audio masterclass, we learn what it means to be mindful and why this is important for any entrepreneur, and how Sara utilized social media to build the Mindful Movement into a successful online business.

Resources:

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheMindfulMovement - Check out the Mindful Movement’s Youtube Channel which has over 600,000 subscribers!

https://www.instagram.com/themindfulmovementpodcast/ - Check out the Mindful Movement’s Instagram page!

https://www.facebook.com/themindfulmovementpodcast- Check out the Mindful Movement’s Facebook page!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Being mindful means become aware of what your mind is thinking and what your body is feeling and connecting them. Connecting your mind and body will give you clarity in your thoughts to help you make better decisions.

2. One easy technique you can incorporate is intentional breathing. Take 30 to 60 seconds of slow and deep breathes when you are in a stressful situation before you react.

3. Anyone can grow on social media, but the best way to do so is to be consistent on one single platform before diversifying.

Terry Kyle is the Co-Founder and CEO of WPX Hosting. WPX Hosting is arguably the world’s fastest Wordpress hosting companies and Terry shares how he took the pain points that he experienced as a customer of other hosting companies and turned it into the strengths of WPX Hosting. 

In today’s audio masterclass, Terry covers the importance of having a fast response time for your customers, why WPX Hosting has a “fixed for you policy”, and how WPX Hosting address the resistance its customers experience when it comes to changing hosting companies.

Resources:

https://wpx.net/ - Check out WPX Hosting! Key in the promo code TEDTEO for 50% off for the first month on all monthly plans + 30 day money back guarantee.

https://everydogmatters.eu/ - Check out Every Dog Matters EU

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Response time matters when it comes to providing a better customer service experience. The faster you get back to your customers, the faster you can help them solve their problems.

2. Customers want their problems to be solved, they don’t want to be told how it can be solved. 

3. To acquire new customers, it is important to identify what is causing resistance and to address that issue directly.

Alan Lazaros is the CEO, Founder & Co-Host of Next Level University, a Global Top 100 Self-Improvement podcast with more than 800 episodes reaching over half a million people in more than 100 countries. After his father passed away in a car accident at the age of 2, and experiencing a near fatal car accident himself at the age of 26, Alan left corporate America and is now a Professional Speaker and Business Coach that specializes in helping businesses maximize their growth, impact & profitability online.

In today’s Business Audio Masterclass, Alan shares the importance on investing in ourselves, why we need to focus on our zone of genius, and how and why we should be tracking our critical numbers.

Resources:

https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/ - Check Out Next Level Universe and work with Alan!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. The first person we should focus on is ourselves. The more we invest in ourselves, the better we can lead our company. Don’t let yourself become the company’s bottleneck.

2. As a business owner you need to make sure that you are in your zone of genius to give your organization the best chance to succeed. Delegate when you need to.

3. It is important to know what your critical numbers are and track them to know whether you are on track to achieving your goals.

Show Notes:

[2.20] After a near death experience in a car accident at the age of 26, Alan decided to pursue his dreams as an entrepreneur and never looked back.

[11.00] Alan shares what he offers as a peak performance business coach.

[15.10] Pouring into yourself first is not selfish unless you are not a selfish person. You need to focus on yourself otherwise you will become the bottleneck in your organization.

[16.50] As a business owner you need to make sure that you are in your zone of genius to give your organization the best chance to succeed.

[20.20] It is important to know what are our critical numbers and track them. Alan’s number one critical number is the total number of coaching calls. Find out what are the critical numbers that matter to your mission and track down consistently to understand your progress.

[24.50] Instead of planning our days by weekends and weekdays, Alan recommends that you set up each day the same way to provide yourself with consistency and structure.

[28.20] Ted and Alan discuss the power of consistency and the compounding effect.

[37.30] The destination that you choose matters. If you don’t plan where your destination is in advance, you wont have the right goals and journeys to get to where you want to get to.

Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Luke Hohmann is the Founder and CEO of FirstRoot Inc.. FirstRoot Inc’s teaches students financial literary by giving them real cash and the chance to make a real impact in their school. With a structured program to guide them on their decision making process, students are able to learn through their own experiences how money really works.

Join us as Luke he shares about the power of participatory budgeting in any organization, just how he managed to achieve an 80% to 100% participation from the students, and why he structured his company as a Benefit Corporation. 

Resources:

https://firstroot.co/ - Check out FirstRoot and its programs!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. The more you work, the more opportunities you create for yourself. Like Luke, you may find your next business idea from your existing business. Always be open to new ideas and challenge the status quo.

2. Allow your customers to have a bigger stake or a chance to be more involved in the business. When they see that their actions have a direct impact, they will become more loyal to you in the long run.

3. If you are looking to start a company that prioritizes doing good for the public and society, do some research or ask a lawyer as to what is the best corporate vehicle you should incorporate. Luke decided to incorporate FirstRoot as a Benefit Corporation and this has allowed him to prioritize the good he wants to do for society over maximizing profits. 

David Kindlon is the CEO and Co-Founder of Eppione. Eppione offers a fully integrated HR and employee benefits platform – bringing all of your HR admin, employee wellbeing supports and people insights together into one central hub. With Eppione’s cloud-based platform and mobile app, admin and benefits are made easily accessible for employees, and employers can easily engage and communicate with their employees in the office, at home, or anywhere else.

Join us as David shares about the pain points he experienced in the HR industry, why it’s important to solve these pain points, and why it’s important for employees to be able to easily access their benefits and entitlements.

Resources:

https://eppione.com/ - Check out Eppione! 

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Finding pain points that you personally experienced like David is a great way to start a business because it allows you to solve a problem that you are intimately aware of.

2. Be very clear on who are your customers and the respective stakeholders that your services are being provided for. By understanding their exact needs, you will be able to better provide solutions for them.

3. When growing a company, make sure that your employees are able to access the information relating to their benefits and entitlements as easily as possible. The happier your employees are, the more they will help you grow.

Show Notes:

[3.30] David shares about Eppione and how to solves an existing problem in the HR and benefits space for medium sized companies that are not able to afford one of the larger scale providers but still need a solution to manage their HR and benefits for their employees.

[5.00] David is a veteran of the insurance industry and employee benefits consultant. Over the years, he has worked with many employers who really struggled with pulling out the relevant information in relation to their employees’ data. It was so torturous that he finally decided to start a company to solve this problem.

[10.50] David shares that companies that are unable to afford bespoke software solutions tend to use spreadsheets to record their employees’ data and benefits and this is prone to error. In addition, it becomes hard for employees to understand their entitlements and benefits. Eppione provides an platform to collate everything under one platform and employees will be able to install the app on their own phone and get the information they need without having to reach out to the HR department. 

[16.35] Companies tend to use multiple softwares and services and provides their employees with the relevant information on the company’s intranet. This makes it hard for everyone to manage. By providing a one stop shop, Eppione allows the whole management process to be easy and efficient for everyone.

[18.30] Current solutions tend to be very siloed to a specific country because each country has their own laws and regulations. The problem arises when a company is based in multiple jurisdictions and a company has to engage different technology solutions in each jurisdiction. Eppione overcomes this problem by allowing companies to program the specific benefits and entitlements it provides its employees and it can therefore tailor the system to their own needs in each country.

[21.45] As Eppione deals with insurances, David made sure he is either appropriately licensed and regulated in the relevant jurisdictions or have the right partners who can represent them otherwise.

[27.40] David stresses the importance of using technology when growing a business, and to be able to give employees access to the information that they need. 

Bryan O’Rourke is an experienced CEO, strategist, investor, board member and advisor. With a track record of growing brands large and small, his network of associates and partners have served a wide range of organizations in a cross section of various industries. Originally a veteran of the F&B industry holding multiple CEO and CFO positions in companies such as Copeland’s Family of Restarauts, Smoothie King, and Planet Smoothie. Today, Bryan O'Rourke is also an expert in the technology and fitness space. He is the founder and CEO for Vedere Ventures LLC and Integerus, LLC; Co-Founder and MD of Moon Mission Media, ; CSO and partner in the Flywheel Group, LLC, and President of the Fitness Industry Technology Council.

He is considered a leading expert on technology, consumer and business trends and his views have been published in periodicals like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Inc. Magazine, CBI and many others. IHRSA named him one of 13 to watch in 2013 and he has been named one of the top 50 most influential entrepreneurs on twitter.

Bryan has contributed as an author to six published books with colleagues in the fitness sector and co-authored the 9 Partnership Principles on attributes necessary to achieving more by working with others. He is a popular keynote speaker and facilitator who has delivered inspiration and insights at industry conferences and organizational events on four continents.

Resources:

https://www.bryankorourke.com/ - Check out Bryan’s personal page

https://www.vedereventures.com/ - Check out Vedere Ventures

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Industries like the fitness industry are moving towards providing customers with an omnichannel experience where customers can interact with the business both inside and outside the gym. If you fail to adopt new technologies into your business, you may be failing to provide a better experience to customers and they may eventually move on to your competitors.

2. Despite the increasing presence of technology, technology will never fully replace humans and the key is still to provide a good customer experience. 

3. You cannot compete with everything. It is important to therefore understand what market niche you want to attack.

Josh Little is a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple tech companies. His earlier ventures Maestro and Bloomfire which he has since exited have been wildly successfully, and today he is disrupting the way we communicate with Volley. Volley provides users with the ability to communicate with asynchronous communication by allow users to record videos which others can respond to at their own time.

Join us as Josh shares about the importance of testing your product or service in the market, how he maximizes his customer retention rates and his framework to coming up with great business ideas.

Resources:

https://www.volleyapp.com/ - Check out the Volley App!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Always get your minimum viable product out into the market to test it as soon as you can. You can never fully predict how the market will react to your product or service and the only way is to test it.

2. Customer retention rates are as crucial as growing your customer base. Find out what behavorial patterns lead to higher retention rates and focus your efforts to maximize it to improve your retention rates.

3. The only way to come up with good ideas is to allow yourself to come up with bad ideas. Constantly train your brain to come up with business ideas and analyse them to give yourself the practice.

Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

David Wachs is the Founder and CEO of Handwrytten, a company that is bringing back the lost art of letter writing through scalable, robot-based solutions that write your notes in pen. Developed as a platform, Handwrytten lets you send notes from your CRM system, such as Salesforce, the web site, apps, or through custom integration. Used by major meal boxes, eCommerce giants, nonprofits and professionals, Handwrytten is changing the way brands and people connect.

David is also a frequent speaker on messaging technology and has presented for the Direct Marketing Association, South By Southwest, Advertising Research Foundation, and the National Restaurant Association. David has been featured on the front page of the Washington Post, and has been interviewed by Direct Marketing News, Crain’s Chicago Business, the American Express OPEN network, AMA's Marketing News, Bloomberg Radio, and others. He has been quoted in numerous articles, including The Wall Street Journal, USA TODAY, Variety, Startup Nation and US Banker Magazine. David also writes for Inc. Magazine with his column “Stepping Away from the Day to Day”.

Join us today as David shares about how he is bringing back the lost art of letter writing with technology, the pros and cons of filing a patent, and how he designed Handwrytten to be easily integrated into numerous CRM systems.

Resources:

https://www.handwrytten.com/ - Check out Handwrytten! Make sure you use the discount code “PODCAST” to get $5 off your first order!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Competition breeds results. Like David, you can have you different teams compete with each other to encourage innovation and better results.

2. When you file a patent, you have to declare exactly what goes behind your technology or process. If you are not willing to divulge the exact secrets behind your technology or process, make sure you enter into confidentiality agreements and non-disclosure agreements with whoever is aware of your proprietary knowledge.

3. Designing your platform to have the ability to be easily plugged into other systems gives you the benefit of easily being able to integrate your technology into numerous other systems and leveraging off their user bases.

Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Daniel Doll is the CEO of the highly acclaimed sauce company from Brooklyn New York, Bushwick Kitchen. Bushwick Kitchen’s sauces are so good that it has been featured on The Today Show and has blown away Iron Chef Bobby Flay. With flavors such as spicy honey, spicy maple and gochujang sriracha, Bushwick Kitchen’s delicious sauces are to die for and have earned a cult following in circles such as the ever passionate BBQ pitmaster scene.

Join us today as Daniel shares about the benefits of acquiring and scaling a business, the process he goes through when developing new sauces and the importance of doubling down on what makes your business unique. 

Resources:

https://bushwickkitchen.com/  

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Building a business from scratch is not the only way to start a business. Like Daniel, you can acquire a business that is already established and scale it. The ground work has already been done and you can hit the ground running.

2. When developing a new product, make sure that the product is one that you will personally give 5 stars upon release. Don’t be afraid to say no to something that you have been working on for months as a bad product can hurt your branding.

3. When you have a new and unique product, make sure you double down on it and find your superfans. Listen to them and involve them in your work and they will help you spread your business via word of mouth like crazy.

 
Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Josh Dittrich is a father of five who recently sold a private-label Amazon FBA business that he sold for eight figures after he personally contacted over 30 aggregators to maximize his exit sale price and to manage the process personally. Josh’s approach was so revolutionary that he has since been feature on Forbes and Business Insider and is even writing a book on the process. Today he has founded Branded Seller and he is also an Amazon FBA Exit Advisor and he is passionate about maximizing your exit sale price.

Join us today as Josh shares how he built his Amazon FBA empire, how he subsequently exited it at the best possible price, and how he is now help others achieve the same without charging them the steep 8% commission rates that brokers currently charge. 

Resources:

https://brandedseller.com/ - Check out Branded Seller and work with Josh!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. White labelling products is a great way to get started on ecommerce. Like Josh you can create over 200 products and sell the same on Amazon by engaging manufacturers and relying on Amazon’s distribution system.

2. Always have your accounts and documents in order. The same is necessary in order for you to achieve a successful exit and a good price.

3. While brokers can help make the relevant introductions and to close a deal, they will not likely be as invested as you are to achieve the best outcome for you. Be aware of the huge commission that they take. Consider alternatives like Josh did and see if you can contact any aggregators or industry players yourself.

Kyle Nelson and Eli Libby, also known as BizBros, are the co-founders of Results Imagery, a company that produces product photos, videos and infographics to arm companies with the content they need to bring their products to life. With years of media and ecommerce marketing experience under their belt, Results Imagery helps its clients succeed in our current visual first, online environment by sharing its clients' creative vision and helping them make it a reality with their 100% custom photo and video content.

Kyle and Eli have also joined forces to share their experiences from past and current ventures with their own podcast, the Biz Bros podcast.

Join us today as Kyle and Eli share the hilarious story of how they met, how they help their clients’ products succeed on a hyper competitive online market, and how the joys of podcasting. 

Resources:

https://www.resultsimagery.com/ - Check out Results Imagery if you need help bringing your product to life!

https://www.bizbros.io/ - Check out the Biz Bros podcast!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. When developing product photos and videos, don’t think of the product as just filming the product as the subject. Go one step further to think about how the photo or video will perform in terms of its ability to convert a potential customer. 

2. Customers shop with their eyes. A comprehensive product strategy will require solid photos of the product on a white background showcasing the product from all angles, lifestyle photos to humanize the product, a video showing how the product is used, and infographics on the product explaining its features and uses.

3. Podcasting is a unique experience that allows you to develop networks and create sales funnels for your business. If you are thinking of starting one, do it!

Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Paul Baron is the founder and chief executive officer of The Wall Printer USA. His decades of business experience span B2B, B2C, retail, manufacturing, distribution, international business, and franchising. Paul has personally developed and launched multiple business concepts and he was able to grow The Wall Printer USA to achieve an explosive growth of having over 50 distributors in 90 territories in just 2 years. Today he shares with us how you can explode your business with a distributorship model like him. 

Join us as Paul shares about how he exploded his business with a distributorship model, the incentives he built into the distributorship model to encourage his distributors to work with him in the long run at scale, and how Paul managed to secure co-ownership rights in the Wall Printer from his manufacturing partners.

Resources:

 https://thewallprinter.com/en/about-company/  - Check out the Wall Printer!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbbaron/ - Get connected with Paul!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Unlike a franchise model where franchisee fees are charged and it forces your franchisees to follow a strict model from you, an exclusive distributorship model encourages your distributor partners to be creative and to grow more aggressively (because they don’t have to pay you a portion of their earnings). This allowed Paul to explode his business to be in over 90 territories in just 2 years.

2. Set a reasonable fee for your exclusive distributorship rights and provide your distributors with a discount on the product you are selling to them. By giving them the chance to recoup the fees they initially paid, they will be incentivised to partner with you for the long run and work with you at scale.

3. Patents are important for you to be able to protect your right in a certain product. Always seek to protect your intellectual property rights.

Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Nicole Cramer is a leading sales coach for health coaches. With a mantra that selling is serving, Nicole helps health coaches understand the difference between transactional sales and relationship sales and that sales is about helping others. As a former high school math teacher and a leading sales person for her corporate for 2 years straight, Nicole ties in her passion for teaching and sales after she realized her fellow health coaches kept asking her for assistance.

Join us today as Nicole shares about the important of listening to what your customers want from you, that selling is serving your customers and that the best ways to serve is through nurturing and developing relationships and providing your customers with customized solutions based on their needs, and that objections from your customers are actually a buying signal. 

Resources:

https://www.healthystepswithnicole.com/ - Work with Nicole over at her site!

https://www.healthystepswithnicole.com/33places - Grab Nicole’s "33 Places to find Clients Freebie"!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Listen to what your customers are constantly asking for from you. Like Nicole, she niched down further to become a sales coach for health coaches because her peers kept asking her for help and encouraged her to do it. Today Nicole’s practice as a sales coach is flourishing because she played to her strengths and is giving her customers exactly what they are asking for.

2. Selling is serving! Remember that you are there to help and serve your customers and that one of the best ways to serve is through nurturing and developing relationships and providing your customers with customized solutions based on their needs.

3. Objections are not personal. Objections are actually a buying signal. People who are not interested at all will give you a hard no. Your job is not to convince them to work with you, but to help them work through their doubts and fears.

Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Anar Umurzakova is the Founder of Go Project Management. Originally a Presidential Scholar of Kazakhstan, Anar honed her craft in project management in organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and is now committed to helping startups find that 20% of work that will bring them 80% of their success.

Join us today as Anar shares about the importance of your reputation, the reason why it is crucial for companies who are scaling to adopt proper project management frameworks, and the benefits of the AGILE framework.

P.S. Anar is also a talented singer with her own Soundcloud page! Ask her about it!

Resources:

http://www.goprojectmanagement.com/ - Work with Anar at Go Project Management!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Your reputation follows you everywhere. Make sure you protect it.

2. Project management frameworks are crucial for any scaling business. The sooner you implement it, the sooner you can efficiently run your projects and align it with your strategy.

3. The AGILE framework runs on the principles of short cycles to allow you to quickly roll out features, to test them and to get feedback. Consider implementing this if you are looking your company is growing quickly and wants to be able to manage projects quickly.

Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Zhou Kehan is the co-founder of Terrascope, a company that is described as the first A.I. real estate agent for finding and browsing rural properties online. When Kehan and his co-founder realized that the existing tools in the major properties websites did not provide for a good way to purchase rural properties, Terrascope was built on the mission to provide a better way to purchase rural properties. Terrascope does away with the filter based search results that works well for urban properties, but is too binary for rural properties, and adds a ton of features that are neglected which are important for rural property buyers such as land features, water features, easements and access to amenities.

Join us as Kehan shares about the pain points in the existing market that continue to exist even though rural properties form 20% of the property market in the United States of America, his best tips on how to build an efficient user interface, and why you should be obsessed with getting feedback from your customers.

Resources:

www.terrascope.io – Check out Terrascope if you are interested in a better way to purchase rural properties!

https://terrascope.io/blog - Check out Terrascope’s free resource on buying rural real estate and the rural lifestyle!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Find out the pain points in your life. If there are no good existing solutions in the market, there might just be an underserved market for you to create an impact.

2. There’s a reason why companies that rely on artificial intelligence are built on a simple yes and no feature for its users. This is the best way to get accurate and concrete data from them, so think about how you can integrate this into your own user interface or surveys. 

3. Be obsessed with getting feedback from your customers and developing your relationships with them. Not only will you be able to understand what they want better, they will also appreciate your efforts and become your advocates.

Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Aaron Alpeter is the Founder and CEO of Izba Consulting. Izba Consulting brings proven startup operator and fortune 500 level expertise to startups on a fractional basis so that founders can be more equity and cash efficient while focusing on other parts of their business. Izba Consulting augments its clients’ teams in both short and long term engagements, providing thought partnership and day-to-day management while building out their internal full-time team as their businesses grow.

Join us as Aaron shares about how you should build your supply chain with 18 month plans, how you should build your supply chain around its bottlenecks to optimize it, and why you should find out the de minimis value for shipping goods in each country when planning your shipments.

Resources:

https://www.izba.co/ - Work with Izba Consulting! 

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Build your supply chain by planning it out in 18 months blocks and design it so that it can provide for what you need in the foreseeable future. Set out a sales and operations plan as well for the same time frame so you know whether you are on track in your sales and production pipeline and this will allow you to plan ahead with your manufacturers, warehouses and logistics companies for the support that you need.

2. Look at the bottleneck in the suppler chain and design your supply chain to make sure that it is built to make sure that the bottleneck does not stop and become a problem. 

3. Find out the de minimis value of each country which is the amount that you can ship without paying any taxes. It may be cheaper to ship your goods in batches below the de minis value as compared to shipping it via containers.

Riley Jarvis is Founder and CEO of The Sleep Consultant. The Sleep Consultant helps high functioning individuals such as CEOs and entrepreneurs achieve more out of their life and business using cutting edge sleeping strategies and techniques and Riley shares why every entrepreneur needs to take care of their sleep. With so many waking hours in the day, the quality of those sleeping hours is what can distinguish a day making or losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Join us as Riley shares about the importance of good sleep, active steps you can take to improve your sleep and the importance of not spreading yourself too thin.

Resources:

www.thesleepconsultant.com – Reach out to Riley for a free sleep assessment over at The Sleep Consultant! 

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Long term bad sleep can increase the risk of cancer, heart attacks, stroke, and obesity. Taking care of your health and sleep is essential for building a healthy life and long term business.

2. Reduce your caffeine intake, drink more water and avoid blue light 2 hours before you sleep to improve your sleep cycle. 

3. Focus on your energies on the business that you want to succeed the most. Avoid shiny object syndrome and commit to one key idea till you achieve success.

Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Rick Mayo is the Founder and CEO of Alloy Personal Training. Since 1992, Rick and his team has helped major brands and independent gyms, health clubs, and fitness businesses such as Gold’s Gym and Anytime Fitness around the world deploy personal training systems through a licensing model under the Alloy brand. Since then the Alloy personal training solutions, systems, platforms, and know-how have been used to serve millions of members in over 3,000 fitness facilities world wide.  Today Rick is building the Alloy Personal Training Center franchise and how he is aiming to build it up as the next global fitness franchise.

Join us today as Rick shares about the challenges he faced in his earlier years when his trainers and customers left, how that one incident has actually helped him evolve into the success that he has achieve today, and how he carved out his unique target audience to set himself apart from the competition.

Resources:

https://alloyfranchise.com/ - Interested in becoming a fitness franchisee with Rick? Find out more here!

https://www.rickmayo.com/ - Check out Rick’s personal website!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Building communities creates customer loyalty. Try to incorporate events and a sense of regularity in the customer experience that you provide to build up your community of loyal customers.

2. Create systems within your business to prevent yourself from the vulnerability of being overly dependent on any employee. Business systems also create a scalable business as you can replicate it as grow the business in new venues.

3. Franchising is a great way to increase the value of your business and its physical presence. With great systems in place, you can build a franchise and expand your business faster without the need to be in charge of every single branch as you expand.

Connect with Ted on:
 His Website at : www.tedteo.com
 LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
 Instagram at: @ted.teo
 Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo