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How to take a risk, right now.   Survivor, SNL, slinging granola – what do all these things have in common? Brendan Synnott joins us for a conversation this week about his entrepreneurial journey. It’s more expensive to take a risk over time, he says. He and a friend grew Bear Naked, a granola company, from zero dollars and craft markets to $50 million and eventually sold it to Kelloggs. Discover what Brendan learned from growing the granola business and the importance of transparency between company and customer. Listen now.   The post From Zero to $50 Million and Beyond with Brendan Synnott appeared first on StartupCamp.

How one man went from milking cows in Oklahoma to changing the culture at Disney World It was a long journey from his family farm in Oklahoma to opening Disneyland Paris and shifting the corporate culture at Disney in Orlando, but Lee Cockerell did it. How? He wasn’t afraid to try new things. A good education is one thing, but making a point to expose yourself to new ideas, different people, and exotic locations will only make you more resilient. Now, Lee is a speaker, podcaster, and author of four books including, Creating Magic: 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney. When you’re resilient, you can handle anything. Listen now.     The post Exposure Makes You Bigger with Lee Cockerell appeared first on StartupCamp.

 How to discover what you stand for—and communicate it to the world.   He’s helped successful Shark Tank pitchers, TED talk speakers, and $100,000 winning Tech Week presenters refine and nail their message. And it all started with a love of public speaking and connecting directly with people in the audience. Brian Burkhart is the author of Stand for Something, and is here to talk about the nitty-gritty of communication and clarity of purpose behind your budding brand. Your actions are dictated by your beliefs, Brian says, and the best brands communicate what they stand for. He pulls no punches here—it’s not easy to uncover what you stand for. Fortunately, in our conversation today, he shares some insights to make the journey a little smoother. Discover the mic-drop question that will help you think deeply about your company’s beliefs, why conviction and connection are the two most important elements of public speaking, and a discussion on being secure and insecure in the entrepreneurship world. It doesn’t matter if public speaking is a large part of your business. Mastering communication, or at least improving your skills, will help connect you with people who will believe in your brand. Listen now.   The post How to discover what you stand for—and communicate it to the world with Brian Burkhart appeared first on StartupCamp.

How to build your business and scale it beyond you   Marketing. Homeopathy. A beauty salon. Jewelry manufacturing. Scuba diving. Allison Maslan has done it all—she’s successfully built and scaled ten businesses from the ground up, and today, she’s here to help new entrepreneurs do the same with her book, Scale or Fail.  Discover why many entrepreneurs are unable to scale their businesses, why growing your business doesn’t necessarily mean going the wholesale route, and creative ways to march to your own drum. No matter the industry, the principles of growth and creating an impact remain the same. If you’re working harder than ever at growing your business and not seeing the impact you desire, this is the conversation for you. Listen now.   The post Multiply Your Impact with Allison Maslan appeared first on StartupCamp.

 How Eli Crane took Bottle Breacher from his garage to Shark Tank – and beyond   Eli Crane didn’t always want to be an entrepreneur. While he was a Navy SEAL, he received a unique bottle opener as a gift, which inspired him to create his own .50 caliber shell bottle openers. His fellow SEALs loved them, and inside his garage, Bottle Breacher was born. Eli takes us through his journey, from auditioning for Shark Tank to the realities of navigating an immensely successful deal. Discover how the SEALs saying, “Crawl, Walk, Run” resonated in his entrepreneurship, why being inflexible can be your downfall, and why going too deep can ruin your perspective. Listen now.   The post Crawl, Walk Run with Eli Crane appeared first on StartupCamp.

How to grow your side hustle into a full-time gig – the smart way.   Jonathan Mendonsa never wanted to be an entrepreneur. So he spent twelve years becoming a pharmacist, racked up six figures of student debt, and became miserable. That’s when he started plotting his escape, and fell into the financial independent movement – by starting the ChooseFI podcast. Now, he’s escaped debt and lives his dream and wants to share his knowledge with you. Discover the importance of plotting your escape before you make the leap into entrepreneurship, why knowing how much your life costs gives you power, why loyalty can make or break your business, and how to monetize your podcast the right way. Listen now.   The post Plot Your Escape with Jonathan Mendonsa appeared first on StartupCamp.

How to start your business – by focussing on the right thing. The biggest mistake beginner entrepreneurs make is by focussing on the wrong aspect of their business out of the gate. Purpose, practice, and profit are all well and good, but you have to start with–you guessed it–people, says Brian Dixon, business coach, and author of Start With Your People. Discover why you should build a “runway” with your family before building your business, how to repair burnt bridges from ages ago, and stop looking for your dream team, because they’re already working for you.    The post Go Fix What’s Broken with Brian Dixon appeared first on StartupCamp.

How to grow your business in a never-ending world of change How do you play a game with no finish line? Simon Sinek, author of Find Your Why and Leaders Eat Last is back again with his newest book, The Infinite Game. The big idea? You have a finite time to play in the never-ending landscape that is business. It’s not about finding short-term wins – it’s about setting your business up to outlast yourself and everyone else. Simon talks about the five principles to help you play the Infinite Game: Just Cause, Trusting Teams, Worthy Rivals, Existential Flexibility, and the Courage to Lead. He also shares why your Just Cause has nothing to do with what you’re selling, the single greatest tell of a good leader, and where true courage comes from.   The post Develop Your Infinite Mindset with Simon Sinek appeared first on StartupCamp.

How to create long-lasting buzz for your business and turn your customers into salespeople Back in the early days of the internet, Jay Baer served as the vice president of marketing for an internet company without really knowing what the internet was. He sold Budweiser dot com for fifty cases of beer. He went on to found five multi-million-dollar companies and write six New York Time Bestselling books, including Talk Triggers. Jay teaches that to create natural buzz and interest in your business, you must do something operationally different that makes your customers rave about their experience with you. A gimmick – but not just any gimmick – one that relates to your customer and is relevant to your business. You want your customers to tell their friends, “So the coolest thing happened to me today…” Jay explains the difference between talk triggers and going viral, the golden handcuffs that might be keeping you at your day job, and why competency doesn’t create conversation.   The post Implementing A Word Of Mouth Strategy with Jay Baer appeared first on StartupCamp.

Strategies to speak to investors and elevate your sales game How do you talk to money? The same way you talk to anyone else – you have to speak the right language. Oren Klaff, venture capitalist and author of Pitch Anything and Flip the Script, is here today to help us understand the underlying thought processes and strategies to being heard by investors. He says, if you put the correct idea into someone at the beginning of the conversation, it’s far easier to close the deal at the end. Discover the art of the “status tip-off”, aka, how he went from mistrusting a high school student valet to handing him the keys to his car in sixty-five words, why you should show your technical competency in a “flash roll”, and how to erect a dome of rules for the conversation, to help guide a person to your desired result.    The post Speaking The Language of Money with Oren Klaff appeared first on StartupCamp.

How one woman raised her children AND built three, multi-million dollar businesses If you are a parent, you may have heard someone say, “Enjoy every moment while it lasts.”  Lindsay Teague Moreno never fully bought into the idea that, as a mother, you should enjoy when your kids are throwing a temper-tantrum. Not only did she want to feel what she wanted to feel, but she wanted to make her dreams of running a business a reality – all while being a stay-at-home mom. In just a few short years, she managed to build a seven-figure income, all while staying true to her personal vision and beliefs. One of her secrets? Ditch the plan B. Put yourself in a place where you’re so emotionally connected with your offerings that it lights your hair on fire. Lindsay Teague Moreno’s newest book Boss Up explores ten philosophies to help any entrepreneur improve their game and achieve success. We go deep on the power of storytelling, the “unsales” tactic for those who don’t enjoy selling, and advice for entrepreneurs who are hesitant to begin their journey.  The post Light Your Hair On Fire with Lindsay Teague Moreno appeared first on StartupCamp.

How one man bootstrapped his business to $30 million – and sold it to become an angel investor. Although David Hauser had an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age, when he co-founded Grasshopper (then GotVMail) in 2003, he realized he had a lot to learn about running and scaling a business. But the biggest lesson he learned in the twelve years he ran Grasshopper? Every time David’s attention shifted away from Grasshopper to start a new business or chase a new idea – Grasshopper suffered. Keep your focus, he says, even when you have the urge to chase that shiny object. In the long run, you’ll be thankful. Now, David is an angel investor and the author of Unstoppable: 4 Steps to Change Your Life. In this episode, we discuss paid marketing versus organic content (and how David advocates for small businesses), what he looks for in a business as an angel investor, and the importance of screening your new business for employees that share your core values.   The post Keep Your Focus; Become Unstoppable with David Hauser appeared first on StartupCamp.

How one man created a game-changing Amazon software business Greg was stuck in a cubicle writing engineering reports. He was a civil engineer, after all. Yet his whole life, he’d had this entrepreneurial drive. He started by googling “how to make money online” and eventually began selling on Amazon. He got extremely good at it. So good, he started tracking Amazon product data in spreadsheets – and discovered a pattern that made him hit home-run product launches nearly every time. This excel sheet formula became Jungle Scout, a product data aggregator for Amazon that helps sellers find potential successful products to sell. Learn about Greg’s transition from corporate life to traveling the world and starting a software company (even though he’s not a developer!), why “profit over passion” is an important business motto, and why you need to pick one marketing strategy right now – and stick with it. Listen now. The post Focus and Become Great with Greg Mercer appeared first on StartupCamp.

How Rachel Cruze found her passion and took responsibility for her future As the daughter of Dave Ramsey, Rachel Cruze didn’t have a typical childhood. She learned how to budget at age nine, and when she was a teenager, someone at Ramsey Solutions had the bright idea to invite Rachel on stage at a weekend live event to be the spokesperson for a line of products aimed at kids. That would frighten most – but Rachel learned that public speaking was her passion. She continued to make speaking part of her life by following in her father’s footsteps and creating her own brand all about preventing debt, becoming debt-free, and family budgeting. She’s the host of the Rachel Cruze Show, a YouTube channel and podcast devoted to saving and budgeting. In this episode, Rachel tells us what it’s like to grow up under the wing of a successful entrepreneur and shares her passion for helping others. Listen now. “I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, there’s just this belief that they can do anything and they can control their life.” In the Ramsey household, Rachel grew up with the mindset that she could pursue whatever passion held her interest – but if she wanted to create her own business, she was responsible for it, as the business rises and falls with you. Entrepreneurs, she says, have this grit that propels them to create their own change instead of just living with what they’ve been dealt. “In the name of being more sophisticated, it lost some of the hearts.” Rachel wanted to refine her video creation process. Although she was used to and enjoyed the spontaneity of coming up with topics and speaking off the cuff, she decided to start writing scripts and change her delivery style on camera. She even brought in a teleprompter. The result? It wasn’t working. The very thing she enjoyed about speaking in front of a camera – the spontaneity – was lost in this new process. She had to re-examine what worked and remove what didn’t while still delivering a professional product. “People crave authenticity.” On video especially, people can sniff out insincerity, Rachel advises. That’s why it’s all the more important you speak or write about a topic that’s close to your heart. Don’t be afraid to be a little vulnerable with your audience. The post Don’t Lose Your Authenticity with Rachel Cruze appeared first on StartupCamp.

How to negotiate with anyone, from a former hostage negotiator From small-town Iowa to lead international FBI kidnapping negotiator, Chris has taught negotiation as a business skill at universities across the U.S. It’s through these teaching sessions that he developed a comprehensive, practical methodology, which eventually became his book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As if Your Life Depended On It. Today, Chris joins us to share powerful pieces of negotiation wisdom that you don’t have to be an FBI agent to utilize. These effective, easy to understand tactics can work in your business and personal life and are especially helpful for entrepreneurs who feel like they’re always getting the short end of the stick. Listen now. “It’s what you say versus what they hear.” Think about the phrase, “How am I supposed to do that?” Your tone can dictate the mood of the phrase, but what it’s really saying is, “I can’t do that.” Said gently, the person on the other side of the conversation will realize you can’t budge on that particular point. The objective of “How am I supposed to do that?” – an easy phrase to incorporate into your repertoire – is to get the other person to see your perspective on the problem. Once they do that, it’s easier to move them to a solution. “There’s something more important than the deal itself.” A control-oriented negotiator is a vulnerable negotiator, Chris says. You can give your opponent “control” of the situation by telling them that they are in charge if they care more about that then the actual deal on the table. Once you give them what they want, they may defer to you for the next step. After all, it doesn’t matter who came up with the idea – as long as you don’t care who gets credit, anything is possible. “That’s right.” The two most powerful words you can get the other person to say? It’s not “You’re right.” It’s “That’s right.” When someone says, “You’re right,” they can easily dismiss you. “That’s right” comes in when you’re agreeing emphatically with a point. Chris shares a strategy to help the other person say these two powerful words to you. Chris emphasizes that it’s not about getting to yes in an exchange. It’s about mastering the intricacies of the “no” so you can get what you want. The post The Art of Negotiation with Chris Voss appeared first on StartupCamp.

How one man found and dominated the business podcasting market After returning from his tour in Iraq, John Lee Dumas fell in love with podcasts, and especially podcasts that interviewed entrepreneurs. But he would binge all the episodes and would become dismayed when he’d run out of content. He saw a market for a podcast that brought fresh entrepreneurial perspectives every day. That’s how Entrepreneur on Fire was born. Now, John Lee Dumas (or JLD for short) makes six figures a month on his podcast and lives it up in Puerto Rico. He shares a snapshot of his journey and drive to create a successful podcast. Listen now. “I had to have trust and faith that my daily shows were building to something.” For 2,000 days, JLD posted an episode – that’s nearly five and a half years of daily content. But, for the first nine months, his podcast barely made any money. Remember that nine months of daily content is nearly three hundred episodes. And weekly podcasts would only put out fifty-two episodes a year. After nine months, he felt the momentum grow, and after thirteen months, he’d reached his tipping point. “Your podcast is going to fail.” If you’re just out to copy a successful podcaster, you’re probably going to fail. Remember that JLD started his podcast because he was willing to do something no one had ever done before – release an interview with an entrepreneur every single day. You have to operate in what JLD calls the “Zone of Fire”. Essentially, the place where your passion AND your expertise meet. JLD offers free podcast courses on how you can create your first podcast, but, if your heart isn’t in it, it’s going to show. As an aspiring podcaster, you might be tempted to play it safe with your questions when you have a guest on the show. JLD shares his number one question to ask a guest to get them off-message and engage with them on a deeper level. The post Your Podcast Is Going to Fail with John Lee Dumas appeared first on StartupCamp.

How to recognize and cultivate healthy relationships to sustain you and your business Business can be a lonely place…  And people will suck you dry if you’re not careful.  Fortunately, Dr. John Townsend has a solution, and it’s all about building more positive relationships. He’s a business consultant and psychologist who directed a healthcare company for a decade and worked often with business owners who suffered from depression and anxiety.  He wrote his new book, People Fuel: Fill Your Tank for Life, Love, and Leadership, to help leaders and entrepreneurs like you ensure you’ve got the right people in your corner, cheering you on. Listen now. “The biggest problem with entrepreneurs? Too big a vision…You’re going to have to prune things you love.” There are three things you need to succeed: vision, follow-up, and healthy relationships. Even if you have the first two and you don’t have the latter, success is going to be difficult to achieve, Dr. Townsend says. According to his research, people fuel our brains. Just as our bodies need bio-nutrients to survive, so our brain requires relational nutrients to sustain itself. Meaning: healthy relationships give us energy. Unhealthy relationships take away energy. “We’re being fed by them, we take that from them, and we give it back to them.” Who are the gains and who are the drains? You’ll have to take a hard look at the relationships in your life and figure out who sustains you – and who drains you. Every relationship falls into what Dr. Townsend calls the 7 C’s: Coaches, Comrades, Casuals, Colleagues, Care, Chronics, and Contaminants. The bottom three you have to avoid, as much as possible, while seeking the top three to create your “life team” – a group of people who you can support, and who offer support in return. “The person you have not forgiven controls you.” When you have been wronged, you might be fuming and sitting around waiting for the other party to approach you and apologize. But, that may not happen. Dr. Townsend says that when in doubt, provide or receive forgiveness – because the alternative can be all-consuming. Dr. Townsend unpacks so much more for us about how to be happy, productive, and fulfilled at work. Check out the podcast now. The post Prune What You Love with Dr. John Townsend appeared first on StartupCamp.

Why keeping the customer happy is the not-so-secret key to success When he was eleven-years-old, living in a small German town, he proudly told his parents he would someday own a hotel business. They were concerned, as that was not a respectable career choice at the time. At 14, he took a position at the closest luxury hotel, nearly 100 km away. This isn’t a hotel we could ever stay at, his parents told him. This hotel is for very important people. On his first day, the maitre d’ told young Horst Schulze, “Don’t come to work every day. Come to be excellent in what you are doing.” At first, he was confused. What was so excellent about cleaning floors and washing dishes? Yet, after watching how the Very Important People who stayed at the hotel treated the maitre d’ as if he was the most important person in the room—he realized that excellence. And deciding to be excellent was the secret to his success. Horst Schulze went on to co-found the Ritz Carlton and authored Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise. This interview is perfect for the startup entrepreneur, as Horst does a deep dive on his thought process behind creating a luxury brand that serves the customer better than the competition. Listen now. “People talk about service, but they have no process for it.” There are three subconscious desires that every customer wants when they make a purchase, regardless of industry, Horst says. First, you want the product to be defect free. Second, you want it when you want it, regardless of time limits. And, lastly, you want the people who give it to you to be nice to you. Yet, it’s not just about following these three basic steps. You have to have a vision for where your company will be in ten years. You should make a detailed list of twenty ways you are going to deliver your product or service better than the competition—and then have everyone in your company, no matter how menial the role, focus on this list. “Don’t get carried away with what you think is right.” When plastic cards became the leading-edge replacement for physical keys, Horst became excited. After all, in his mind, it was a more secure system. Yet, at first, his customers hated the idea. Why, they asked, do I have to use cheap plastic as a key to enter my luxury hotel room? Just because something is leading edge, it doesn’t mean you need to adopt it immediately. You, as the business owner, know the benefits. But, the customer needs time to adjust to new technology and changes. There’s value, he says, in being just behind the curve. Horst offers practical advice for entrepreneurs who strive to be the best in their industry—regardless of industry. The post The Beautiful Art of Service with Horst Schulze appeared first on StartupCamp.

How to take charge of your decision-making Annie Duke was so close to receiving her PhD in psychology. Yet a chronic illness left her in the hospital, unable to work. Having a knack for poker, she decided to try playing professionally. During nearly twenty years as a professional poker player, she won millions of dollars and holds a World Series of Poker bracelet. Now, she’s a consultant, speaker, and the author of Thinking In Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All The Facts. As an entrepreneur, you’ll make thousands of decisions – and you’ll rarely have all the facts. Some will be life-altering and others will have no impact. Annie Duke helps us navigate the decision-making process so you can move forward with confidence, even in uncertainty. “We have this battle between the person who we are right now and the person we want to be in the future.” There are many reasons we make poor decisions, but one reason is that we only take short-term gain into account. That’s why we have to be time-travelers—in a manner of speaking, Annie says. Taking a moment to think, “What would Future Me think say about this situation?” could change what you do today, at this moment. A large source of frustration is probably a blip to your future self. The idea of this exercise is to give yourself some much-needed objectivity. “You should wrap your arms around [uncertainty] and give it a big ol’ hug.” The power of “I’m not sure” might surprise you. First, saying, “I’m not sure” isn’t the same as, “I have no idea.” You probably know, based on your best guess and your values, what you will do after listening to this podcast episode. By leaving room for some uncertainty, you’re opening your mind up to alternate paths and decisions. By the same token, having complete certainty in your beliefs can be limiting. If you only seek out information that confirms your beliefs, you’re missing out on potentially valuable information from an opposing side. You’re never going to be 100% certain. But if you’re certain enough, that should be enough. “Why am I here?” You can do the math and make your decision tree (she explains how in the episode) to get clarity on your position. But all of that may not matter if you don’t know how you got to where you’re at. You have to carefully consider emotional angles as well as logical ones when you’re weighing decisions—one of the reasons why a pros and cons list won’t cut it for decision-making. The post Make Better Decisions Now with Annie Duke appeared first on StartupCamp.

How to actually work on and in your business without becoming discouraged Co-founder of Behance, Scott Belsky, kept a notebook called “Essential Insights” handy during meetings and phone conversations with creative entrepreneurs. Whenever he’d hear something poignant, he’d jot it down, with the intention of putting it into practice in his business and personal life. Flipping through the pages and realizing he’d collected 860+ insights, he started to organize them into categories (Endurance, Optimization, The Final Mile). Through this framework, his book The Messy Middle was born. Here at Startupcamp, we often focus on how to start a business. You may have heard or read a lot about entrepreneurs selling their businesses. But what happens in between? How do entrepreneurs sustain their creative drive and their motivation to continue, even when things seem bleak? Scott Belsky speaks to the silent struggle of entrepreneurship: the day-in, day-out battle of keeping your business alive and well. It’s a must-listen for any would-be entrepreneur. Listen now. “The competitive advantage of most start-ups is sticking together long enough to figure it out.” How many times have you seen a budding entrepreneur post on social media that they’re starting a business, and six months to a year later, the thought pops into your head: what happened to so-and-so and their startup? When you’re working towards a long-term goal, Scott says, you’re suddenly at odds with the short-term rewards system on which the nine-to-five world operates: getting paid every two weeks, bonuses at the end of the year, perhaps a scheduled vacation or days off. People fool themselves into thinking a long-term goal can sustain them on a day-to-day basis, when that may not be the case. The solution? You have to create your own short-term milestones and celebrate them, no matter how trivial they may seem. You have to create a culture where people show up, even if it’s an act of love. “Great teams are made by developing a process or way of being that is constantly optimized.” Optimizing the right aspect of your business is part of scaling—but how do you know what to optimize? Scott says it’s not about fixing what’s broken. Instead, if something works, improve it. Make it the best it can be before improving anything else. It’s not just about A/B testing what color on a button drives the most conversions. It’s about A/B testing systems within your business, too. “Part of the job of the entrepreneur is to accept the burden of constantly processing uncertainty.” Even on his honeymoon in Thailand, part of Scott’s brain was back at his office, worrying about his team and the finances. He says that like a computer dedicating 20-30% of its RAM to maintaining the operating system, you too will have a portion of your brain always thinking about your business and worrying about its future. Success corrupts, Scott says. When people start receiving attention, they stop paying attention. You can sustain your business only if you remain aware of the opportunities surrounding you. The post Staying Motivated in Your Business with Scott Belsky appeared first on StartupCamp.