On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Melissa Bowler, who is the Executive Director of a non-profit organization called P.I.G., aka the Providence Improv Guild. P.I.G. is an organization dedicated to building a community of improvisers and providing affordable improv workshops to a wide audience. During this episode, we cover how entrepreneurs, business leaders, speakers, and podcasters can use improv training to better themselves and communication.

Main Questions Asked:

• What is the definition of improv?
• How can people use improv into their business?
• How can business owners with a virtual team engage you in improv training?

Key Lessons Learned:

What is Improvisation?

• Improv (improvisation) is the art of making things up on the spot.
• Live improv shows are essentially sketch comedy that is written, directed, staged, and executed in the moment based on audience suggestions.
• When it comes to improv, there is a beauty in not knowing what is going to happen.
• When you do improv, you go on stage completely blank and let things happen.
• The human ability to improvise is innate and is something we knew how to do at one point in our lives. 
• Improvisation is about uncovering the idea of play that is in all of us.

Podcasters and Improv

• Some questions don’t apply to all guests.
• You have to go where if feels right to go and not just on the run sheet.
• Podcasting allows you to do improv during the recording but edit things out.

Improv & Business Communication

• Hire an expert to teach a class. The most effective is in-person.
• Take a class and pass on what you learn.
• Incorporate the spirit into your work.
• Having a sense of humor and the ability to connect with others gets you so much further in life than knowing all the intricate business rules.
• The business climate and world is changing, which allows for a connection on a more human level.

‘Yes, and…’

• The key rule of improv is to never say ‘no.’ 
• You always have to accept an offer and use the ‘Yes, and…’ approach.
• This means accepting and building.
• ‘Yes, and…’ allows you to discover a lot of bad ideas and explore them.
• Focus on what you want to do with ‘Yes, and….’
• In every bad idea there is a grain of a good idea within it. You have to say, ‘Yes, and…’ to get to the good idea.

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

P.I.G

Melissa Bowler

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Stephen Woessner, who is a digital marketing authority, entrepreneur, speaker, educator, podcast host, and bestselling author of two books. During the show, we discuss how Stephen used his business fail to level up, how failure in business affects family, unpaid interns, daily kick start calls, and mentorship.

Main Questions Asked:

• Share your story of attending VaynerMedia.
• Tell me about what your event was.
• How did the event failure affect your personal life and family?
• How did you get out of the stressful time and get back on your feet?
• Did you get to a point where you had to declare bankruptcy, or did you have to rebuild what you already had?
• What are the pros and cons to having unpaid interns?

Key Lessons Learned:

Predictive ROI Live Event 

• This was the challenging time and situation that could have ruined or devastated Stephen’s business.
• The event had been in planning from 2012-2014, and was budgeted at $2M, including speakers and the Ritz Carlton Orlando contract.
• The value proposition of the event question was never answered.
• When the event opened for registration, 3 seats out of 350 were sold.
• The event was scaled back and speaker contracts were cancelled, but they still lost $200K, of which $100K went to the Ritz Carlton for rooms that were never slept in.

Reasons Why The Event Was Cancelled

• The Predictive ROI Live event was cancelled due the following: 
• Misunderstanding of the avatar.
• Lack of a marketing strategy.
• No clear value proposition.

Mentorship

• It’s hard to be a good mentee without being defensive.
• A good mentor will hold your feet to the fire and tell you what you don’t want to hear.

Next Level After Failure

• Stephen was on a plateau and used it to jump to the next level.
• Once Stephen worked through the depression and mourning period, he and his team got back to selling.
• Failure also hits team members hard, so this needs to be considered too.
• The effect on family and relationships after a huge failure is also significant.
• Nothing cures the ills in a business or depression more than wins and successes.

Unpaid Interns

• Predictive ROI has 2-4 unpaid interns per semester, as well as ‘super interns’ who are paid $600 per week for 30 hours.
• So far, there have been 22 unpaid interns through Predictive ROI.
• At one point Stephen had an unpaid intern managing six unpaid interns. She is now the multimedia producer.
• The company is fully transparent about who is an intern, but doesn’t micromanage.

Daily Intern Kick Start Calls

• Work is managed via Zoom video call at 8:45am, where each person reviews the following:
• 3-4 priorities.
• What they didn’t get done the previous day.
• What they need help on.
• If they have spare time.

Slack

• Everyone can instant message all team members.
• There are channels for discussion threads.
• This takes a lot of communication off email and into the tool.
• There is an app for phones and computers.

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

Onward Nation

Predictive ROI

Stephen@predicitveroi.com

Jessica’s Interview

Unpaid Interns Episode 137

The Small Business Owners Handbook

Increase Online Sales Through Viral Social Networking

On this episode of Rhodes to Success I interview Donna Cravotta who is the CEO of Social Sage PR, which is a boutique media consultancy and home of the Total Social PR system. The unique social strategy is based on listening and engagement. Donna will share effective techniques to help you connect with your perfect audience online, build relationships and possibilities into business opportunity. During this episode Jessica and Donna discuss social media as a listening tool, outsourcing to a social media manager, engaging as an entrepreneur, and know your truth and who your future team is.

Main Questions Asked

• What do you do with your clients and Social Sage PR?
• Talk about outsourcing to a social media manager?
• Do you see people have someone internal doing social media marketing or have an expert take over?
• How do you help entrepreneurs engage in social media but not let it take over their lives?

Key Lessons Learned

Social Media As a Listening Tool

• Social media isn’t just about broadcasting it’s also about listening and connecting to people.
• When you learn how to listen you can connect to any audience you want such as potential and past clients, journalists, podcasters, strategic partners, and vendors.
• When you zero in and grow your community you can then branch out.

Social Media Manager

• There is no magic pill as social media isn’t about hacks. It takes time and work.
• Even though you outsource you still need to be there for the engagement.
• There is a lot of value in hiring someone who is already familiar with you and your brand.
• Be prepared to spend time and money.
• As you get more successful you spend more money so you have more time.

Engaging As an Entrepreneur

• Be selective with who you are listening too when it comes to taking advise.
• Be yourself online and not a sales machine.
• People want to know who they are doing business with and want to like you.
• Authenticity is key.
• Always present your social media in your voice even if a social media manager is pumping out the content.

Know Your Future Team

• When you start out as an entrepreneur you will probably have to fill all the roles.
• Know what roles you need to fill and what tasks the people in those roles need to do so when it comes time to hire you know who you are hiring and for what.
• When the pieces don’t fit you have an incongruent business.

Know Your Truth

• Write your truth on a post it note so when you start to get the head trash you read it.
• Jessica’s truth is: “If everything is running smoothly you aren’t growing fast enough.”

Do What Works

• Every audience is different so do more of what works and less of what doesn’t
• Forget the tech piece and how many times to tweet a day and just make sure to show you as yourself.
• Don’t get dragged down by the tactics. Do what works and ask yourself, “What is the fastest way to get there?”

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

Social Sage PR

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Mimika Cooney, who is known as the Go-to Video Marketing Expert. She is a TV host, interviewer, published author, and videographer. Mimika is an international award-winning photographer, public speaker, and online marketing strategist. She has worked as a television broadcaster, and now hosts her own web TV show and helps entrepreneurs and experts harness the power of video marketing to build business brands through her online course. During the show, we discuss video and authenticity, how to make your videos look good, video platforms, and creating content.

Key Lessons Learned:

Video & Authenticity

• Video is the next best thing to meeting someone in person.
• You can’t fake it on video. Communication is mostly non-verbal.
• People will relate to you more if you aren’t always super perfect and put together.
• People can’t last in business and life pretending to be someone they aren’t.
• You can mess up, and it makes you endearing.

Video

• 78% of website traffic is now video related.
• People aren’t necessarily interested in what you look like, but are more interested in the content.
• Don’t get stuck in your head and kill the idea before you have time to birth it.
• Video is cheap, so start where you are and improve as you go.
• Test a few platforms and see what is best for you.

Periscope

• This can be done live on your iPhone.
• At most, you need a tripod and microphone.
• This is live TV with audience interaction.
• This is connected to your Twitter account.

Blab

• This is like Google Hangouts and Periscope.
• Live to air, but viewable post-broadcast.
• This can be consistent and a weekly appointment.
• Production quality is low.
• Uploadable to YouTube and WordPress.

Making Your Videos Look Good

Sound

• Ensure the sound is good. This can even trump the video quality.
• Buy a lavalier microphone on Amazon for around $18 that can attach to your shirt.

Lighting

• Uneven light in videos crates distrust with the audience.
• Test if your lighting is good, and monitor whether you can see the color of your eyes.
• Face the light and make sure you have even light.
• Avoid backlighting.

Camera

• The camera quality on the iPhone 6S is equivalent to a 4K.
• 4K is 4,000 pixels. A lot of movies are recorded on 4K cameras.
• Pixels are the tiny dots on a screen, and the more dots you have the clearer the image.

Creating content

• Don’t just upload to YouTube and link on Facebook, as your reach will be low.
• Upload directly to Facebook, and use the native feature on your business page.
• Short videos of 2-3 minutes get more engagement and are seen more than longer videos.
• People don’t care about you and your story; they care about what’s in it for them.
• Get the best content out in the beginning in order to hook the viewer.

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

Mimika Cooney

Video Creators Hub

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Kim Ades, who is the founder and president of Frame of Mind Coaching and Journal Engine Software. Kim is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, coach, and mother of five. She is one of North America’s foremost experts on performance through thought mastery and mental focus. Kim uses her unique process of integrating online journaling into her coaching. During the show, we discuss the importance of journaling, overcoming barriers, examining thought, thinking differently, emotional resilience, and why balance is overrated.

Main Questions Asked:

• Talk about journaling and how you use it in your coaching.
• Is there a barrier to be overcome when it comes to journaling?
• Talk about the separation of a journal for personal life and business.
• How do you help people think differently?
• What is emotional resilience?
• Talk about leadership and how you train people to be leaders.

Key Lessons Learned:

• Your thinking determines what you achieve.

Kim’s Clients

• Kim coaches highly driven individuals who have three things in common:
• Big goals.
• Make a difference in the world.
• Spirited people who want to live an extraordinary life.

Journaling

• This helps get to the source of beliefs, values, behaviors, and patterns.
• If you are not working with a coach, then journaling is a vehicle for personal awareness and insight.

Barriers to Overcome

• The contents of the journal are an entry point to starting a dialogue and going deeper.
• Even if what is presented is a rosy version and not quite the truth, it is able to be drilled down to get to the heart of the matter.

Personal Versus Business

• There is no separation.
• The way you think in one area of your life will affect how you think in another area.
• Journaling looks at how your thinking impacts your outcomes.
• When your thinking aligns with your goals, your behavior follows.

Examining Thought

• This is less about managing behavior and more about shifting thought.
• If you always think what you always thought, you will always get what you always got.
• The belief lays the foundation.

Thinking Differently

• Are your beliefs leading you toward your goals?
• Beliefs are inherited from our parents, environment, friends, peers, and the media.
• With gradual shifts and beliefs, people can experience extraordinary outcomes.

Emotional Resilience

• This is the ability to bounce back from adversity with great speed and agility.
• This is about leveraging adversity and doing something positive with a negative experience.
• People with a higher degree of emotional resilience will be more likely to succeed at anything they do.

Leadership

• Leaders need to understand the role they play in the organization and that their thinking impacts their team more than any other factor.
• Reinforce leaders with coaching skills.
• Leaders are adept at punishing when there is a problem and promoting when there is a success. This creates inequity.
• It’s important to coach your team and not manage it.
• The way a leader sees their team is how they will show up.
• Leaders tell stories about those who are around them. Don’t bring your story into the dynamic of the team.
• There is a correlation to how someone was parented to how they lead.

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

Frame of Mind Coaching