On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Maura Sweeney, who considers herself an ‘accidental entrepreneur.’ Maura is an author, podcaster, international speaker, and Huffington Post contributor. She guides others on the path of living happy inside out.  During this episode, we discuss homeschooling, involving children in business, giving and not getting, following your passion and living happy.

Main Questions Asked:

• Talk about your experience homeschooling.
• Talk about how you involved your daughter in your business and how that affected your family.
• What do you say to people who follow their passion but make no money?
• Where did you get your business savvy and marketing expertise?

Key Lessons Learned:

Homeschooling

• Do what works well for you from the inside out.
• Do what you love, follow your passions, and your career path will follow.
• Some children aren’t suited to homeschooling, as they aren’t self-directed and need the teacher to assist.
• Homeschooling doesn’t have to be a permanent decision; you can take it year by year and see what works for you and your child.

Follow Your Passion

• This is about living from the inside out.
• Instead of trying to fit yourself into institutions that may not have a place for you, make your own path.

Give, Don’t Get

• Give out as much as you can.
• Get as much influence as you can.
• Eventually, the money will follow.

Don’t Give Up

• Most people don’t succeed because they give up too quickly.
• Things that are important to you are worth learning, pursuing, and honing.
• Take everything from your background and group it together in your own unique way to share and inspire.

Maura’s Story

• She left law school because she wasn’t happy and had a background in sales, management, and writing.
• Maura walked away from her business in order to have a mid-life career that allowed her to travel, use skills, and positively impact people.

Branding

• Don't just ‘work it’ from one angle; work it from many!
• Become synonymous with your brand and passion.

Humility

• Recognize what you don’t know and don’t be afraid to ask people to show you.

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Maura4U

Living Happy Inside Out (Podcast) 

Maura Sweeney (Huffington Post)

Tampa Bay Business Owners

Florida Podfest 

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Greg Smith, who talks about launching an online course so you have an additional stream of revenue in your business. Greg’s company, Thinkific, is a software platform that makes it easy to create, market, and sell online courses. If you are tech challenged, or if you always wanted to create an online course but get overwhelmed, then this is an episode you can’t afford to miss! 

Main Questions Asked:

• How much work goes into making a course?
• What do successful courses look like?
• What are the biggest mistakes you’ve seen people make with online courses?
• What are the price points for courses?
• How do you market a course?
• How do you decrease the rate at which people request refunds?
• What is Thinkific, who is it for, and how do you use it?
• What is the difference between Thinkific and Udemy?
• What is the first step to creating an online course?

Key Lessons Learned:

Getting Started

• If you have just one stream of revenue, and that stream goes away, then you are in trouble.
• Avoid the mistake of, ‘If I build it they will come.’
• Everything is colored by how you will market, distribute, and who you will share your course with.
• The bulk in the online course space is on-demand.

Successful Courses

• It comes down to the value you provide people and showing your customers how you will make their life different once they have completed the course.
• The delivery method of your course can be via a number of ways, including PowerPoint with voice over, live, or pre-recorded video.

Biggest Mistakes

• Obsessing over content but not thinking about how best to distribute the content.
• Don't focus on perfection, or you’ll never launch. Just dive in and experiment.

Price Points   

• Price on trust.
• Avoid pricing content based on hours of content or size of course.
• Price based on the value you are giving the customer and the change you are making in their life.

Marketing   

• Find leads via PPC, Facebook, AdWords, and niche groups.
• Present a webinar and sell the course at the end.

Refunds

• The rate of refunds is low when it comes to online courses.
• Refunds can be avoided by having customer service to deal with any issues.

Thinkific

• The platform is for people who have a course or knowledge to share but don’t have the technical expertise to enact it.
• Thinkific offers hosting, delivers videos, makes everything mobile, is easy to set up, includes the ecommerce aspect, and enables customers to brand their course as part of their own website.
• Thinkific takes a 10% commission when customers use the free plan.
• The $50 flat fee option on Thinkific allows unlimited students and courses with no commission.

Create the Webinar First

• Get the audience to enroll before you create the webinar.
• Once you have the audience, then customize based on buyers.

First Steps

• Start with your chosen topic.
• If you don't’ have a chosen topic, then survey your potential audience and find out what they most want to learn from you.

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Thinkific

Yammer

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Dr. Joanie Connell, an author, organizational consultant, and leadership coach who helps people achieve their highest potential. Joanie works with companies to develop and retain top talent and improve their success and happiness in their careers. She is also the author of Flying Without a Helicopter: How to Prepare Young People for Work and Life.   During the show, Jessica and Joanie discuss helicopter parenting, generational differences in the workplace, what makes a great leader, how to help employees be resilient, and how to find a career that excites you.

Main Questions Asked:

• What are the pros and cons of helicopter parenting?
• Talk about millennial and generational challenges in the work place.
• Comment on how different generations figure out how to be happy in their career.
• Do you think the transition from employee to contractor jobs help people find a work/life balance?
• What does it take to be a successful leader?
• How do you teach employees to take on leadership roles?
• What can we do to help our employees be more resilient?
• How can people find a career that excites them?

Key Lessons Learned:

Helicopter Parents

• The choices you make as a parent are both good and bad, and it’s a matter of weighing up the pros and cons of different methods.
• Helicopter parenting is ‘hovering’ over the kids, watching everything they do, and doing things for them.
• The Lawnmower approach is paving the path ahead of the kids so they don’t make mistakes or fall down.
• The consequence of helicopter parenting is that the kids never learn how to do things on their own and make their own mistakes.

Generational Differences in the Work Place

• Millennials have different expectations and have been brought up where they have been protected and their self-esteem has been boosted.
• Baby boomers have a harder time working a flexible schedule and have the 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, 40 hour workweek ingrained in their belief system.

What Makes a Great Leader

• Being a good leader is all about being flexible and thinking about the individual needs of each worker.
• Leadership comes down to having a vision and bringing followers along.
• If you don’t have followers, then you’re not a leader.
• A great leader has people skills to interact, motivate, and inspire.

Helping Employees be Resilient

• When things go wrong, are you able to stay strong, positive, and bounce back?
• As managers, in order to help people build resilience, you have to let them fail. This is essentially the opposite of being a helicopter parent.

Finding a Career that Excites You

• Figuring out what makes you happy takes a lot of self-awareness.
• Ask yourself if it’s the content of the job, the environment, the company, having challenges, or helping people that makes you happy.
• Figure out what energizes you and lifts you up.
• What makes you happy doesn’t necessarily have to be in a different job; it can be in your current job.
• The question shouldn’t be, ‘what should I be doing?’ but rather, ‘what makes me happy?’

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Slack

Flexible Work Solutions

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Heather Havenwood, who is known as ‘Sexy Boss’ and is an expert in marketing, entrepreneurship, sales, and dating. In 2006, Heather started, developed, and grew an online information marketing publishing company from ground zero to over a million in sales in less than 12 months. During the show, Jessica and Heather discuss sales, rapport, the psychology of the sales funnel, and contractors in the on-demand economy.

Main Questions Asked:

• What contributed to you reaching a million in sales?
• How do you get over the fear of asking for what you want in sales?

Key Lessons Learned:

Choosing Business Models

• Choose an evergreen niche that will never go away and is adaptable to business environments.
• Make sure you’re building a business that isn’t reliant on other platforms or subject to regulations.
• If you are an entrepreneur, you’re in sales. You have to be confident asking for what you want.

Creating Multiple Products and Services

• Don’t just sell one thing to your current clients. Create multiple things and sell to the same person multiple times.
• Who are your current customers and clients, and what more can you sell to them?
• Sell more to people who know, like, and trust you.
• Good sales people love to be sold to.
• The best sales conversations are when clients come ‘pre-sold.’

Rapport & Connections

• Sales is all about rapport and building connections.
• Part of the connection is:

1. A) Showing the client that the product of service will help them get the desired result.
2. B) You are trustworthy enough, that you are the person who is going to fulfill that need.

The Psychology of the Sales Funnel

• There is the self-selection process where the client has either seen an advert, e-mail, or been referred.
• The client has self-selected themselves for the conversation and from there will choose to buy or not.
• Just because people self-select doesn’t mean they are closed.
• People need to be exposed to your brand on average 7 times before deciding to buy.

Women in Business

• Women are the number one underutilized resource on the planet.
• Females are taught to ask ‘around the corners’ and hit rather than ask directly.

Contractors and the On-Demand Economy

• The on-demand economy and contractors are promoting entrepreneurial mindset, as people now have multiple streams of income.
• Being an independent contractor can be a path to entrepreneurship for a lot of people.

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Heather Havenwood

Sexy Boss Inc

The Soul of Money