On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, we talk all about creating a brand new podcast. My special guest is a recent Best of 2013 iTunes award winner, John Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire. His show is unique in that he broadcasts seven days per week, which takes a crazy commitment!

John has interviewed over 425 people to date and his interviews tell the stories of entrepreneurs who have “made it” in their niche. The stories of his guests are inspiring to say the least and help others out there who are looking to take their own entrepreneurial leap.

I wanted to create this episode at this specific time because at the time of this recording, I’ve been podcasting for almost a full year, and it’s been an extremely rewarding experience.

I LOVE podcasting. It’s opened so many doors for me, introduced me to an entirely new audience, and has allowed me to expand my brand beyond my Facebook trainings.

It’s also given me more confidence in my business and has created opportunities for me that I would not have been given had I not created this show. I highly recommend podcasting to anyone that is looking to expand their brand and take things beyond their blog and website.

This episode is extremely valuable. There are tips for those just thinking about starting a podcast, or just starting out, AND there are some great ideas in there for those that have been podcasting awhile and want to take their show to the next level. So we have something for everyone here!

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• How to get started with podcasting

• How John went from having zero online presence to building a six-figure monthly income

• Tips for those questioning whether or not they have what it takes to podcast

• The minimal equipment needed to start a podcast

• Steps needed to produce a podcast

• How podcasts are found in podcast directories

• The importance of great show notes and how to best utilize them

• How to monetize a podcast

• The importance of intros and outros, and how to get them done well

• What aspects of podcasts you can outsource

• And so much more!

On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, the focus is how to streamline the planning phase of your business so that you get all your goals set so that you’ll be ready for the New Year. If you do so, you can hit the ground running and get your year off to a great start!

As I was planning this episode, I started to wonder how other people -- specifically the people I admire who are getting big results in their online marketing businesses -- actually get things done and how they plan and set their goals. Instead of just wonder, I reached out and asked them! Specifically, I asked Michael Hyatt, Pat Flynn, Melanie Duncan, Chris Ducker and Michael Stelzner how they plan for the New Year.

Take the Time to Focus on Your Business

During this episode, I want you to take this time to really focus on your business. My hope for you is that you actually take these tips and strategies and put them to action right away.

Goal Setting Tip #1: Get Very Specific

Before I get into the specifics of getting very specific, I want you to do a quick exercise.

First, grab a piece of paper and fold it in half.

What Worked in Your Business?

On one half of the paper, write what was great or what worked well for you this year. What got you excited? What did you love doing? What did your customers love? What made you money?

Get really clear on what worked, what didn’t, and what you really enjoyed. This is important because the emotions behind the work you do play a big part in your success.

Before you even you even think about writing down goals for new things you want to do, first focus on enhancing, improving, and optimizing what already worked for you this year.

What I personally realized when I did this exercise is that I need to focus more on what is already working. For example, I already have three successful programs, so instead of creating more programs, I’m going to focus on making the programs I already have even better.

What Didn’t Work in Your Business?

On the other half of the paper, write what needs to improve or what didn’t work. What were the failures? (We all have them!) What frustrated you or stopped you from moving forward? What should you stop doing?

It can be just as important to think about what you need to stop doing as it is to plan for what you want to accomplish.

As an example, I plan to travel and speak less in 2014 than I did in 2013, because I ended up being away from my family more than I wanted to this year and also found it hard to accomplish some of my more important goals since I was on the go so much.

Set Your Goals

Once you’ve done the above exercise, it’s time to set your goals!

Here’s an important goal-setting tip for you: fit all of your goals onto one page. If you write pages and pages of goals, you’ll be overwhelmed, and you won’t likely focus on all of them anyway, so keep your goals simple and concise.

Here’s what to include on one-page goal setting sheet

1. Revenue projections

The first thing on my list is all of my revenue projects, specifically how much money I’m going to make, and where that money is coming from.

While it may seem like revenue shouldn’t be the top goal, my good friend, Stu McLaren helped change my perspective on making money. He says, “Money is a leverage tool for impacting more lives than we could ever reach on a personal level.” I love that, because not only is it important to make money to provide for my own family, this perspective gives me a higher purpose for making money.

Since this is a top priority for a business, it’s important to not only list how much money you plan to make, but to also project how you plan to accomplish that goal.

As an example, for myself personally, I’ve planned out income funnels such as what I’ll make through my programs, through affiliate partnerships, etc. and I have funnels set up inside of Infusionsoft that sends information about my programs in a strategic way to the people on my email list. Being strategic in this way helps me know how most of my income will be generated.

If your business is newer, you may not be able to project the source of your income as well. I couldn’t have done it myself two years ago. But at the very least you can set some revenue goals for different programs, products and services you have.

2. Contributions

In addition to setting revenue goals, it’s important to set goals for the contributions you want to make. For instance, you may set a goal to contribute a certain amount to charity. That’s something I was able to do in a big way for the first time this year. It felt really good to do it and I definitely want to do it in an even bigger way next year.

Another way I want to contribute is to connect more with my customers, prospects, past customers, and peers -- people that I connect with on a regular basis but don’t typically see in real life.

So one thing my team is doing is starting a thank-you card a day campaign. We’re also going to be focused on doing things to wow our customers in unexpected ways. For instance, we may send flowers, or I may on occasion pick up the phone and call someone.

And of course I plan to give a lot in terms of the free content I put out on a regular basis.

So be sure to take the time to think about contributions you want to make, whether that be in a financial sense, or through giving in other ways.

3. My Special Focus

It’s easy to run so many different directions in your business that you fail to accomplish the most important things. Because of this, I actually put, “Podcast Perfection” on my one-page goal sheet.

The reason I chose this is because I’ve completed a full year of podcasting and I LOVE it, but I haven’t focused on it as much as I’d like, so I’m going to make it a big focus in the New Year.

Having a separate section for my podcast on my goal planning sheet helps me to focus on planning goals that are specific to my podcast and figuring out how I’m going to reach those goals.

So think about the big area you want to focus on it and include a section on your goal planning sheet for that specific thing.

4. Focused Foundation Strategies

This is where I’m most specific. For instance, one thing on the Focused Foundation Strategies section of my goal planning sheet is to send out an email to my list every Thursday, and I’ve even blocked out time on my calendar for writing all of the emails for each month.

I’ve also planned out the rest of my content, including everything from blog posts to program updates in a similar way, again blocking out time on my calendar to make sure it happens.

Now here’s a goal planning tip from one of our special guests, Pat Flynn

Write it down, break it down, take it down.

Pat’s goal planning tip consists of three simple sentences:

1. Write it down.

Write down your goals. When you write them down, your goals become clearer and you have something specific to work toward. In addition to this, when you write your goals down, you have something you can visibly see.

2. Break it down.

Take each big goal you’ve written down and break them into mini-goals. Big goals can be intimidating which leads to procrastination. But when you break them into mini-goals, they are much easier to accomplish.

3. Take it down.

Take those mini-goals you’ve written and crush them. Take them down, one by one!

Goal Setting Tip #2: Stack Your Goals

What I mean by stacking your goals is to create your big picture goals and then create a stack of mini goals that will get you to your big goals.

What I need to do from there, there's a little bit more work that needs to be done, I need to stack my goals, make those mini-goals so they'll lead up to the big goals.

For example, if I have a big goal of growing my email list by 50,000 in a year, I need to have some mini-goals such as webinars for list building to reach that goal.

I have some more help with this tip, because the idea of these mini goals seem to be a hot topic with my special guests.

Now a goal-planning tip from another one of my special guests, Chris Ducker.

Focus on one goal at a time.

Chris’ tip is shared in story form and is all about his own experience as someone who went from working 12-14 hours per day in 2009 to becoming a virtual CEO. He did this through focusing on one big thing that he wanted to let go of at a time, with a different focus each month

For instance, the in January 2010, he focused on getting his email under control, and handled by someone other than himself. In February he started hiring people to replace himself in various areas. In March he worked on getting himself off the training floor, and so on.

In his own words, Chris states, “My tip here, really, above and beyond everything else is to set that big goal up for the whole year. What it is, it doesn't really matter. It could be starting a new business, it could be launching a speaking career, it could be producing a new product for a new service for your following online. It doesn't really matter.

But create that one big goal and start breaking it down into mini-goals that you then achieve on a regular basis as the year goes by. It will make you feel good, it will make you feel as if you're achieving something every month, every quarter, whatever the case may be, and ultimately you should go ahead and achieve that main goal over the year as well.”

While Chris didn’t use the word, “stacking,” he’s definitely a fan of the stacking effect where you stack mini-goals to reach the big picture goal.

You might want to try coming up with one epic goal for the year and then creating 12 mini-goals to reach the big goal, and focus on one of the smaller goals each month.

Bonus Tip: Be Very Protective of Your Time!

I want you to get very deliberate on how you spend your time. Everyone I know that's highly successful, including all of these special guests I have on the show today, are very deliberate about how they spend their time. I can promise you that many of them say no more often than they say "yes."

Being protective of your time will help you reach the big scary goals you’ve set.

My next guest, Melanie Duncan provides great insight on the topic of setting big scary goals, and the three types of goals everyone should set.

Melanie starts off by stating that most goal setting books and audios will tell you to set super ambitious goals, and the problem with that is that when you wake up the next morning and look at them, it’s very intimidating.

Because of this, it’s better to set smaller goals and you’ll feel motivated to tackle them. Melanie has learned that when she accomplishes the smaller goals, she feels fantastic and motivated to then tackle bigger things.

A mutual friend of both me and Melanie, James Wedmore says you should set a goal that you’ll hit no matter what, a more challenging, but very doable goal, and a “hairy scary” goal that is way out there. You’re bound to accomplish at least one of the goals, and feel good about it, even if you don’t manage to accomplish the most difficult one.

An important thing that Melanie touched on is the emotions behind the goal. You have to consider how your goals make you feel, because your emotions impact your ability to accomplish the goal.

One thing I personally love doing is picking a word or theme for the year. Mari Smith does this every year. This year, instead of picking a single word, I picked a phrase, “Work less, contribute more.” This is actually a goal of my entire team. We’re going to accomplish this by working smarter and more efficiently.

Speaking of a word or a theme for the new year, Mike Stelzner and his personal planning tip for this episode, takes this to a new level.

His tip has to do with coming up with a company vision statement. Your vision statement can include things that aren’t yet true, but that you are working toward. That was the case for Mike’s company, Social Media Examiner, when they wrote the vision statement a year ago, but today, he can say with confidence that they’ve grown into their vision statement.

Mike has the vision statement taped on the wall in his office, so he sees it every time he sits at his desk. He advises that you keep your vision statement simple and just a couple of sentences long.

I love the way that Mike created a vision statement that pushed him beyond his comfort zone.

Since we’re on the topic of comfort zone, I thought I would end this episode with Michael Hyatt's strategy for goal setting and his thoughts about moving out of your comfort zone.

This one will really push you in ways that will make you uncomfortable, but will set you up to win. Michael states that you should set your goals outside of your comfort zone because that is where real growth begins, where solutions are, and where fulfillment resides.

The trick is to make sure your goals are set high enough, but not too high. Michael suggests taking note of these three indicators to help you know that you’re on the right track:

1. Uncertainty. It’s good to be a little uncertain about how you’re going to accomplish the goal. Embrace that uncertainty, rather than running from it.

2. Fear. Most people avoid fear, and that was the case for Michael as well for a great deal of his life. But fear is an indicator that you’re getting close, and let’s you know you’re heading in the right direction.

3. A sense of inadequacy. In most cases when Michael pursues a goal that he just knows he has to achieve, he feels inadequate. This is going to be the case for anyone who is out to accomplish anything of significance.

After hearing Michael’s tip, I actually had to rework some of my goals because I was playing it a little too safe.

Thank you!

A big thank you to all of my special guests for contributing to this episode. This episode just wouldn't have been the same without him, so big shout out to all of you. Thank you so much for taking the time to send in your goal setting and planning tips.

My Gift to You

The number one thing that I want to accomplish through this podcast episode is for you to be motivated to take action and set goals for the coming year. To help with this, I created a Goal Planning Worksheet just for you. Click here to download the worksheet!

On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, I interviewed Natalie Sisson, also known as the Suitcase Enterpreneur.

In 2006, Natalie left her home country of New Zealand and since then has been traveling the world and living out of a suitcase -- all while building a successful online business.

On her blog, Natalie teaches creative ways to run a business from anywhere in the world, using outsourcing, along with online tools and social media.

She's also written a new book about how to create freedom in business and adventure in life.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• How Natalie started with nothing but an idea and created a successful and profitable Facebook app

• What caused Natalie to cry herself to sleep at night and how she overcame it

• What it takes to make significant changes in your life business

• How to avoid undermining your progress

• How to know your special sauce and how to use it to your advantage

• How to get good feedback from those who know you well

• The two big things Natalie did to launch her book

• Natalie's 30-day blog challenge

• And so much more!

On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, my guest is one of my very favorite people - Pat Flynn.

I know most of you already know Pat, but if you don't, he is a well-known and highly successful online entrepreneur. He is a podcaster, blogger and author and is best known for his transparent leadership style and smart business strategies. He blogs at smartpassiveincome.com and has a
podcast by the same name.

Now there are a dozen topics Pat and I could discuss that would be highly valuable if you are growing an online business - but I am going to do something a bit different with this interview.

About a week ago I saw a Facebook post from Pat where he talked about all the hard work and dedication he put into one keynote presentation he recently did for a financial bloggers’ conference called FinCon. The post is inspirational and demonstrates the mindset needed to succeed, and after reading it I had so many questions for him, I decided to invite him onto the show.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• The importance of focusing on one thing at a time

• What Pat told himself in his head in order for his FinCon speech to be successful

• How speaking can help you in other parts of your life and business

• What Pat does to make sure he stays the course

• How Pat sets big goals and priorities

• What Pat told himself to keep from procrastinating

• What you have to do to make goals real

• How fear is a disservice to your audience

• How to grow your confidence

• Tips for finding a mastermind that's right for you

• And so much more!

On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, I pull back the curtain and give you a peek into the inner workings of my business. I give you the scoop on my team, my favorite tools for building my business, and lessons I've learned as I've built my business.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• Why I had to fire my clients

• The cost of doing what I always wanted to do

• The reasons webinars have been so essential in the success of my business

• Where almost 100% of my income comes from

• How to figure out which opportunities to pursue

• The make up of my team, what they do and the number of hours they work

• The tools I use for my business on a daily basis

• Why moving to better systems results in a mindshift

• The importance of mindset and accountability

• And so much more!

Facebook gives me plenty of opportunity to create content because they are notorious for making updates to their platform!

There have been a lot of pretty significant Facebook changes in the past few months, so on this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, I’m going to cover seven specific changes Facebook has recently made.

It’s important to understand these changes because they can have a big impact on your business and how you market online.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• Overall news feed algorithm changes

• Algorithm updates including story bumping and last actor

• The ins and outs of promoting a contest on your Facebook timeline

• How Facebook hashtags work and why and how you should use them

• My thoughts on Facebook embedded posts

• Facebook ads Lookalike Audiences and how I've used this new feature

• How you can get FREE access to millions of Shutterstock images for Facebook ads

• And so much more!

On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, we're diving into outsourcing and I've invited my very good friend, Chris Ducker, to come on the show and share with us some tips that will help all of us streamline our businesses a little bit more and allow us to break away from that crazy addiction many of us suffer from regularly, which is trying to do it all ourselves.

At one point or another, if you're an entrepreneur starting a business, whether you have a local business, an online small business, or whatever it might be, you probably have suffered from this crazy addiction once or twice in your life, and Chris is going to help us with some very specific actionable tips to outsource more and get the support that we need.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• How Chris went from working 14 hours per day, 6 days a week to being a "virtual CEO"

• What you should NEVER outsource

• The types of tasks that you can outsource and when it makes sense to outsource them

• The right mindset to have when it comes to spending money on outsourcing

• The one easy thing Chris had his VA do that increased his YouTube views by 25 to 30 percent

• Common excuses business owners make for not outsourcing -- and why they're not valid reasons to do everything yourself

• The myth of the "Super VA"

• The difference between a role and a task, and why you should always hire for the role, not the task

• And so much more!

On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, I interviewed Melanie Duncan, the creator of the extremely popular online training program, Power of Pinning. Melanie is also the owner of Luxury Monograms and CustomGreekThreads, both online businesses for physical products.

So she has a great mix of experience and knowledge using Pinterest to promote an online training program, like many of you have listening now, as well as using Pinterest to promote physical products.

For this show I asked Melanie to focus on how to use Pinterest for lead generation in addition to using it to increase web traffic.

If you are a coach, consultant, author, speaker, or a service professional (such as a local marketer or social media manager), then this episode will be extremely valuable to you.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• The secret to the success of Melanie's program, The Power Of Pinning

• How to best use multiple Pinterest accounts

• The advantages that service providers have on Pinterest over those who sell physical products

• The importance of the first two rows on your Pinterest page and how to use them effectively

• How to use "teaser images" to increase traffic and build your list

• Why using tall images is important and how to bring even more attention to them

• How to change a personal Pinterest page to a business page and the advantages of doing so

• The biggest mistakes that online marketers make on Pinterest and how to overcome them

• What ONE action you should take in the next 24 hours in order to increase your effectiveness on Pinterest

• And so much more!

On this episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, I interviewed Rick Mulready. Rick has a really interesting background that includes working for companies such as AOL and Yahoo, but most recently he's been on a journey to share his conversations with the heads of social media from the biggest and most successful brands in the world including Nike, JetBlue, Gary Vaynerchuk, Ford Motors, and many others.

Most recently, Rick interviewed the Boston Police Department's Public Information Chief about the massive role social media played after the recent Boston Marathon bombings.

I invited Rick on the show to talk about what he's learned from these big brands and how we can apply those strategies and techniques to small business budgets. We cover a lot of great tips that run the gamut from content creation to how to promote on social media sites.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

• The importance of going deep with social media.

• How to avoid social media overwhelm

• How your business objectives and goals determine where to focus your social media efforts

• How to find out where your customers are online

• Why you shouldn't chase shiny new objects when they first come out and what you should do instead.

• How to generate leads and sales using social media

• And so much more!

This episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, is brought to you as a direct response to your feedback. Some of you may have seen me post an image on my Facebook Page of two soda bottles. One soda bottle said "Facebook Advertising" and the other one said "Webinars that Convert." I asked, "What do you want to learn about most?" (The soda bottle images were just a fun way to grab your attention!)

A few hundred people responded, and the winner was Facebook advertising, so that's the focus of today's podcast. If you have never experimented with Facebook ads, or if you've tried them but want to see bigger results, this is the session for you.

By the way, if you voted for "Webinars that Convert," that was a close second, and since webinars are truly the #1 way I've built my business, in the very near future I'll record a podcast all about webinars and how you can use them in your business.

But for today I'm going to focus on the questions that I hear over and over again about Facebook ads.

In this episode, I'll give you the scoop on the upcoming changes with Facebook ads and also answer the following questions:

• My ads are constantly getting disapproved by Facebook. What can I do to ensure they get approved?
• How do I know if my ad is working?
• How much do Facebook ads cost?
• How do I find my ideal audience with Facebook ads?
• How can I get bigger conversions with my Facebook ads?
• What's the best type of ad to run for my business?
• And so much more!