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This is a great story of someone who figured out some important life lessons and is now sharing them with everyone else to the benefit of all! First, Elizabeth overcame some big challenges to create a very profitable and successful career, and then she went on to build her own business from there. Significant achievements in their own right for sure. But then she also figured out that so many people were trying to check off items on a bucket list but not really enjoying the process or the time in between. So she came up with the idea of a Living List that is much more in tune with what each individual values and figuring out ways to maximize the time you spend living the life you want. Powerful stuff with a concrete plan to get there!

Being self employed can wear you out! Having more energy, taking care of your personal health and wellness and boosting your energy are going to pay big dividends to any entrepreneur. Catherine has figured out how to make it happen and along the way been self employed for over 20 years, written four best sellers and discovered one of the big secrets to business success is low overhead! Listen to her advice on a number of subjects and how she got started and built her business to where it is today.

This is not a get rich quick method of making money- very few of them are and most of those are not legal! But if you have special knowledge to share with a niche crowd you can build a very loyal audience over time that will come to hang on your every word and more importantly buy your products and services once you start charging for them. This is what Strength Running was built on- it started as a blog about overcoming running injuries and grew into a 200K+ audience of loyal readers who now buy coaching products and personal coaching services allowing the owner to make a full time living from what started as just a passionate side project. And the cost to build this audience was only time- virtually all of the traffic came just from producing top quality original content- a system anyone can follow!

It is a truism of business in general and small business and entrepreneurs in particular that there is never enough time to do everything that needs to be done. So how do you prioritize and get what needs to be done finished while not going crazy worrying about the rest of it that didn't get done? And how can you make the time you do spend on your business more effective so you get more done in less time? These are critical questions for anyone hoping to have a great business that doesn't suck up their entire life. Fortunately, Jeff Sanders has some answers and advice and the way forward isn't nearly as hard as you might think. In fact, making some simple habit changes can make a huge difference! Listen to the podcast then start making some changes!

There are lots of paths to entrepreneurship success, even in non traditional businesses- such as juggling! But if performing and being an entertainer is what you love it can be hard to get enough paying gigs to survive- unless you treat your art like a business and think of yourself as selling a product and marketing it appropriately. I spoke at length with Chris about how he made it work, built his business over time and even ended up performing on the Ellen show! Very cool story and inspiring for any entrepreneur!

So many times we focus on growth by way of getting more customers or clients into the business. But that is only one part of the equation and if you are leaking customers faster than you can get them to come in your are in serious trouble. Add to that the fact that getting a new customer costs way more than keeping a current one and you can see why fixing the customer leaks in your business is crucial. Pamela shared a lot of great ideas on this episode and we even got into a little bit about her podcast the Morning Would which sounds dirty but it really a great way to start the day!

Robbie Baxter is an expert on creating recurring revenue subscription based business models and is here to change the current thinking about what kinds of businesses can use these models. There is a lot to love about this kind of business not the least of which is predictable revenue, higher valuations, bigger lifetime customer value and more referral sales opportunities. In this episode we talk about how this kind of model can be applied to any kind of business, the pros and cons of various approaches and the few cases where this kind of model may not be a great fit. Great conversation and one to consider for just about any business looking to up its game and improve cash flow.

Sometimes there is gold in ideas you had no idea where even a business! John Sonmez turned a hobby blog about helping programmers build better people skills into a full time business by building digital content products to go along with his free content. As it turns out, there was a big demand for this kind of knowledge as many programmers realized that they were good at coding but needed help with the soft skills. It is also useful information for those looking to manage technical folks and for those looking to partner with them. And as an entrepreneur story it really resonates because it was built on a real need that was unmet in the market and which John was able to recognize and capitalize on in a way no one else did. Very cool story and nice to see that level of success from something that started as a bobby!

You can't win the race if you don't know where the finish line is or the hurdles you have to clear to get there! Performance expert Nicky Billou shares some of his tips for getting the most out of everything you do and how to work on setting goals, outperforming your expectations and reaching real milestones in business and in life. If you want more- more growth, more sales, more profits or just more wins in life, Nicky has the plan to get there. It was a great conversation with some real practical tips for achieving success that anyone can put into place immediately.

As a true serial entrepreneur and an "entrepreneur facilitator" Vinnie Fisher knows how to grow big companies from the ground up and how to pick the right people along the way. He is an advocate of outsourcing the things that aren't core to your business, hiring for alignment of values rather than for skills and letting the team build the processes the business needs to succeed. Successful leaders know how to get the right people in the right place and then get out of the way. The ones that struggle are the ones who won't delegate and have to micromanage everything. It was an interesting lesson in fast growth and scaling who has the track record to back up everything he is espousing on the show!

There is no shortage of competition in the small business world and being able to stand out is a constant challenge. If you are a small business selling something that many others in your area also sell the challenge can be compounded that much further. In today's podcast I chat with Kevin who digs in deep on how to break out of the mold and find your own voice. He also talks about how to flip the gratitude switch, the subject of his new book. This is a new way of dealing with employees, customers, vendors and even friends and family that will vastly improve your interactions and the way they in turn react and treat you back. Powerful stuff from an experienced entrepreneur!

I learned a lot in this episode, including how bad commercial salt is for you and how a hostess gift idea sparked a thriving coast to coast e-commerce business selling specialty foods. I had no notion such a product even existed but Kimarie Santiago not only makes her own but has gotten so many people enchanted with her product it can now be found in restaurants, food stores and even in an online meal delivery service. The story of how she got started, the steps she took to build a brand and start selling and where she is going in the future are all covered. I love this story and especially because, like so many great food stories, it starts with selling at a farmer's market- the original entrepreneur launching ground!

Making a million dollars in one business is amazing. Making millions of dollars in multiple industries makes you a true rock star of entrepreneurship! Andrea Lake is a rock star. Even better, she is happy to share her secrets. Secret one is to find someone who has already achieved the kind of success in your industry that you want, get them to mentor you and then shut up and listen. Learn like a sponge, follow the same path and pretty soon you too can be sitting pretty. And even better, once you know this formula, just like Andrea, you can apply it to all different kinds of businesses and repeat your success over and over. Just be sure you in turn are willing to give a hand up to those coming behind!

I love this story because it is such a pure tale of coming up with a brainstorm for an idea one day and turning it into a product and turning that into a product line and then continuing on to a type of success orders of magnitude greater than ever imagined. Noah of istabilizer.com did just and tells us exactly how in this episode. He came up with his own design, found a factory to make it and built it from there into a large and now globally reaching brand across three related niches. It is an inspiring story, all the more so because it features an accidental entrepreneur and one who did it all on his own.

There is a ton of competition in just about every niche out there and the only way to stand out and get seen and heard is to differentiate yourself by owning a small segment of the market you're in. In my conversation with Greg we cover how to find that voice and figure out how to stick out from the crowd in a way that is going to make the key difference for your business. If you own a certain niche in the minds of your customers not only will you grow faster and find it easier to attract new customers but you will also not have to compete on price and you won't be as vulnerable to new competition coming into the space. Any business can do it you just have to make the effort to discover what yours is going to be.

Sometimes the path to being an entrepreneur is smooth but most of the time it has ups and downs and some pretty scary failures along the way. Stephanie Nickolich knows how that goes. She went into big debt in trying to start her first venture but bailed herself out by finding a great mentor and learning how to do it the right way. But she didn't stop there- she took what she learned and leveraged it into a way to help others turn their passion and expertise into valuable educational products they could then sell online to the benefit of all. She's got a great story and it a perfect demonstration of how persistence is one of the most important qualities in any entrepreneur. That, and finding a great mentor!

Starting a great business is as simple as identifying a pain point in the market and stepping in to provide a compelling solution. In the case of Armando and AdEspresso, it just so happened the pain point they found was part of the billion user Facebook phenomenon and as a result their sales took off like the rocket they strapped themselves onto. He shares with the process they went through sa well as some gret tactical Facebook advertising tips and why it can be such a great platform for building any business as long as you understand it and use it the right way. We also covered his path to being a founder, content marketing and general entrepreneurship topics in a fun and informative thirty minutes.

In the old days SEO was easy and pay per click ads were cheap. I miss the old days. Now, things are different and if you want to have a great supply of interested and ready to buy leads you need a content marketing strategy to funnel people into your site. Fortunately, there are experts like Eric Siu who can help make sense of all the options and come up with an overall strategy that will help your business without sucking up all your time. I came away a lot smarter from my conversation and with a much more focused to do list for my own content marketing efforts and I'm sure you will, too.

After a long successful career in the print magazine publishing world Margaret Brown decided to go out on her own and the obvious way to do that was in the digital world. It is almost impossible to start a new print magazine without huge funding and a long runway to wait for profits but in the digital world the opposite it true- you can launch cheaply and survive with a much smaller audience because of the vastly different economics. That doesn't mean it's easy though! I had a great conversation about the challenges of finding a platform, a business model and keeping it all going through rapid growth and the addition of more and more editions. 

You can do your best work if you don't feel your best and studies have shown that working out is a good way to increase your business' ROI even as you spend less hours at the office. Brandon Epstein has taken these lessons to heart and with a partner started a company to help teach entrepreneurs and business owners the science of getting fit to benefit both themselves and their businesses. And it's more than just a regime of healthy eating and lifting weight- his whole approach is to help people become better connected with themselves so they can put the best version of themselves forward. He is a big believer in mediation and finding your right path- and then charging up it full speed!