May 17, 2014
Welcome to the SuccessLab Podcast episode #2. In this episode, I talk to Entrepreneur magazine editor Stephen Bronner about trends he’s seeing in entrepreneurship, what drew him to Entrepreneur magazine, and how to pitch ideas to him.
I’ll also delve a little deeper into buyer personas taking off from last week’s podcast. We’ll talk about some ways to actually gather audience insights, particularly when you don’t have one already built up to survey or dig into to find information.
Interview with Entrepreneur magazine editor Stephen Bronner.
Buyer personas: Last week I briefly discussed the importance of creating buyer personas and the difference it can make when trying to sell to your audience, motivate them to read a blog post or even sign up for your newsletter. As powerful as they are, many get stuck on how exactly you find the information necessary to put together an accurate persona, especially if you don’t already have an audience to cull for insights.
This week’s Biz Hack: If This Then That or IFTTT. Chances are you’ve heard of it, but if not, it’s essentially a web service that allows you to automate a lot of your web functions. For instance you can set it up for simple tasks like automatically cross posting all of your Tweets to Facebook, or images on Instagram to Twitter. You can also automate certain iPhone apps as well as your email. It’s really a robust tool and really you’re only limited by your imagination when coming up with recipes, as they call them. One I’ve been playing with recently is sending Instagram photos with a specific tag or taken near a specific address to a designated Dropbox folder. This let’s me see Instagram users who are talking about a specific subject and who are frequently in the area. This could be valuable for restaurant and shop owners who could then begin to, in a non-creepy way, engage with these users.
Quote of the week: “If things start happening, don't worry, don't stew, just go right along and you'll start happening too.” ~ Dr. Seuss.
My action item: Complete the Wired PR handbook. What’s yours? I’d love to hear yours. If your comfortable doing so, leave your action item here or call it in here. I’ll be sure to hold you accountable.
Finally, I wanted to talk about Hell Week. I got into CrossFit style workouts last year when I tried out a few workouts at a gym in my neighborhood called SICFIT. It’s challenging, but I love it. This week is Hell Week. It is absolutely voluntary to sign up and essentially involves 2-a-days for 5 straight days. The first workout is a military style workout at 5 a.m. or 0500 hours. It’s meant to push you to your limits and test your strength physically and mentally. Needless to say, I’m pretty exhausted, but so far I’m loving it. It’s amazing the skills these types of physical exertions teach - leadership, confidence, the power of a team working together, and not to sweat the small stuff. At the end of this week - if I make it through - I will interview our coach and owner of SICFIT Luke Kayyem about how all this plays into running a business and how to harness it. So be sure to tune in next week and wish me luck. Cheers and here’s to a prosperous week.