The Entrepreneur Ethos Blue Wire, Jarie Bolander

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Summary
Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening. 

Now, on to my guest for today, Steve Christensen, cofounder of Neuwly, an app for live-streaming events around the world and a platform for tour guides to connect with travelers. 
Steve and his cofounder Greg believe that when people connect with others from around the world, we all become better for it. While Neuwly originally only provided virtual experiences, it’s building out to become a platform for guides and travelers, to help people explore other parts of the world both virtually and in-person. Steve came to really respect what tour guides have to offer when he went on a tour in Lithuania and realized how much can be learned and experienced when you have someone knowledgeable to show you around. 
Steve sees Neuwly as becoming a place where guides can start to build a following and deepen relationships in order to grow their businesses in a world where both in-person and virtual experiences are in demand. He also envisions Neuwly being a site where people can connect with their “herd,” where they can find out what their friends have done and seen in order to find out more about places they visit. With Neuwly, like many entrepreneurs we’ve talked to, the founders are finding a way to use tech to bring together the best of both the old and the new.
I also wanted to note that Neuwly is raising a round of funding. This is not investment advice or anything like that but I figured I’d let you know just in case what they are doing interests you. Feel free to email Steve at hello@neuwly.com.
Now, let’s get better together.
Actionable Insights

One aspect that stands out when speaking to Steve is the simple clarity of Neuwly’s mission: to help people connect from around the world, because it makes for more compassionate, more empathetic people. The founders are passionate about their belief that learning about other cultures is vital to making the world a better place. 

Look ahead. While participating in live-streaming events is one way people can connect and learn while travel is restricted, Steve is also building the platform for what comes next, offering a way for guides to build a following and advertise their events for real-world experiences, too. 

Links to Explore Further

Neuwly

Neuwly on Instagram

Steve Christensen on LinkedIn

Get in touch at hello@neuwly.com



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Summary
Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening. 

Now on to my guest for today, Michael Epstein, principal at PostPilot, a marketing company that’s helping e-commerce use direct mail to scale their businesses. 
Michael has years of experience in digital marketing, having worked with a variety of big companies. In many of them, though, direct mail was always part of the equation. What he and the founder of PostPilot realized was that there needed to be a way for e-commerce to use direct mail more efficiently. Currently the company offers postcard campaigns for e-commerce companies to encourage customer retention and loyalty. 
Michael explains how direct mail can be part of a company’s strategy to retail customers who are inundated with emails and online advertising. Direct mail allows a brand to reach out in a more personalized way, and it’s an approach that’s been reliably successful. They are now working on developing more tools to help businesses scale while retaining personalized outreach strategies.
Now, let’s get better together.
Actionable Insights

Don’t discount the importance of customers who have already bought from you; be creative in figuring out ways to reach out to them. By developing a strategy to keep customers, not just attract them, you’ll get ahead of the competition.

The advantage of using direct mail? Postal charges are the same, whether it’s holiday season or whether you’re mailing to a specific demographic or not. While direct mail can be more expensive than email, when done right, it can be more effective.

If you’re wondering if you should make the jump into entrepreneurship, ask yourself: If not now, when? Michael says that we can always find an excuse, so in most cases, the time is now. And if you fail? It’s all part of the learning process. 

 Links to Explore Further

PostPilot

Michael Epstein on LinkedIn 

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Co-founders Ravi and Jarie talk about how they came up with the Story Funnel Framework that hit 7 figures of revenue in ~12 months and then doubled that after 6 months.
You can give the method a try for free at https://thestoryfunnel.co
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Summary
Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening. 

Now on to my guest for today, Dalton Jensen, author of Sales Genius and  host of The Thinking Project.
Growing up, Dalton was the kid who was selling candy on the playground. He sold neckties on the street corner. And while he was voted “Most Likely To Be a Con Artist,” his approach to sales is not about the con, but about establishing relationships. 
In this episode Dalton and I talk about misconceptions around salespeople and the importance of checking your ego. Dalton’s mantra is “passion not pressure.” He teaches salespeople to ask questions up front to find out your competition and what reservations the customers have.
He has taken a lot from the book Never Split the Difference by hostage negotiator Chris Voss, who recommends always asking questions first to find out as much as you can to establish a rapport with the person on the other side of the table and learning what concerns they have. Also key is having a lot of possible leads; knowing you have potential customers in the pipeline enables you to walk away and handle inevitable rejection. Dalton further points out how asking potential customers if you can ask questions helps ease the friction, and 99 out of 100 times, they’ll say yes.  
Now, let’s get better together.
Actionable Insights

Become resilient to inevitable rejections. Dalton uses a Stoic technique of imagining possible rejections before the sale to train yourself to be more resilient. 

Ask these two important questions up front: Who is my competition? What would prevent you from buying? 

Don’t slam the competitor. Instead, focus on educating the customer about differences your product or service offers over others. 

 Links to Explore Further

Dalton Jensen 

Dalton Jensen on LinkedIn

Dalton Jensen on Twitter 

The Thinking Project on YouTube

Sales Genius E-book

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Summary
Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening. 

Now on to my guest for today, Ryan Warriner, a communications professor, founder of Professional Presentation Services and author of the forthcoming book The Effective Presenter: The Winning Formula for Business Presentations. 
Ryan’s pitch to me was so good I used it as an example in a webinar on pitching, so I knew he was someone I needed to have on the show. I share that pitch in the show. 

Ryan’s interest in understanding how to better communicate is rooted with his own feelings of frustration when he was a kid with not being understood. He went on to study and try to understand the principles of effective communication, earning a PhD and becoming a professor. While visiting friends who had founded a startup, he helped them prepare their presentation for potential investors. From there the ball got rolling as he realized he had valuable insight to offer. He now offers his services helping entrepreneurs and professionals prepare better presentations. His research and findings are put together in a forthcoming book, The Effective Presenter. 

Ryan walks us through the keys to preparing and delivering presentations. Listen to find out how you can prepare a more effective presentation, be it for a potential investor or for colleagues at the office. 

Now, let’s get better together.
Actionable Insights


One of the most important things to do when preparing a presentation is to think about your audience. What are their values and interests? What are they interested in knowing more about? Do your research and also try to put yourself in their shoes. 

Figure out what you want your outcome to be. Do you want investors to ask for that second meeting? Do you want people in your company to better understand a concept? This will help guide your organization of ideas. 

Use devices like introductions, providing roadmaps, and talking through transitions to diminish how much effort listeners have to put into it. Listeners have limited capacity to absorb information, so you want to make it as easy as possible. Be sure to check in and assure people that some of the content may be harder to grasp so they get the message that they might need to pay closer attention. 

Don’t rely on your presentation slides; use them as aids. Limit how much text you put in each one. 

Practice, practice, practice. Warriner also recommends mentally rehearsing your talk, and going back over it to see if there are words that can be cut out. 

 Links to Explore Further


Ryan Warriner on LinkedIn

Professional Presentation Services


Ryan Warriner on Thrive Global 

Book - The Effective Presenter

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

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SummaryHey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening. 

Now on to my guest for today, Mario Nawfal, founder of NFT Technologies. 

Mario may not have the “Midas touch” but he’s certainly discovered some of the secrets of growing successful businesses. He started out selling blenders by knocking on doors in 2012. There he honed his skills in how to effectively walk potential customers through a sales funnel, from getting their attention, having them try the product, then selling it. His company hit seven figures in the first year, and grew exponentially from there. He believes one of the keys to success is timing. That doesn’t mean everything he’s tried has been a phenomenal success; he’s had some failures too. Four years after launching his first business, Mario started GoGlobal, the precursor to what is now the Athena Group, a consulting services group that helps companies scale and grow. 

Mario’s latest venture, NFT Technologies, is now getting ready to go public, the first of its kind to do so. NFT invests in and creates businesses in the metaverse space that specialize in cryptocurrency and NFTs (non-fungible tokens). The metaverse, he explains, is an alternate digital reality space, with huge potential for growth. The metaverse now is what the internet was to the 1990s. Mario sees huge potential in this space over the long term. 

Now, let’s get better together.

Actionable Insights


Mario advises trying a lot of different things until you find what works. 

Good timing is one of the most critical predictors of success. Mario relies a lot on studies and evidence - the facts - when he’s making decisions; this type of research can also help figuring out what might be timely. 

When asking for advice, look for people who are self-aware and humble. Mario explains that someone who is self-aware knows the limits of what they know; someone who is humble will acknowledge when they’re wrong.

 Links to Explore Further
Mario Nawfal on LInkedIn


NFT Technologies

Athena Group


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