Archives for September 2018

September
18, 2018

10 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Scott Oldford has been a million dollars up and down. In just a few years, he created a seven-figure business to get himself out of six-figure debt. Then he quit it all to serve a higher purpose, relearning who he was, and finding the love of his life along the way.

Blowing up the business.

Oldford owned multiple companies by 19-years-old. But despite his wild success, he suffered a major setback at age 21 which put him almost a million dollars in debt. Oldford clawed himself out by building several businesses using his secret sauce: online lead generation.

Oldford’s business was earning $300,000 to $400,000 per month. He taught his methodology to other six- and seven-figure entrepreneurs via information products and one-on-one coaching. From the outside, he’d found his sweet spot—he had skills that people were willing to pay a premium for. Yet he was deeply unfulfilled, often working 80-hour weeks and choosing money over freedom.

Oldford’s Toronto office as he clawed his way out of nearly a million dollars of debt.

Image Credit: Scott Oldford

“I struggled to wake up every morning for nine months,” Oldford says. “At night, I’d smoke weed and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to be emotionally sedated. I had what most would consider ‘freedom,’ but I felt trapped in the prison of my own business. I constantly thought about shutting it down.”

Then Oldford attended The Baby Bathwater Institute in September 2017. “Have you ever had a moment that changed everything and your entire world flipped on its head?” he says. “That’s what happened to me that weekend after hanging out with other brilliant entrepreneurs.

“I had this epiphany that I shouldn’t be selling information. My mission was to serve entrepreneurs to their highest potential, but I’d become disconnected from that calling. What if I just helped 100 entrepreneurs, but in such a deep way that their businesses completely transformed?”

Oldford, just before he blew up his seven-figure business.

Image Credit: Scott Oldford

Oldford told his COO to shut down the company. Four days later, he left Toronto to become a digital nomad and never returned. Three weeks later, he met his future wife.

From falling in love to self-love.

Libby Crow was an entrepreneur who was introduced to Oldford’s work through a friend. After connecting, they ended up in Venice Beach, Calif., together.

“I had to remove my glasses because I was sweating so much. I didn’t even know how to talk to her,” Oldford says, reminiscing about their first date over tacos. “I knew she was the one.”

“I was shaking,” Crow says. “I walked around the block awkwardly after hugging him goodbye because I didn’t know what to do with my energy. I felt this intense connectedness—like I’d known him forever, which I’d never experienced before.”

Oldford and his wife, Libby Crow.

Image Credit: Scott Oldford

Oldford says that up until this point, he didn’t know how to love himself so measured his self-love against his business accomplishments. “Libby helped me see that my worth was tied to who I was, not what I did,” he says. 

When asked about falling in love, the air audibly drains from Oldford’s body; his voice jumps up an octave like he’s inhaled helium. “It’s the highest level of happiness and fear. You lack control from opening your heart and having a mirror reflect your shadows. I emotionally awakened and found a more evolved version of myself.”

The entrepreneur’s dilemma.

Shortly after meeting Crow, Oldford was living in Malibu, Calif. Each day, he jumped into his rented white Audi R8 for a drive in the mountains with no phone, music, or destination.

“I had the headspace and time to reflect. For the first time in my life, I was a human being after years of human doing.” Oldford then realized the problem with entrepreneurship.

“We sacrifice ourselves for money and ‘freedom,’ but betray ourselves and those we love in the process. By the time we get that money, we’ve forgotten how to do the things we wanted to do. After making those sacrifices, the irony is you might not like the person you become.”

In early 2018, Oldford started attending 10 hours of weekly therapy to “relearn who the hell I am.” He jokes that his therapist is the cheapest of the many mentors and coaches he’s hired.

“Maybe we don’t have an identity,” Oldford says. “We create one at some point, assume the identity and play an alter ego. I don’t know if we’re ever truly ourselves.

“We have so much going on in our heads but no idea what’s going on! We become entrepreneurs because of our ego and drive for significance. Many subconscious thought patterns stunted my growth, like tying my identity to business success and feeling unworthy when I failed.

“I’ve noticed that successful people have open belief systems. I’m not attached to my beliefs. I’ll discard them if they no longer serve me.”

Oldford realized that selling information online didn’t fulfill him because it didn’t achieve the same results as mentoring. “I lost count of how many entrepreneurs ignored my advice. They should be millionaires but aren’t. All the information you need to build a multi-million dollar business is online—for free. So why aren’t we all driving Lamborghinis? Our mindset.”

Oldford had discovered his purpose: Empowering others who have a massive purpose so they can accomplish it.

The ROI Method.

For Oldford, helping other entrepreneurs starts by teaching and helping them implement the ROI Method. It’s about being Relevant, Omnipresent, and Intimate (ROI) with your target audience. He wrote an article about the methodology—“How to Become the Coca-Cola of Your Industry Practically Overnight”—and it blew up.

“Online marketing has always been one dimensional; most just go for the kill,” Oldford says. The ROI Method is about providing long-term value with “micro content” and works on any digital platform.

Oldford’s ROI Method has helped over 150 entrepreneurs scale past seven figures since 2015.

Image Credit: Scott Oldford

“Relevancy starts with the right message to the right person. Show your audience that you understand their problem and that you can take them from where they are to where they want to be. Over time, you can change their beliefs.

“With the right timing and frequency, you can activate the ‘frequency illusion’ where people feel like they see you everywhere. We’re all in our online bubbles. You can ethically become a celebrity to a thousand people; the big fish in a small pond—that’s omnipresence.

“You create intimacy by forming a community—underpinned by your mission and values—through genuine connections and conversations in person and online. When they have a problem that you can solve, they only think of you. There’s no ‘shopping around.’”

Oldford runs his company with only two salespeople. “People don’t ever have to ‘be sold’ because working with you feels like an opportunity—they’re so in tune to seeing that you’re the authority. It’s the highest level of pull-marketing.”

With this battle-tested method, Oldford has helped over 150 entrepreneurs scale past seven figures since 2015, and more than half of them have exceeded multiple seven figures. He says it improves retention, referrals, engagement, and how much you can charge—thus building wealth, influence, and fame.

This creates a “Nuclear Effect” that unleashes a chain reaction of exponential growth in your business. For example, Oldford was offered the opportunity to speak for $55,000 but declined “because it didn’t make sense financially.”

Going nuclear.

Oldford redesigned his business, starting with hiring serial entrepreneur Zion Kim as CEO to scale his operations. In March 2018, they launched Project Nuclear, a business accelerator that helps entrepreneurs who are generating $50,000 to $250,000 a month and scale far past that. The inner circle of over 70 elite entrepreneurs includes social media superstar Amanda Bucci, publishing titan Tucker Max, personal freedom coach Preston Smiles, Todd Herman, creator of the 90 Day Year and Gerard Adams, who co-founded EliteDaily.com before selling it to a multi-billion global corporation.

Project Nuclear’s mission is to solve the problems of the entrepreneur so they can solve the problems of the world. The program attracts those who are successful but remain “blissfully dissatisfied” because they want to accomplish a higher purpose. It also helps members eliminate the self-sabotaging thoughts that plagued Oldford’s early career and led to his debt crisis.

Project Nuclear is on track to generate $1 million monthly recurring revenue before winter 2018 and projects that it will be responsible for helping create over $400 million in revenue for those in the program by the end of 2018. “No one has ever done this before: create a growth accelerator with full operational support—from strategy to leadership, sales, and finance—to scale high-six-figure and seven figure businesses to eight figures so quickly,” Oldford says. Most high-growth companies are around 20 percent annual revenue growth, according to the Kauffman Index. What worked before won’t take your business to the next level, he says.

“If you compare two people, the most successful isn’t necessarily the one who works harder; it’s typically the one who was mentored by the right person.”

After being in the business trenches, Oldford guides his members up the mountain he’s traversed—without sacrificing freedom or happiness along the way. “I don’t just help them make money; I help them do what they love.”

Oldford at home in Venice Beach, Calif.

Image Credit: Scott Oldford

From hustle to flow.

Since reconnecting with his purpose and scaling his team, Oldford is more successful than ever. He learned the hard way that being wildly successful doesn’t mean anything if you sacrifice your soul along the way.

These days, he has an open calendar, is eating more intuitively, and has lost 40 pounds in six months. His skin is brighter. His eyes sparkle when they connect with Libby’s at their home in Venice Beach. Together, they created The Daily Shift to close the entrepreneurial mindset gap.

Oldford and Crow who are business and life partners.

Image Credit: Scott Oldford

“I look to the future and ask, ‘Who do I want to become?’ to shape who I am today,” Oldford says. “If we did that a little more, perhaps we’d be better and happier.”

With a new book on the horizon in 2019—called “The Nuclear Effect”—the future is bright. 

Connect with Scott on his website, Facebook and Instagram. Apply to implement the R.O.I Method in your business here.

September
17, 2018

3 min read

While celebrity-endorsed spirits have been big business ever since Sean “Diddy” Combs partnered with Ciroc vodka in 2007, George Clooney’s reported $1 billion payday for selling off his Casamigos tequila last year brought the trend to a whole other level. This year alone, Ryan Reynolds bought Aviation gin, Bob Dylan and Metallica both announced brand-new whiskies, and now Conor McGregor is launching, appropriately enough, an Irish whiskey.

It’s called Proper No. Twelve, and the name is derived from the MMA champion’s childhood home. “I come from a suburb called Crumlin, in Dublin 12,” he explains via press release. “It’s a place dear to my heart. It’s where I learned how to fight; it made me who I am today.”

Related: 8 Reasons a Powerful Personal Brand Will Make You Successful

McGregor is the founder, chairman and majority owner of the company.

Image credit: Proper No. Twelve

McGregor took a hands-on approach to developing the liquor, in partnership with the world’s oldest whiskey distillery, Eire Born Spirits. “We created close to one hundred blends,” he explains, “and ultimately selected what we knew was the one and only proper whiskey blend.”

Related: Need a Business Idea? Here are 55.

A blend of golden grain and single malt, Proper No. Twelve is produced in an area known for its rich soil and pure spring water. The company characterizes the taste as “complex and sophisticated yet smooth and approachable with hints of vanilla, honey and toasted wood.” We tasted a sample sent to the Entrepreneur offices, and this description is spot-on.

A supporter of first responders, McGregor has committed to donate $5 for every case sold to local first responder organizations/charities, up to $1 million annually. “First responders all over the world are the unsung heroes who act with courage and answer the call of duty every day for people in need,” he commented.

Related: 6 Critical Steps to Succeeding in an Untapped Industry

Proper No. Twelve will be available in McGregor’s homeland of Ireland and the United States this month.

September
16, 2018

2 min read

Companies and organizations are getting their hands on our data and using it for a number of reasons we don’t even know about. Luckily, there are a number of things you can do to minimize your presence online and protect your privacy, without having to ditch the internet.

Related: No One Is Safe From the Data Breach Epidemic (Infographic)

For starters, turn on incognito mode in your web browser. This disables the tracking tools in your browser and prevents websites from collecting your personal information. You can also block third-party cookies — cookies are small pieces of data that enable information about you to be remembered by external sites.

Related: How You Can Protect Your Business From Online Threats

If you’re a social media user, you’ve got a 46 percent higher risk of an account takeover or fraud compared to non-social media users. So it’s important to set specific settings for your posts. For example, on Facebook you can limit access to your future posts to make sure they are only visible to your friends. You should also update your privacy settings to hide your personal information from your pages so random people can’t access things including your email address or phone number. Lastly, make sure to block external apps from accessing your personal data.

Related: 12 Tips to Protect Your Company Website From Hackers

To learn more about hiding your personal information and protecting your data, check out Cashnet USA’s infographic below.

September
15, 2018

2 min read

From social media to banner ads and SEO, there are a number of ways companies market their goods and services. However, the most trusted source is usually from a person’s friends, family or colleague.

Related: Top 3 Ways for Building a Word-of-Mouth Business

When people hear about something from someone they trust, they’ll instinctively trust that recommendation. In fact, word of mouth is so impactful that half of Americans would prefer it over any type of marketing. Eighty-three percent of Americans said they’ve made a word-of-mouth recommendation — 55 percent said they make recommendations at least monthly and 30 percent said they make them weekly.

Related: 5 Ways to Maximize Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Many people assume that social media is the best way to get the word out about a business. But according to research by Talk Triggers, Americans value word of mouth 41 percent more than social media when it comes to recommendations. However, these numbers can vary by industry. Half of Americans rely on word of mouth when it comes to choosing a restaurant. The events industry also heavily relies on word of mouth — when planning a wedding, recommendations from friends is 331 percent more likely to be relied on than advertising. People also depend on word of mouth in politics. During election season, millennials are 115 percent more influenced by word of mouth than by advertising.

Related: How to Get Influencers to Drive Your Word-of-Mouth Marketing 

To learn more about the power of word of mouth, check out TalkTriggers.com’s infographic below.

September
14, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

If you thought you’d seen it all with ecommerce content marketing examples, the ones you’re about to see might just leave you in awe — and ready to reconsider your own strategy.

Related: Add These 12 Content Marketing Tools to Your Startup’s Arsenal

You be the judge of that. But the task itself is important because ecommerce businesses are taking the bull by the horns with content; 60 percent of those polled in a Content Marketing Institute study in 2017 said that they would be taking content marketing more seriously going forward.

It would seem, in fact, that B2C (ecommerce) marketers are now becoming more committed to this marketing channel than those in B2B — among whom content marketing has long been popular.

So, here are six remarkable ecommerce content marketing examples you can emulate for your online store:

1. Mercedes-Benz

Content marketing is all about creating free content that your audience loves, with, of course, the end goal of growing your revenue.

Mercedes-Benz’s content marketing efforts showcase how much the brand goes all out to create content for its audience. For instance, the brand has pretty much nothing in common with fashion blogger/influencer Leandra Medine, a.k.a. The Man Repeller, considering that the former sells vehicles. But, for its, audience, Mercedes nevertheless partnered with her and created a video along the lines of A Day in the Life of the Man Repeller.

Image credit: The Man Repeller via YouTube

In this video, The Man Repeller goes about her normal day sharing experiences about her daily routines — something Mercedes Benz’s customers might want to see.

The catch here is that she drives around in a Mercedes, so the company is promoting its brand without making it feel like a full-on commercial. And this isn’t something the car brand does as a one-off marketing effort, as its YouTube channel is dedicated to drawing its audience’s attention by presenting high-quality, interesting content.

Related: How Content Marketing Can Help Your Company Do More For Less

2. JetBlue

JetBlue is a popular American airline that’s making waves on social media through its impressive content-marketing strategy.

With more than 1.3 million,1.9 million and 290 thousand followers, respectively, on its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, JetBlue is undoubtedly doing something right to gather such an impressive following.

Image Credit: JetBlue via Instagram

On its Instagram page, for instance, it engages its target audience — people who love to fly/travel — by posting content that appeals especially to them.

A prime example is JetBlue’s weekly #DestinationFriday post, which typically includes high-quality pictures and videos of destination cities with travel tips from the airline’s crew members, along with an engaging question presented to the airline’s followers.

3. Etsy

Etsy is an online market that lets shoppers buy and sell handmade crafts, as well as vintage and unique items. Like the other ecommerce brands mentioned here, Etsy makes content marketing work, using, for example, a Facebook page, Etsy Success, focused on engaging with its seller community.

The online marketplace posts tips on how to run an Etsy shop successfully, shares success stories from other sellers and hosts giveaways.

Image Credit: Etsy via Facebook

Posts like the one above don’t include any sales pitches but provide what Etsy’s target audience members might want to know: what it’s like to be an Etsy seller and how Etsy can help them run an online shop.  

4. The Elephant Pants

The Elephant Pants is an online store that sells fashionable harem pants, among other things. The people behind this ecommerce store pride themselves on the comfort of the pants they sell, but what really drives them is their amazing heart — their passion for saving wild elephants from extinction.

In this context, they’ve tailored their content-marketing strategy to engage and educate customers about their mission in a fun, interactive way — using quizzes, for instance. An example is the “How much like an elephant are you?” quiz.

Image Credit: TheElephant Pants.com

A fun quiz like this drives engagement among Elephant Pants’s target audience — animal/elephant lovers — and keeps them entertained on the website without prompting them to specifically make a purchase. This is what a good content marketing strategy looks like.

5. Airbnb

Airbnb , without question, has become a household name within a short time, and this success is due partly to its excellent content-marketing strategies.

The brand is famous for providing affordable short-term accommodation, for people on vacation.

 

Image Credit: Airbnb.com

Because of its niche market, Airbnb prioritizes providing valuable and relevant content through, for instance, its guidebook. This is very unique in the sense that it provides relevant information from locals in different cities — information like the best places to eat, drink or shop.

Airbnb’s ability to consistently produce such valuable content for its target market is what makes it one of the fastest-growing brands in the travel industry.

6. Adidas

Popularly known for its sports apparel, Adidas is another big brand taking a unique approach to content marketing by, for instance, taking its marketing to B2B platforms like LinkedIn. Even though LinkedIn is best known for B2B businesses, the professionals on the platform are consumers, so Adidas uses this to engage with its target audience:

Image Credit: Adidas via LinkedIn

The post above is a perfect example; it draws Adidas’s audience’s attention by teaming up with a yoga influencer who is also an Adidas athlete. The post doesn’t prompt users to buy any Adidas products but gives its audience insight into the life of its employees and thus promotes its brand.

Start making ecommerce content marketing work for you.

It is evident from these examples that content marketing boosts ecommerce revenue; you just need to know what types of content your audience members want and the topics they need education or entertainment on.

You can go as far and as deep as you want, digging out audience data, finding out what content topics and types these customers want and doing whatever it takes to crank out data-driven content they’ll want to see.

Related: 7 Habits of the Most Successful Content Marketers

Remember that stat I mentioned earlier about the ROI from multi-channel marketing? You can generate at least a 38 percent increase in revenue when you use more channels for your marketing. So, the better your content, the more you’ll be able to attract target customers to your store. In fact, your content marketing can get to be so good that you also gain offline customers because they see your content online.

So there you have it: some clever examples you can learn from to take your ecommerce content marketing game to the next level. Did I miss any of your own favorite brands?

September
13, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Dreaming of turning your tiny SaaS startup into a mega-company with millions of users? Sometimes that goal might seem impossible to attain unless you spend a ton of money and grind away for years. But, take heart: By experimenting a bit with growth hacks, you’ll likely reach goals faster than you ever imagined.

Related: 5 Growth-Hacking Secrets for Your SaaS Business

Growth-hacking has allowed a ton of founders and developers to achieve crazy growth. That’s how you can emulate Airbnb, Hubspot, PayPal and Quora and boost your customer base quickly and effectively.

Take a look “outside the box” at some of these creative, low-cost ways to get your product in front of users. Here are five growth hacks for SaaS businesses.

1. Implement a referral program.

What do you trust more, an ad or a recommendation from a friend? For the majority of consumers, a recommendation from a friend is more convincing and meaningful. That’s why implementing a referral program for your SaaS business is one of the most effective growth hacks for increasing the number of signups on your platform.

Uber famously handed out $20 for customers who referred their friends to the service. But if you’re a startup and don’t have money to spare, you can offer something else of value like DropBox did. Dropbox saw a tremendous amount of growth by giving away free storage for referring friends.

Not only will implementing a referral program get your SaaS company more signups, but it also encourages your current customers to be more engaged and keeps them coming back to your platform again and again.

2. Develop a content marketing strategy.

Content marketing has always been essential for driving organic traffic but it can also lower your user acquisition cost. Creating educational, engaging content for your target audience is a low-cost way to build brand trust and easily convert readers into customers.

Buffer App came out at a time when there were a ton of other social media tools on the market but they set themselves apart by creating lots of stellar content. Now Buffer App is known as much for its blog as it is for its software.

Remember to optimize your blog posts for buyer keywords. Developing a content marketing strategy that will allow your content to guide consumers through each stage of the buyer’s journey will prove to be a continuous source of leads and conversions for your SaaS company.

3. Join an affiliate marketing site.

Wouldn’t you love it if a top influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers endorsed your SaaS company? That can happen if you join an affiliate marketing site. Affiliate marketing is a great growth hack for your business to grow your customer base and increase brand trust. It’s also low-risk; you only have to pay your affiliate partners when they make a sale for you.

Bluehost has many top bloggers as affiliate partners. For instance, Elna Cain, a popular blogger, writer, and coach, recommends Bluehost to her many readers and offers them an exclusive offer for signing up with the service.

You can join a third-party affiliate site like ShareASale, which is one of the largest affiliate platforms out there with a giant network of affiliate partners. By joining a popular affiliate site, your company will get more exposure and be able to connect with more top affiliates in the SaaS industries. Having an army of online influencers endorsing your business will boost brand awareness and drive high-quality traffic to your site.

Related: How to Market Your SaaS Business

4. Implement a retargeting pixel.

Users who check out your site and leave without purchasing or signing up are probably gone forever and you’ve missed out on the opportunity to convert them. But if you implement a retargeting pixel, you can convince those abandoning visitors to return to your site and buy.

After a user has left your site without taking your desired action, a retargeting pixel will “follow” him or her around the web, on Facebook and Google, and offer targeted ads to gently push this person back to you.

App Annie uses a retargeting ad that offers a free signup to tempt consumers to return to its website and sign up.

Related: 5 Growth-Hacking Secrets for Your SaaS Business

By showing retargeting ads to users who have already expressed interest in your website and company, you have a high chance of changing their minds and turning undecided users into loyal customers.

5. Let users try before they buy.

With so many SaaS products vying for the attention of consumers, you need to offer more in order to entice people to buy. People want to know what they’re going to get before they reach for their wallets so offer a limited-day free trial to users.

Rafflecopter even lets users test drive its giveaway software right on its website; you don’t even need to sign up to play around with the features it offers.

Once users get a taste of what your product can do and how it will help them, it will be easier to turn them into paying customers.

Related: The Definitive Guide for Growth Hacking (Infographic)

Combining your hustle with an effective growth-hacking strategy will bring your SaaS startup big rewards. So, don’t wait any longer; jump-start the success of your SaaS business today by experimenting with these simple growth hacks.