Tag Archives: Gary Vaynerchuk

Episode 42: Engagement vs. Automation | Rick Mulready from the Inside Social Media Podcast

In Episode 42 of the Defining Success Podcast, Rick Mulready shares his thoughts and ideas on social media for small and medium-sized businesses. During our conversation we discuss the pros and cons of engagement and automation. We also discuss the power of social media and how building genuine, authentic relationships can help grow any business.

Rick Mulready

Rick Mulready is the host of the Inside Social Media Podcast. His podcast is a place to learn secrets, insights and strategies from heads of social media for some of the most powerful brands in the world.

Rick has been in the Internet marketing world for 12 years. He spent 5 years at AOL in Virginia. He moved to the West Coast after that and spent 2 years at Yahoo as an advertiser. After Yahoo, he went to Vibrant Media and then he went to Funny or Die and went back to Vibrant. While Rick was at Funny or Die, he saw that there was a minimum spend that people had to invest in order to advertise, but it left a lot of small businesses out. At that time Rick saw Facebook starting to grow and he began to see the opportunities that small business could have in Facebook. He jumped into Facebook advertising and taught himself everything he could about it.

During a flight, Rick was listening to a podcast with Gary Vaynerchuk who recommended two publications, Advertising Age, so you can get the big brand perspective and TechMe.com so you can get the perspective of what’s going on in the tech world. Rick then saw that there was an opportunity to reach out to big brand companies and help share what big brands were doing in social media with small businesses.

Rick Mulready

The whole purpose of Rick’s podcast comes from a Tony Robbins quote where he finds someone who’s doing something successful and then copy what they’re doing. Rick has been able to show his listeners what big brands are doing and how they can apply that to their small business.

Rick built up a large safety net, and had a lot of planning. The job that Rick was doing paid really well, but he wasn’t happy, so he saved up a lot of money and made the jump to running the podcast. He is working with clients showing them how they can achieve their business goals through social media.

As an advertiser, Rick didn’t like the way the advertising industry was set up because no matter how hard you worked you always were striving to meet new goals which Rick found very taxing.

Rick loves Twitter because it allows Rick to have quick conversations with people he wants to have conversations with. It also allows Rick to listen to conversations that are going on in the social media world where he can jump in, engage and add value wherever he can. Rick does enjoy Facebook advertising more than he loves Facebook itself.

Too many people don’t understand Facebook advertising and there is a great opportunity to reach out to highly targeted customers if you can understand and grasp how Facebook advertising works.

A common mistake many people make in social media is that they go out there and they start yelling. Another common mistake is that people spread themselves too thin, get overwhelmed and then say social media doesn’t work.

Rick recommends finding one or two platforms that you love using and then stick with those and really dive in and engage deeply. If you can do that you’ll soon see immense benefits in your business.

Rick says that some businesses may not even need social media and it may not be the best platform for them to get their business goals. He recommends that businesses first establish goals and then determining the best course of action to reach their goals. The explanation starts with what is your goal and then work backwards.

There are two trends that are really important. Listening and engaging with you customers and using social media as an opportunity to serve your customers. A lot of brands get it really well and many do not. Rick says that in the future, location based social media marketing will take place, meaning that when you arrive at a destination, deals and discounts will be sent to people’s smart phones in an attempt to drive business. Another trends that Rick sees is these short videos which can be used to tell a story for a business.

Rick says that the people who are automating their message are missing the point of social media. One of the big problems people who jump onto social media face is dealing with automation vs. engagement. The point of social media is to develop genuine relationships designed to lead to sales, and not to continually blast your sales message. People do business with people they know, like and trust. Show them they can know, like and trust you by authentically engaging with them.

When working with a business, Rick starts to figure out their goals and if social media can help them achieve their goals, you have to know what social media platform would be the best for them. Learn your target market, figure out their goal and then learn how to be there.

The podcast has been working very well for Rick Mulready and the podcast was something he never thought he would be doing. He’s always loved interviewing people and he still doesn’t know much about it, but a lot of people pushed him to start it. And Rick understands that the podcast is a great way to connect with people.

The first episodes Rick launched were with the social media managers of Ford, McDonald’s and City. He loves doing interviews and gets pumped up after he has an interview with people.

Rick Mulready

Engaging Discussion Questions:

What is your favorite social media platform?
What do you think of Vine and Instagram videos?
What is the best way to connect with potential customers on social media?

Links to Great Stuff:

Inside Social Media Podcast – “Through this blog and my podcast Inside Social Media, I give you inside access to heads of social media from the most successful brands in the world, as well as the smartest social media influencers around.”

Success Quotes:

“Success is having control of your time and being able to set how you spend that time.”
“If you’re automating your message and not really having that personalized conversation with people, they pick up on that very quickly.”
“Remember that it’s just as easy to unfollow someone in social media as it is to follow them and to remember that.”
“I like Twitter because it allows me to engage with my target audience and my customers the best.”
“Too many people get on social media and just start shouting.”

Episode 35: Making Your Customers A Part of Your Business | Johnny Hakim from Greenskeeper.org

Episode 23: The Impact of One | Alejandro Reyes from the Get Internet Famous Podcast

Episode 18: Use Twitter to Build Relationships and Grow Your Business | Chris Reimer from Falk Harrison

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Chris Reimer used Twitter to create and build his T-shirt company, Rizzo Tees. He’s since used his knowledge of social media and Internet marketing to his advantage landing him a job as the Vice President at Falk Harrison. Chris is also in the process of writing his own book. Learn how Chris was able to use Twitter to build relationships to help him grow his business.

Chris Reimer

Recap:

Chris Reimer is an award winning new media strategist and is the V.P. of social media at Falk Harrison, a marketing agency in St. Louis, MO that specializes in branding, design, communications and social media. He’s also the founder of Rizzo Tees and was named the most influential Twitter User in St. Louis by STLTweets.com in 2010 and 2011.

Chris went to Marquette University in Milwaukee and graduated with a degree in accounting. He passed the CPA exam and became a CPA. His last accounting job was as the CFO of a non-profit in St. Louis, but in 2007 he became interested in starting his own business. His grandfather owned his own business and Chris developed his entrepreneurial spirit from his grandfather at a young age.

Chris jumped into the t-shirt business with his t-shirt company, Rizzo Tees. Once his site went live the world changed. He just heard about Twitter and Facebook, but he decided to start using Twitter in order to get the word out. He was out of money and he jumped on social media.

Once he started with Twitter he started using it to connect with other people and would at times he would meet people in person. Using Twitter to build relationships was a very powerful feeling. Chris became much more interested in doing Twitter than he was by working as an accountant. He was forced into using social media when he ran out of money to promote his T-shirt business.

Chris got into the t-shirt business when he was checking out funny t-shirts online and ended up ordering some for his birthday. When the packages came he looked at the brand, American Apparel, and the t-shirts felt awesome and he started thinking that he could do the same kind of things.

Gary Vaynerchuk Props to My Tweeps

Some of Chris’s best sellers are his “Props to My Tweeps” shirt, which he got Gary Vaynerchuk to wear on his wine library website. “I Hate Pants” took off because it landed on Buzzfeed and Break.com. Then he got known for his bacon t-shirts which became very successful. And then his other popular one is “Bacon You Like This” and he became known as the bacon guy. People tweet him everything related to bacon. Chris got some guys at Epic Meal Time to wear his shirts. Whenever he gets people with a big following, those have always helped to increase his sales.

Chris really enjoys helping organizations become successful using social media, working on his book, meeting people and doing interviews.

We get to work and a lot of the time we don’t get to work right away. We talk to each other to say how our weekends went and what our days were like and the ability to use Facebook and Twitter to let people get to know you. And when you meet more people, you have a larger opportunity to have an influence in other people’s lives.

Bacon You Like This

According to Chris, he uses the 80 – 20 rule when it comes to his tweets where 80% of his tweets are not aimed at selling his product. He also recommends Bob Burg’s book, The Go-Giver, and loves the message. He’s been living the philosophy of helping people to make him feel good and that what you give comes back to you. He would give presentations on social media, would educate others and occasionally he would tweet something about his t-shirts.

One of the things Chris learned early on is that sometimes what you think will be successful may not be the case. So listening to customer feedback and altering your strategies to improve your business is critical to the success of any business. He’s learned to adjust his strategies to the needs of his customers to help his business grow.

When Chris left his last accounting job, he got another job as a chief marketing officer for a small business and knew John Falk, one of the three owners of Falk Harrison for over 20 years. He then reached out to his friends and John thought they might be able to work together. The friendship that he had with John led to him getting the job at Falk Harrison.

The coolest thing Chris has done is won an award in some local social media contests and he was able to win an award for social media campaigns for some businesses he’s worked for. Falk Harrison ended up helping this company start their social media campaign and got them going using social media services and did an outstanding job. They won best in class for social media and won best in show for a marketing award in St. Louis.

Chris is currently working on a new book called The Human Team. The book is about the lack of civility in the business world in regards to employers and employees and how those relationships are managed. Chris always noticed how people treat each other at work actually effected the productivity of workers. He’s creating a proposal that should offer a change in the workplace for the better.

Chris Reimer

Engaging Discussion Questions:

How do you use Twitter?
Do you think the way employers treat their employees affect the bottom line?

Links to Great Stuff:

Rizzo Tees – Rizzo Tees has one employee, Chris. Chris operates Rizzo Tees out of his basement (henceforth known as “Rizzo World HQ” or “ManLand”). He has a full-time job, so he works on Rizzo Tees at night. He prints, picks, packs, and ships your order himself. He have four industrial shelves filled with 1,400+ shirts. His basement can hold a whole lot more shelving units, and his goal is to grow the business but never grow it out of my basement. He operates the whole business by himself on a MacBook Pro and a couple of printers.
Falk Harrison – “For 40 years, Falk Harrison has helped companies and organizations strengthen brand equity through a proven blend of strategy and design. We bring our unique perspective and a positive approach to consistently deliver results – connecting your brand to your audience and shaping your place in the market.”
StLTweets.com – “STL Tweets is a new way to keep up with what’s happening in St. Louis. We help you tap into local happenings focusing exclusively on St. Louis news, culture, people, business, and more.”
Gary Vaynerchuk – “Meet Gary Vaynerchuk, a 36 year old New York Times and Wall Street Journal Best-Selling author who is also a self-trained wine and social media expert. From a young age, it was clear that Gary was a businessman. At 8-years-old he was operating seven lemonade stands in his neighborhood and by 10 he had moved onto selling baseball cards at local malls. In high school while working at his family owned liquor store, Gary started reading The Wine Spectator and wine books, and realized collecting wine offered an allure similar to his previous hobby of collecting baseball cards. With a wealth of knowledge and an entrepreneurial spirit, Gary spent every weekend of his college years at his parents’ wine store. Recognizing the importance of e-commerce in 1997, Gary launched Winelibrary.com and helped grow his family business significantly from $3 million to $45 million by 2005.”
BuzzFeed , Epic Meal Time and Break.com – Rizzo Tees has been featured on BuzzFeed, Epic Meal Time and Break.com.
Bob Burg – “Bob Burg shares information on topics vital to the success of today’s businessperson. He speaks for corporations and associations internationally, including fortune 500 companies, franchises, and numerous direct sales organizations.” He also wrote the book, The Go-Giver which Chris highly recommends.

Success Quotes

“Success is happiness and having fun.”
“Twitter is your 21st century education.”
“When you tweet a lot, you’re giving yourself the chance to be seen by more people.”
“It was really about being honest and transparent and letting people get to know me.”
“It’s about knowing what I like and how I think.”
“Everything is made easier when you have friends that you know well.”
“Buying myself a birthday present turned the light bulb on over my head.”

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Episode 10: The Business Breakthrough | Entrepreneur On Fire Host John Lee Dumas

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Fire Nation ignites seven days a week in John Lee Dumas’ Entrepreneur on Fire podcast. He has interviewed some of the most successful entrepreneurs and shares the takeaways from his podcast with us.

If people are telling you something is impossible, or you’ll never be able to do it . . . take that as a sign that that is something you should do.

John Lee Dumas

Recap:

John Lee Dumas is the founder and host of Entrepreneur on Fire, a business podcast that interviews today’s most inspiring and successful entrepreneurs 7 days a week. Entrepreneur on Fire is a top ranked business podcast generating over 150,000 unique downloads a month in over 140 countries. His lineup includes Barbara Corcoran, Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, Guy Kawasaki and hundreds more. All the magic happens at EOFire.com so be sure to check them out.

John went to college in Providence, RI on a ROTC scholarship. He spent 8 years in the U.S. Army as an officer with a 13 month tour of duty in Iraq. He tried corporate finance, residential real estate, commercial real estate, tech start ups. In June 2012 he started his passion of sharing the journey of other entrepreneur’s with the world where he interviews some of the most successful and inspiring entrepreneurs.

John Lee Dumas

American spend so much time commuting to and from work which is where John Lee Dumas had his AHA Moment for Entrepreneur on Fire. In 2009, he discovered podcasts and became hooked because he could find the content he was looking for and the content had zero commercials. He started listening to Wall Street Journal and found another unique podcasts to listen to. At some point, he ran out of content and realized that there wasn’t a podcaster who was posting a show once every day and he’s been posting it every single day since September 20, 2012.

Entrepreneur on Fire follows a format for his podcasts and John wanted to hear about the journey of successful entrepreneurs. Every episode starts with a success quote and how they apply that quote to their life. Then he discusses obstacles and failures they’ve had in the past and how they’ve overcome those obstacles. Then covering the AHA moment that turned them into successful entrepreneurs. Then they talk about their current business and what’s exciting them now and their plans for the future and then they have a lightning round which usually consists of five questions that pull out great information and resources for the listeners. The podcasts typically last 25 to 35 minutes.

John Lee Dumas has interviewed over 200 entrepreneurs and one of John Lee Dumas’s favorite interviews was with Barbara Corcoran who is on ABC’s Shark Tank. Hearing her story about how she was living in New York as a waitress and never thinking she was going to be more than that and how she had her AHA moment which led her to becoming one of the most successful entrepreneur’s in America.

The process began for Entrepreneur on Fire in June 2012. He quit his job and went all in deciding to start his podcast. He went down to a conference called BlogWorld in New York City where he met Pat Flynn, Derek Halpern, and Adam Baker who were willing to be some of the first guests for his show. He planned appropriately and had 40 guests lined up and ready to go by the time he launched his podcast in September, 2012.

Consistency has been one of John’s greatest attributes which have helped him build his following. “Fire Nation” has been a group of loyal listeners who have come to expect and appreciate the daily posting of podcasts by John Lee Dumas. As a result of his planning and consistency, he’s getting 175,000 downloads in over 140 countries every single month. Just six months after the idea of Entrepreneur on Fire John was asked to speak at BlogWorld as an expert in podcasting.

John says the most important thing you can do is to have a high level of quality. John has always tried to produce the highest quality of show that he can possibly do. And every episode he creates he produces higher and higher levels of podcasts. So when people come across his podcast they know that the podcast is high quality and that he is someone who is working hard to bring an exceptional experience to them.

When he’s talking about podcasting one example of how he strives to be the best is having high quality audio and the actual content has to be high quality. The guests and the topics have to be valuable to the people who will be listening to the podcasts.

One thing John points out in his interview is the existence of his “Avatar” or the target market for his podcast for John, his “Avatar” is 25 to 45 year old “Wannabepreneur” and they haven’t done it yet, or maybe they just started it. His goal is to help entrepreneurs by motivating them and giving them motivational boosts along the way. If you have a clearly identifiable target market it’s much easier to reach them. Asking for feedback from that group is also a great way to enhance your podcast to make it better.

Entrepreneur’s are very transparent and love sharing their stories about how they’ve overcome mistakes. At the beginning John was very nervous to reach out to entrepreneurs and he learned that it was okay to reach out to people. His big takeaway was that people in the online world are very friendly, welcoming and willing to help.

If you’re interested in podcasting, John Lee Dumas highly recommends buying Podcast Launch by John Lee Dumas. It goes through every step of the procees, it comes with 15 video tutorials, it’s $5 and it’s something John wish he had when he started podcasting. He wanted to come out with a book that was completely transparent about his process and he wants to further the brand of Entrepreneur on Fire by giving away great content and helping others. Right now, it’s the #1 podcast book on Amazon.

One of John’s greatest success stories came from a captain in the Marines who didn’t know he had a story to tell, but because of the podcast he had his own AHA moment who came out with his own podcast called A Dose of Leadership where he interviewed some incredible leaders all over the world. His name is Richard Rierson and he’s interviewed some successful leaders and is having his own impact and he started all because of Entrepreneur on Fire.

From Day 1, John always wanted to turn Entrepreneur on Fire into a business. And set out to become just a podcaster and now that he’s getting close to 175,000 downloads a month he’s getting sponsors who are providing a significant revenue for Entrepreneur on Fire. Once you have a big enough audience people start to take notice. Audible.com, Legal Zoom and SquareSpace.com are currently sponsoring Entrepreneur on Fire. But, John is also able to add books, products and services which have helped create a great income stream.

John’s determination has been his greatest asset. Many people told John that doing one podcast a day was not doable and he had tons of people who were telling him that he couldn’t and shouldn’t do it. John was determined, passionate and was able to take over his niche of providing daily content for “Fire Nation.”

Entrepreneur on Fire

Engaging Discussion Questions:

Have you had an AHA moment? What was it?
Has anyone told you something you wanted to do was impossible? How did you respond?

Links to Great Stuff:

Entrepreneur on Fire – “John Lee Dumas is the Founder and Host of EntrepreneurOnFire, a daily podcast that interviews todays most inspiring and successful Entrepreneurs. EntrepreneurOnFire tells the journey of the spotlighted guest, sharing their early failures, AHA moments, and insight into what is working for them now and why. Every show ends with a 5-question “Lightning Round” that pulls priceless nuggets of information from these incredibly successful Entrepreneurs. Subscribe to iTunes via http://bit.ly/RX3yMa and Prepare to Ignite!”
Podcast Launch – “Have you ever considered creating your very own podcast? Podcast Launch will take you through the entire process, from step one to step done. This book comes with 15 video tutorials where the author, John Lee Dumas, will walk you through the more technical aspects of podcasting. These tutorials will make your podcast experience enjoyable and stress free.”
Barbara Corcoran – “Barbara Corcoran’s credentials include straight D’s in high school and college and twenty jobs by the time she turned twenty-three. It was her next job that would make her one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country when she took a $1000 loan to start The Corcoran Group. She parlayed that loan into a five-billion-dollar real estate business which she sold in 2001 for $66 million.”
Seth Godin – “Seth Godin has written fourteen books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything.”
Tim Ferriss – “Tim has been featured by more than 100 media outlets–including The New York Times, The Economist, TIME, Forbes, Fortune, CNN, and CBS–and has been a popular guest lecturer at Princeton University since 2003, where he presents entrepreneurship as a tool for world change and ideal lifestyle design.”
Gary Vaynerchuk – “Meet Gary Vaynerchuk, a 36 year old New York Times and Wall Street Journal Best-Selling author who is also a self-trained wine and social media expert. From a young age, it was clear that Gary was a businessman. At 8-years-old he was operating seven lemonade stands in his neighborhood and by 10 he had moved onto selling baseball cards at local malls. In high school while working at his family owned liquor store, Gary started reading The Wine Spectator and wine books, and realized collecting wine offered an allure similar to his previous hobby of collecting baseball cards. With a wealth of knowledge and an entrepreneurial spirit, Gary spent every weekend of his college years at his parents’ wine store. Recognizing the importance of e-commerce in 1997, Gary launched Winelibrary.com and helped grow his family business significantly from $3 million to $45 million by 2005.”
Guy Kawasaki – “Guy Kawasaki is the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web, and a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures. Previously, he was the chief evangelist of Apple. Kawasaki is the author of ten books including Enchantment, Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.”
Audible.com – “We’re here to establish literate listening as a core tool for anyone seeking to be more productive, better informed, or more thoughtfully entertained.”
Legal Zoom – “Every year, Americans spend millions of dollars on routine legal needs, from incorporations and trademarks to last wills. Others put off creating essential legal documents because of the inconvenience and high fees. As attorneys, we knew there had to be an easier, more affordable way to take care of common legal matters.”
SquareSpace.com – “Whether you need simple pages, sophisticated galleries, a professional blog, or want to sell online, it all comes standard with your Squarespace website.”
A Dose of Leadership – “Hosted by Richard Rierson, the Dose of Leadership Podcast is the ultimate resource of inspiring & educational interviews with relevant and motivating leaders; real-life leadership & influence experts who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of the truth, common sense, & courageous leadership.”
BlogWorld – “The BlogWorld/New Media Expo Blog is a prolific new media industry news and information site that offers a diverse array of content – covering social media for business, blog, podcast and video content creation, distribution, and monetization, the latest social networking tool, tech and trends –– and also covering topics in all vertical niche areas of blogging (tech, business, parenting, sports, real estate, military, politics, etc).”
Pat Flynn – “I’m Pat. I’m a 30 year old dude from Southern California who makes a living on the internet. I consider myself the luckiest person on Earth.”
Derek Halpern – “I show people how to turn web traffic into leads and sales. And if they’re not getting any traffic, I show them how to get that, too.”
Adam Baker – “At Man Vs. Debt, we hope that by sharing a transparent and honest account of our own journeys to remove barriers – primarily our debt and excess clutter – we can empower and inspire others who find themselves on similar paths.”

Success Quotes:

“Success is the gradual realization of a worthy goal.”
“When you hear people talking strongly against an idea, that means it’s a great idea.”
“Once you have an audience in place, the sky is truly the limit.”
“The mission of Entrepreneur on Fire is to inspire millions.”
“If you want to make millions, you need to inspire millions.”
“The online world is a very friendly place. We are in this huge marketplace where helping people is only going to help ourselves.”
“Help spread the word and get more people motivated and passionate about following their dreams.”
“She definitely flirted with me quite a bit throughout the interview so I definitely enjoyed that.”