BrandingBlog by Dave Young

BrandingBlog Radio: Chandra Clarke – CEO of Scribendi

January 27, 2012 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:00 — 45.5MB) | Embed

Remember the scene in the movie Pulp Fiction where Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) accidentally create a serious mess of their car by shooting the guy in the back seat? The only solution is to call in an expert…a cleanup guy. Winston Wolfe (brilliantly played by Harvey Keitel) to the rescue. I love the Winston Wolfe character. He knows how to fix a bad situation.

When you’ve got a writing mess (a dog’s breakfast, as my Aussie friends would call it) you need to call in an expert. Scribendi is to bad writing as Winston Wolf is to Jules and Vince.

Scribendi is a professional editing and proofreading company. I did some copywriting work for them a few years ago and reconnected with CEO Chandra Clarke when Paul Boomer and I decided to include re-written articles instead of podcast transcripts with our Shortcut Blogging service. They created an entire new business line for us.

Chandra and I had a nice rolling conversation about how businesses can utilize her editing and proofreading services and why. I learned that her company has employees in every time zone on the planet and is available for projects 24/7, year round.

A couple of sites that I mentioned in the podcast were www.duhcorp.com and www.huhcorp.com which are fictitious companies on real websites with very creative tongue-in-cheek copy.

In case you’re wondering what kind of mess Vince and Jules have in their car… (If the bad words bother you, don’t play it. Seriously.)

Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncategorized

Soundbites: Fire Fast, Hire Slow

January 25, 2012 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:03 — 11.1MB) | Embed

This is age old advice in management circles.

Kinda funny how hard it is to do in practice. And it’s one of those topics where you look at business owners and managers and you think, “They really should take this advice.” I really want to talk about the “fire fast” but I’ll just touch briefly on the hire slow, because there are loads and loads of resources on how to hire people. Just remember that the worst thing you can do is hire the first person through the door that you think could probably learn to do the job. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Leadership, SoundBites, Strategy, Uncategorized Tagged With: fire fast, hire slow, SoundBites

Blog Ghostwriting with no time-sucking Ghost

January 23, 2012 By Dave Young 2 Comments

I know I’ve mentioned Shortcut Blogging to you quite a few times, but we’ve finished our web site and have our infrastructure in place to take on new clients in bigger numbers than onesy-twosies.

Many business owners know that they should be blogging. Why? Because, blogging creates relevant content on your site, gives you increased credibility as an expert and gives people a reason to talk about you in a good way.

Trouble is, most business owners are so time-deprived that they just can’t make writing a priority.

Hiring a ghost writer for your blog won’t save you much time. You’ll have to spend a lot of time with the writer just making sure he/she understands your business and then going over revisions before posting.

We’ve made it simpler. Think about it this way…if the local radio station called you up and asked you to go on the air for 10 minutes to talk about your favorite subject, would you hesitate to say “Yes”? Of course not.

What if you were able to brainstorm a year’s worth of “favorite” topics and then have a weekly interview where you covered each one? Yes, again? Of course!

Paul Boomer and I have taken that idea and made it a service for business owners. We’ll produce weekly interviews, post them as podcasts on your site, create articles based on your spoken words and post them as accompanying blog posts. All you have to do is show up for the interviews…and we’ll batch them in once-a-month recording sessions.

Our guiding mantra has been, “How can we make blogging so easy for a business owner that they will feel like their contribution is really a break in their work instead of something that adds to the load?”

The business owner shows up for the interviews, we do the rest. All of it.

Yes, this is a shameless plug. But, I’ve been telling you to blog for almost 8 years now. Have you done it?

To sweeten the pot, we’ll even buy you a microphone just like the one pictured here. You’re gonna sound like a million bucks.

Filed Under: Blogging, Buzz This, Shortcut Blogging

BrandingBlog Radio: Michele Miller on Sports, Politics and F.A.R.E.

January 20, 2012 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:21 — 45.0MB) | Embed

Recording this Podcast was a blast. I’ve been working with Michele Miller for 10 years now and being able to share conversations like this is exactly why I started podcasting.

What really made this one fun is that we were face-to-face instead of on Skype. We were both in Palm Springs to have an annual meeting with a client that we’ve worked with almost as long as we’ve been Wizard of Ads partners. This past year our retail client grew 28% over the previous year. That’s a big deal any way you look at it.

In this rambling conversation, we discuss trends in societal change, sports (was it baseball or football?), politics and New Year’s Resolutions, or the lack thereof. You’ll learn about Michele’s F.A.R.E. mantra and my own twist on it.

I hope you enjoy it. I think I managed to maintain my family friendly rating on iTunes. Somehow, turning on the recorder kept us both from flinging f-bombs around the room.

This picture was from her Wonderbranding Class at Wizard Academy on Halloween, 2007. Yes, she taught the class dressed like this.

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Podcasts, Quotable, Rants/Raves, Sports, Wizard Academy, Wizard of Ads

Stupid is as stupid does

January 16, 2012 By Dave Young 1 Comment

This is clever, cute, witty.

Until you have to spell it. Or search for it.

Stoopeed.

Filed Under: Advertising, Quotable

BrandingBlog Radio: Raffy Pendery, Interwebs Genius

January 13, 2012 By Dave Young 1 Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:58 — 38.3MB) | Embed

I love talking to Raffy Pendery. You’ll like him too.

We chatted about 3 of his amazing creations. RealStatistics.com is an online graphing tool that lets you upload all of your business stats and helps you make sense of it all. If you need to keep your training ducks in a row, he’s also developed a platform called RethinkTraining.com for managing your company’s training materials while monitoring your trainees’ progress. Brilliant.

And, if you’re a local business that relies on brick & mortar sales, plus ecommerce, plus email marketing, plus putting your goods out there on Craigslist, all while keeping close tabs on what’s working and what’s not…his team co-developed GreySuitRetail.com. It’ll blow you away.

Raffy is truly one of the good guys on the internet. I met him when he was just starting to grow his empire. (This picture is a very young Raffy at Wizard Academy.)

At the end of the podcast, we talk a bit about Hana-Li, his very talented singer-songwriter wife. Check out Hana-Li on Facebook.

Filed Under: Podcasts Tagged With: ecommerce, training

BrandingBlog Radio: Craig Arthur and Big Plans for 2012

January 6, 2012 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:52 — 40.9MB) | Embed

After a busy holiday season, it was nice to have a leisurely chat with my good friend, Craig Arthur.

Since this is the first episode for 2012, we mostly talked about his plans for the new year and his renewed commitment to blogging. He is using the free outlining process that I produced for Shortcut Blogging. If you’d like to try it, just go to www.shortcutblogging.com/outline.

It may not sound like it in the podcast, but I got pretty excited when he talked about doing more free workshops this year in Australia. I may have to weasel my way onto his stage somehow. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been down under and I’m missing it.

Read more about Craig’s activities by following him on his Wizard Chronicles blog, on Facebook and on Twitter.

Thanks for coming along in our podcast journey!

The photo is Craig peeking out his room’s speakeasy window at Engelbrecht House on the Wizard Academy Campus.

Filed Under: Craig Arthur, Podcasts, Uncategorized, Wizard of Ads

BrandingBlog Radio: Irene Watson on Book Publishing

December 23, 2011 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:12 — 52.9MB) | Embed

Irene Watson’s media empire focuses primarily on self-published authors who need reviews, publicity and coaching for making the most of the book creation and promotion experience.

Her site, Readerviews, offers a wealth of knowledge archived over years of helping authors. Her services are priced and sized just right for authors trying to break into a bigger pool of exposure.

I first met Irene at Wizard Academy. She took the Blog and Web workshop from Paul Boomer and me several years ago.

I really had a good time catching up and learning about the many things she can do to help someone maximize the potential of their book.

Filed Under: Blogging, Books, Podcasts, Wizard Academy

BrandingBlog Radio: Year-End Tax Advice from Adrian Van Zelfden

December 16, 2011 By Dave Young Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:23 — 27.9MB) | Embed

I’ve been getting Adrian Van Zelfden’s “Tidbits in Time” emails for several years. He’s a huge history buff and he enjoys a historical almanac to the point that he started sending out a monthly missive to share his celebration of what happened when. He started by sending it to his friends. None of that opt-in stuff, just a “hey, you might enjoy this as much as I do” kind of spirit. And, when you get an email, any email, from the smartest CPA/Lawyer around, what do you do? You open it and read it.

For his friends who also happen to own businesses, he started putting a section at the end “For Business Owners Only.”

The December issue had a 12-page, single-spaced PDF attached to it full of Adrian’s best Year-End advice to business owners. As I skimmed and scanned it, I knew that this was information that would be helpful to a lot of my readers, so I got Adrian to join me for conversation and this podcast is the result.

If you’d simply like to get to know Adrian, you could bail out after 15 minutes or so when we start to get our hands dirty in the numbers.

If you’d like a copy of his checklist, go to Adrian Van Zelfden’s Facebook Page, Tidbits in Time and click on the “Join My List” link in the left column. He’s also given me permission to send it out, so if you join my list you’ll also get a copy. A third option is to go to vanzelfden.com and shoot him an email. You’ll get a good sense of his dry humor if you google the latin phrase in the header of that page.

So…how good is he?

In 30 years of helping clients with taxes and going with them to countless IRS audits, he’s often walked out with the IRS owing his clients money. More importantly, he’s never lost a dime of his client’s money in an audit. That is, his record is perfect. He’s never had a worse outcome than having the IRS say, “Yep, this tax return is just fine. No changes.” Damn. That’s good.

I like doing interviews that get me a bit out of my comfort zone. Finances, taxes, government…you get the idea. For an example, if you haven’t listened to my interview with Pamela Yellen, you missed out on her surefire way to grow your cash without exposing yourself to risk. And now, I hope you enjoy Adrian and that you find his timely advice worthwhile as you seek to keep more of that hard-earned money for yourself while staying out of trouble with the IRS.

Filed Under: Leadership, Money, Podcasts, Uncategorized, Wizard Academy