I know that I've talked a lot with you about webinars this year. The fact is that I've been learning a ton about them myself, and every time I learn a new technique or crack the code on a revenue-boosting system, I can't help but pass it on to you!

This week, though, I'm doing something a little different. Rather than walk you through a step-by-step system, I'm going to focus with you on one very specific strategy that I learned from Tim Paige, the host of the podcast Conversion Cast and the leader of all LeadPages webinars.

Today is all about an engagement strategy that I've just begun applying it to my webinars. I’ll be sure to let you know how it's going, once I really get it off the ground. But I'll be completely honest with you: it's a little awkward, in the beginning. I've done a lot of webinars, and I still am finding my sweet spot.

The thing is that Tim, in addition to being a pal, is a true webinar ninja. This man has done 410 webinars to date! (Who knows--he may be up to more, by the time this episode airs.) No joke--his application is pending for the Guinness Book of World Records for most webinars done in a 12-month period. This is a guy who really knows the ins and outs of webinar success.

So when he tells me this strategy is worth working through, I believe it!

Listen to the full episode to get all the details on this amazing strategy from Tim Paige.

You can also check out Tim putting this revolutionary engagement strategy into action--just click here to join his latest webinar.

We all know how important engagement is for our webinars. There's nothing worse than crafting and delivering a dynamic, informative presentation only to hear crickets during the Q&A.

Scratch that--there is one thing worse: delivering your presentation and seeing only a faint dribble of sales by the time you log off for the day.

What you're looking for is that special spark that sets fire to your content and gets your audience fired up in response to it.

Early on, I wanted to test the idea of taking every opportunity I could throughout the process of presenting a webinar to look over in the questions box and start answering questions live as we went, as long as they were relevant and weren’t off topic.

I'd say this strategy is well worth trying, wouldn't you?So how does this work? If you're like me, you may be already thinking about how taking questions in the middle of your presentation will interrupt your flow. What if the questions make me get ahead of myself? Am I allowed to not answer questions if they aren't on topic? How is this supposed to work with replays and automated webinars?

...And just what is it about this strategy that makes it so incredibly powerful?

Listen to the full episode for all the answers--it's a short but intense masterclass on a single technique that is a true webinar game changer.

Do you want to see Tim’s webinar engagement strategy in action? Click here to check out his special LeadPages webinar and pay close attention to when and how he asks questions and engages with his audience.

As you are building up your business and starting to see some solid success, sooner or later you're going to arrive at a certain point.

A point where you, as the founder, brand visionary and chief hustler, cannot do everything alone.

This is the moment where you need to hire some people.

Not just anyone will do, of course. You need to build out a dream team inside of your business so that you can spend more time in your areas of genius, the areas that you really excel, the areas that you love to spend time in where your skill set is the strongest, so that you can make a bigger impact for your audience and on your bottom line.

There is nobody I know who is better at this dream team creation thing than my friend Melanie Duncan.

The first thing you should know about Melanie is that she runs a multiple-seven figure empire. In other words, she's an authority on this whole online entrepreneurship thing.

The second thing you should know is that the ways she's developed her business are, in large part, the result of her amazing hiring system. She has a process for hiring that is extremely unique--it takes quite a lot of effort and focus, but it's allowed her to find amazing people that are the perfect fit to support her business. And let's be honest, when you love the people you work with, everything seems flow a whole lot better on all fronts.

But what's even more to the point is how her hiring system has also changed her perspective on hiring. I’ve seen her go through the transition of hating to hire to absolutely loving the hiring process. And as we all know, loving an IMPORTANT process you used to hate is a cornerstone of achieving the success you want.

If you're ready to dive into Melanie's amazing system, click here to listen to the full episode now.

Below, I've got the bullet-point version to get you primed for what you're about to learn.

• Make a Dream Team List

  The first place to start is identifying what you need/want help with. Melanie says not to start with your limitations--instead, imagine what positions you'd create and fill if money, time and managing were no objection.

  "One of the harsh realities of being a business owner is you end up doing a lot of the work that you really don’t want to do. And just because you can be doing everything in your business doesn’t mean you should be doing everything."

• Create a Revenue Goal

  This anchors your hiring to a concrete need for your business. Your revenue goal lets you know what you need from the new position, how soon you need it, and how much you can invest into it up front.

  "A lot of times the growth of your business is correlated to adding more people to your team. A lot of times your business will grow as you grow your team because it starts opening up more bandwidth for you to be focusing on the things that only you can do and really excelling at them."

• Hire with a Sales Page

  When you're looking for top-level talent, you need to create a top-level advertisement to attract them to the position. Melanie's "help wanted" ads are as beautiful, polished and persuasive as any sales page she creates for her products and services. This is what draws the right people to apply for her dream team.

• Hire to Fit

  It sounds elementary, but you really need to find the right person with the right skills and the right attitude for your position. In other words, you can't simply hire an amazing person and adapt them to the role. An exceptional person in the wrong position will only end up frustrated...and so will you.

  By contrast, when you take the extra time and make the hard decisions, it pays off like you wouldn't believe.

  "When you get the right people in the right positions incredible things are possible."

  Wondering how long the process should take? Cringing at the thought of sifting through resumes? Want to know how to spot a truly stand-out candidate from the crowd? Get all of Melanie's detailed insight on how to hire people for your dream team. Click here to listen to the full episode now!

Over the last few weeks on this podcast, we’ve been doing some intensive tactical trainings.

We’ve talked about adding upsells to your sales promotions, adding bonuses, when to add them. We’ve talked about the mindset of list building, and then we’ve gotten really specific about what you need to do to build your list.

Today I want to step back a little bit and look at the big picture and look at our team and how we’re running our business and setting things up. I thought there was no one better to do that than my new friend, Dale Partridge.

You probably already know Dale, either from Sevenly (the company he founded that became one of the fastest growing social-good startups in history), or from his many keynote speeches and feature interviews on the topic of doing business with integrity, or maybe from his recent book People Over Profits.

Dale is a creative leader whose mission is to influence an industry to rethink the models of how we do business today. And I invited him on the show today to help you (and me) learn about how to set a solid foundation for our long-term success.

One thing Dale's book really dials into is the importance of recognizing the pivotal moments in our businesses when small decisions could have major impact.

Dale went into business for himself at 18 years old...which means that even though he's still a young man, he's old in entrepreneur years. Within that time, he says, his whole mindset around business shifted from making major profits to making a major difference in people's lives.

"In the search for purpose and meaning I wanted to create a company that was more than just putting money at the bottom line. It wasn’t until I really shifted my thinking from how to make a million dollars to how to help a million people that really pushed me into business."

This is the core of Dale's "people over profits" message . . . and what I really want to stress in today's episode is that it's never too early in your business to think about how you're prioritizing people against your profits.

When you're in the early years of building our business, you're all too aware that every interaction in every business relationship matters. You're hyper-focused on bringing real, personal value to your customers with your unique talent and expertise, because you know that it's the key to your success.

But Dale points out that greed, dishonesty and customer contempt are not relegated to big corporations . . . that's just when they get caught in a big way. It's super important, he says, to set the foundation of your business integrity in these early years, while you're small, and learn how to self-correct in those moments when it's easy to make small compromises.

"I don’t want to be the most successful person that nobody respects or that nobody trusts. And I don’t want to create the biggest company that has great products but people don’t really connect with it."

Dale has done some impressive research on the most successful companies (and the ones who fell the hardest) of the past century. According to his research, the companies (and leaders) who really stood the test of time have seven core beliefs in common:

• People matter.
• Truth wins.
• Transparency frees.
• Authenticity attracts.
• Quality speaks.
• Generosity returns.
• Courage sustains.

Listen to the full episode to hear Dale explain more about how these principles show up in online business practice, and how we can train ourselves to build businesses that uphold them.

"Whatever your dream is, make sure you crush on it because it’s not about you, it’s about them."

In the end, Dale says, our businesses' potential for growth is dependent on the integrity we build into our relationships with clients, vendors and colleagues. It can take real courage to honor a long-term relationship over short-term convenience. But that kind of courage is what creates a brand that really stands the test of time.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

First of all, can I just be a little corny and express my gratitude for all of you? It's hard to believe we're up to 85 episodes of the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast . . . and with those episodes have come lots of free weekly giveaways, 17 interviews with the biggest names in online business expertise, 1.6 million audio downloads. Oh, and one very exciting mention on MSNBC as a Top 5 Online Business Podcast!

I am truly thankful for each one of you in this little community of go-getter entrepreneurs. Every time you opt in, leave a Facebook comment, write a review of the show or share this podcast with your friends, my heart is genuinely touched. Nothing makes me happier than to know that what I'm sharing is valuable and helpful to you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Whew! Okay, on to business.

Today’s episode is all about . . .

Before I list them, a disclaimer: these are not little one-off tasks that you can incorporate in a few days. Sometimes I share "quick-win" strategies with you, but this week I wanted to go a little deeper with you. These are big-picture lessons that grew organically from my own journey as an online entrepreneur.

Because these are big lessons, I definitely don't want you to try tackling all of them at once. (I'm talking to all you overachievers...I know you're out there and I want you to give yourselves a break this time, okay?)

Instead, I want you to mull these over and see which, if any, really resonates with where you are in your business right now. If you feel like one of these could make a huge difference in your business, then by all means take that deeper dive. There are lots of resources on this blog that can help you devise a strategy to grow in each of these five areas. (In this week's episode, I mention specific past episodes where you can find more information--click here to listen.)

1)  Masterminding and finding a business coach.

I know I’ve already talked about this inside a different episode and I’ll link to that as well. But I’m going to share some more insights that I’ve never shared before about masterminding and finding a mentor.

A big thing I learned from my mastermind group was the power of webinars. You've heard me talk about this before, but maybe you've never really taken the plunge to learn about how you can use webinars to hit that five-figure mark in your business. For this week's freebie, I'm once again offering my webinar training, where I share exactly how I do webinars and how you can do them in your business.

2) Finding your marketing vehicle sweet spot.

This one is about platform. I’m going to show you what it looks like in my business and how it made such a huge impact. Then I will give you some actions to start investigating this in your business.

3) My partnership.

You may or may not know that I actually have a business partner. I’ve never really talked about him much, and I want to share with you how that happened, when it came about, why it came about, and what it looks like in my business (if you’ve ever thought about maybe adding a partner to the mix). This one will be really transparent. I’m going to share things I’ve never shared before, but I think it's time for me to talk about it. Click here to listen now.

4) Affiliate partnerships and my philosophy around affiliates.

Again, I’ve talked about this in past episodes but I’m going to put a little more personal slant on it in this week's episode, end give you some tips to build you own affiliate partnership strategy.

5) Consistency.

If there is any marketing lesson I need to be even better at and really focus on more and really take seriously, it’s consistency. We’re going to talk about that, what it looks like, and how we can add more of that to our business.

As I look back on my past 6 years in business, I feel incredibly thankful for these lessons, as they have shaped my professional and personal life tremendously.

Don't forget, if you want to learn how to create a five-figure webinar (even if you don't have an email list) you can sign up free for my webinar training. Click here to sign up now.

If one of these lessons really resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it! Talk to me on Facebook or Twitter and tell me which one you’re going to focus on.

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone. Thank you for being part of our tribe.

Mastermind Opportunities:

Each of these mentors have offered mastermind opportunities in the past but their masterminds might not be currently accepting new members at the moment. Do some research to learn more about each.

James Wedmore's Inner Circle
Jamie Tardy
Jeff Walker
Fabienne Fredrickson
Victoria Gibson's Breakout Success Mastermind
The Shine Academy
Natalie MacNeil's Conquer Club
Leonie Dawson's Glow Academy

Welcome to the second half of our intensive "refocus on your list" training!

I hope you completed the short questionnaire from last week, because this week we're really building off those questions to get where we need to go. If you haven't done it yet, click here to download it and take just 10 minutes to complete it. (It's only 3 questions--super easy.) I promise, it will free you up and cultivate the right mindset to accomplish the goal for today's episode, which is ...

For those of you who might be new to the show, lead magnets are any free, valuable giveaway that you offer your audience in exchange for their email address.

To create a good lead magnet, of course, you need to know what your tribe wants and needs from you. Having it be a decent trade-off for the email address is just not going to cut it. You want your audience gasping "Wow! I can't believe he/she is giving this away for free!"

Let me say this loud and clear: Do not be scared of giving away your best stuff for free.

I give away my best information all the time! (I'm doing it right now, as you might have noticed...and I give away even more on the full episode of today's podcast.) It doesn't hurt my bottom line at all, because in my paid products and programs, I dive much deeper and train much more specifically on those topics.

If you want to go deeper into today's topic, click here to listen to the full episode. I'm going to teach a three-part strategy to help you build your list. And our goal is not conservative, folks! This strategy is designed to get you 75 new leads per week.

I've also created a great free download for you: it's a cheat-sheet with 17 stellar examples of different kinds of lead magnets. Not only does it give some great inspiration for how to model your own giveaways, but it shows you where to place the opt-in boxes on your website for optimal conversion. Get it here.

EPISODE FREEBIE

For the last several podcast episodes, we've been covering all manner of marketing tactics. Creating webinars, building urgency, writing copy. And we've taken a deep soul-searching dive into the personal "why's" and "how's" of online entrepreneurship.

This week, we're bringing it all back home. It's time to refocus on the foundation of every successful online business:

Your email list.

This week and next week, I'm devoting the podcast to some list-building straight talk.

And if you're thinking "Come on, Amy--I want the black-belt stuff that will take my business to the next level!" ... then this episode might be especially for you.

Here's how you know if you need this episode:

• If you’ve been working on your business for over a year now and you have less than 4,000 people on your email list

• If you’re not growing your email list by at least 75 new leads a week

• If you already have a solid list but it’s not converting into sales or sign-ups

• If you are struggling with confidence in your business and are feeling "less than" or comparing yourself to everybody

• If you ever launched anything in your business and your results were lackluster (i.e., you sold only one or two of your products when you thought you were going to sell 100)

• If you truly love the business you're creating and are passionate about seeing it succeed--in other words, if you're in this for the long haul

If you answered yes to any of those things, here's the first thing I want you to do after listening to today's episode. Download the short one-page inquiry that I created just for you. It's going to help you sort through the obstacles that are holding you back from building a healthy, growing list.

Let me say at the outset that, for all my talk about the crucial importance of list-building, I truly understand the difficulty involved. When you're in the beginning days and months of your business, it feels like every opportunity is more important than the simple, daily effort of building your email list.

But I learned from the sad experience of my very first product launch just how essential the list really is. Listen to the podcast episode for the full story--it's eye-opening. For now, let's just say that with all the bells and whistles of my program design and the sparkle of my marketing strategy, the promotion totally tanked.

The reason? I had a weak email list.

I couldn't understand it. I'd been networking with all the right people, even getting invited to speaking engagements and guest blog spots, and I'd spared no effort to create an amazing product.

But because I was not actively focused on list building, I wasn't able to build the business that I really wanted.

(By the way, when I say “actively” focusing on it, I mean that I would think about my list every day...but it was that horrible “I should be doing this, I’m far behind, I know I need a list" kind of thinking.)

Everything else about my business just seemed more important, in those stressful early days.

That's why I've created this download for you--to help you think through what is pulling your attention away from the cornerstone of building your business. Once you understand why it's so easy to focus on other things, you'll be able to turn the trend around and start seeing the results you want.

Listen to today's episode first--it will really help you with the mindset around list-building, and allow you to process the questions honestly.

And when you're done, drop me a comment to let me know what you're thinking! What is your mindset when it comes to building your list? How are your efforts coming along?

Hey there! I have a fun topic to cover in today's episode:

The Online Entrepreneur's Worst Nightmare. (Cue spooky music.)

Sorry...I couldn't resist. Blame the post-Halloween sugar overload.

The actual topic is how to keep your Facebook account from getting shut down.

Now, this is a topic that I know truly does scare some of you...maybe you've received warnings from Facebook about your content, or maybe you know somebody whose account has been shut down.

I know how upsetting this can be, not just to the people it occurs to, but to every other online entrepreneur in their community. It's just like that feeling when someone you know gets their house or car broken into. Suddenly it feels like the whole world is out to get you.

I don't want you going through your business day freaking out about this. That's why I'm devoting this episode to defusing the scare out of this "nightmare." Seriously...breathe. It's going to be OK.

There's nobody who knows more about protecting your Facebook account than my friend Rick Mulready. Much of the credit for today's episode goes to him.

When I was talking to Rick about this issue, the first thing that came up was how often Facebook's ad guidelines change. If you've ever felt like the old FB is a little trigger-happy on the guideline updates, you're not crazy. Not only do the guidelines change very often, but they're always couched in vague verbiage. It's just not a simple "Don't do this, this and this" with Facebook.

Rick told me that it's important to understand the foundational principle of Facebook's guidelines. For them, it all comes down to creating a great user experience. In other words, Facebook wants to protect all Facebook users from feeling lied to, "sold to," bullied, harassed...you get the picture.

If you're thinking, "Amy, I would never lie to my audience!" ... believe me, I know. And I'm on your side.

But Facebook is going the extra mile to protect users from people who do lie.

So they're not letting people make bold, specific promises to our audience about concrete things (like saving money, making money, losing weight, etc.). And they're not letting us use highly specific imagery that suggests these things (like images of idealized body types, huge stacks of cash, etc.).

Why? Because some people hear/see those things on the internet and feel bad about themselves. And feeling bad is not a good user experience.

So what is an online entrepreneur to do? Answer: get creative! (Click Here to Listen to the Full Episode!)

As you're reading through the list of ten tips about protecting your Facebook ads account, try to adopt an innovator's perspective. Rather than feeling defeated, think about how you can beat Facebook to the punch by creating content that makes all users feel amazing, hopeful, inspired, uplifted. That's a win for everybody--Facebook, your audience, and you.

Tip #1: Add a privacy policy to your registration page.

If you’re running an ad to a page where you're collecting name/email (or any information) from people, you need to have a clear explanation of what you will/won't be doing with the information you're collecting.

We explain a lot more about how to do this in the full episode. Click here to listen now.

Tip #2: Disable all pop-ups on the page where you are sending your ad traffic.

A lot of people will send Facebook ad traffic to a blog post. Facebook loves this (because users don't have to opt-in to get the content), but what they don't love is if a pop-up ad shows up 20 seconds after the user clicks. Pop-up ads have a bad rap, what can I say?

Tip #3: Pay attention to your reputation on Web Of Trust.

This is a third-party reputation site that Facebook looks at frequently to decide if an account should be shut down. It's an extra step, but checking yourself out on Web of Trust can let you know if you're building up a negative reputation somehow...and can save you a lot of heartache in the long run.

Tip #4: Use the Lead Pages plug in on your WordPress site.

Facebook currently counts a LeadPages URL as suspicious content. (We can thank shady LeadPages users for that.) As a company, LeadPages is totally above board, and they are working with Facebook to create a solution. In the meantime, though, they've created a plug-in that you can use to change your LeadPage URL to something Facebook-friendly. Again, an extra step, but it will help a lot in the long run.

It's a lot simpler to set up than you realize--listen to the podcast episode to hear me walk you through it.

Tip #5: Your landing page must accurately reflect what is being promoted in your ad.

This one probably sounds like a given to most of us ... but you'd be surprised how many people get confused when they make the transition from your ad to your landing page. Save everyone the confusion and use the same language/visuals/design in your FB ad as you have on the landing page, and everyone will be happy.

Tip #6: Be mindful of your ad copy.

You already spend hours laboring over your ad copy, I know...so take a deep breath here. The key thing to remember here is that 80% of the time, a robot is the first one judging whether your ad copy gets approved or not. Which means sometimes an ad that was just FB-approved gets disapproved the very next day...and if you leave it up, that spells trouble for your account. Key things to remember here are that you must not over sensationalize, create a false sense of urgency, or use metrics that don't apply to everyone.

(Listen to the full podcast episode to understand how different spins on ad copy can affect your Facebook account.)

Tip #7: Create a feel-good story.

#6 focused on what not to do...this one tells you what you should do. Instead of going down to negative town with your ad, you want to portray happiness, excitement, enthusiasm. You want to give your audience an overall good feeling about whatever it is you're addressing in your ad.

Tip #8: Stick to your account’s regular activity.

If you have a lot of different people logging into your FB account (for example, out-of-country VA’s or contractors) that could be a red flag with Facebook. It makes it look like there is some weird activity going on in your account. So either stick to one dedicated user (ideally yourself), or make sure you are using Facebook business manager instead of just a regular ads account.

Tip #9: Pay attention to your overall activity because it all adds up.

It's important not to push your limits too much with this stuff. I know it might be easy to think "Well, if they don't like my ad, they'll just disapprove it and I'll create a new one." But the thing is, if Facebook disapproves too many ads in a row, they may disable your ad account.

Tip #10: Focus on the relationship.

You'll rarely (if ever) see me sell directly from a Facebook ad. For me, the power of Facebook is creating and cultivating the kind of relationship I want with my audience: genuine, passionate, and truly friendly. Striking a friendly tone is what will build your email list, and keep Facebook happy.

Like I said at the beginning, this isn't something to freak out about. I just want you to be informed. Yes, it might take a little time to revamp your approach to ads, but in the long run, it's going to make for much stronger, more effective Facebook advertising for your business.