#Smallbizchat Podcast LIVE is a monthly video interview show where small business owners can get answers to their questions. The focus of #Smallbizchat is to end small business failure by helping participants succeed as your own boss. Please join us live every third Wednesday of the month from 8-9 pm ET Live on my SmallBizLady Facebook Page, YouTube Channel and LIVE on Twitter. 

How to Be a Long-Term Thinker

Dorie Clark has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. She is a keynote speaker and leadership expert who teaches for Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She is also the author of Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of the year by Inc. magazine. Her latest book is The Long Game, How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World For more information: https://dorieclark.com/

SmallBizLady: Why is thinking about the long game more difficult now than it was say, even ten years ago? 

Dorie Clark: Human nature tends to propel us toward the short term. After all, who doesn’t want results now?!? But with the rise of social media, delayed gratification becomes even harder because looking around, it seems like everyone else is doing better and succeeding faster than we are. The truth is, most worthwhile endeavors take longer than we want, and often hit a few snags on the way. We need to have the patience and perseverance to endure – but it does become harder when you see everyone else seemingly thriving while you’re struggling. That’s why I wrote The Long Game – so that smart, talented people could be better equipped to persevere when times got tough so that they can get to the other side and ensure their best ideas can take root and succeed. 

SmallBizLady: Why do we confuse being busy with being important? 

Dorie Clark: In many Western cultures, especially American culture, research has shown that we tend to equate being busy with high status – i.e., we’re popular and in demand, so we must be fantastic. That’s one of the big challenges when it comes to creating more white space in our schedule, which most of us say that we want. We may intellectually want to be less busy, but in addition to the meetings and emails and other demands that we all struggle with, we also have the emotional challenge that if we throttle things down and take the pressure off, it may make us feel just a little bit less *necessary* – and that can be hard to sit with. But it’s important to face that feeling if we actually want to make changes in how we live our lives. 

SmallBizLady: What strategies have you incorporated into your weekly schedule to maximize your time?

Dorie Clark: I’m a big fan of a strategy espoused by Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, who wrote about manager time (the time you spend in meetings and supervising others, etc.) and maker time (the time you spend in deep work, creating something). As an entrepreneur, you need to toggle between both of these, so I try where possible to set aside separate manager days and maker days, so I can go deep and make substantive progress. I’ve been doing this for years and fit it to be quite effective. 

Developing a Digital Strategy

Andy Seeley is a master in sales and digital marketing, having led a number of companies and clients to achieve success. Today, Andy leads a team of digital marketing mavens as the CEO and Co-Founder of Creatively Disruptive. Andy’s previous experiences have taken him from the retail spaces to the publishing world. In addition to his role as CEO, Andy also actively mentors other business owners and offers timely tips and tricks in Facebook Advertising. For more information: www.creativelydisruptive.com

SmallBizLady: Online marketing has changed a lot since the pandemic began? How difficult is it to sell online right now? 

Andy Seeley: Depends on the objectives you are looking for from branding and impressions to conversions and sales from an account manager standpoint. Generally, what are the ultimate results you are looking for? How do your objectives lead you to your ultimate result you desire. Do you have a client persona? Who is the perfect client? What are their interests? What are their psychographics as much as their demographics? How niched down are you? Are you using google ads to develop your audiences? Sometimes it’s better to let the platforms like Facebook use their algorithm to find the right audience. What is your strategy to get there? Is your budget unlimited or restricted? This will have an effect on your audience targeting too.

SmallBizLady: What about B2B Businesses, is it just all about LinkedIn and content marketing to reach customers?

Andy Seeley: When you are selling B2B it starts with getting clear about your objectives. Who is your audience? What are they interested in? LinkedIn is a great option for B2B selling, but what are the ultimate result you are looking for? Are you appointment setting, or trying to build an email list you can target? What strategies are you using on the platform? Are you using automation? How big or small is your target audience? LinkedIn is a great for referrals, but you need to have a warm network to leverage this best. You can also use content on the platform to attract your target audience to you?

SmallBizLady: How to Make Your Website a Conversion Machine?

Andy Seeley: If you want to make more sales from your website, it’s all about looking at your google analytics and your current sales results so that you can make any adjustments. What do your numbers show? What is your click-through-rate (CTR)? What is your cost-per-click (CPC)? What’s your impression cost? What is your and cost per lead (CPL) and cost per sale (CPS)? What is your website conversion rate? What is your return on ad spend (ROAS) or the ROI of money invested into digital advertising. Once you know your numbers, then you can dig into what you need to adjust or start to track to make your website a sales conversion machine.

How to Achieve Optimal Mental and Physical Health

Sheila Brown is on a mission to change common thinking around soul food and encourage people to embrace a vegan lifestyle. She is a healthy eating coach who helps her clients with their weight loss struggles and triumphs. Confronting her own issues with food and spirituality forced her to address the anxieties and issues she had in her own life. Sheila speaks to women helping them to identity and address their own anxieties and issues associated with food and their bodies. She is also the author of Sometimes Raw, Sometimes Cooked, Always Divinely Prepared: 21 Vegan Dishes to Inspire Daughters of the Most High to Eat Healthy and Divinity Soup: An Ancestor-Inspired Recipe Starring Collard Greens. For more information: www.sheilabrownspeaks.com

SmallBizLady: What sparked your interest in health and wellness? 

Sheila Brown: My interest in health and wellness developed organically out of my own desire to lose weight. Even though I wasn’t’ aware of it at the time, I need to get a handle on my unhealthy relationship with food. So, on the day my son turned 18, I was forced to make a huge mental shift and make a commitment to myself to live well or die in misery. I chose to live well by deciding to get my body back to my normal weight and regain the flexibility that I once had. I just wanted to feel better, like I did in my youth. The journey started of slowly but got a huge jumpstart when I came across the documentary by Joe Cross, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. I watched the first part on March 19th. The following day, the 20th, I watched Part 2. On March 21st, I started both my first juice fast and the journey that would ultimately transform my life and improve my health outcomes.

SmallBizLady: What is divine health and how does that relate to the fulfillment of divine purpose?

Sheila Brown: Divine health means being in excellent physical condition, possessing a sound mind, and experiencing spiritual balance, which can happen at any age. One must have all three of these elements in alignment in order to properly perceive, identify, articulate, and actively move towards fulfilling their own divine purpose. 

SmallBizLady: How does one get started on the journey to divine health and wellness?

Sheila Brown: The first thing is to make a mental and spiritual decision to improve one’s life and the quality of their health, naturally. This means no surgery for weight loss, no drugs, really there are no medical interventions. The first step just requires you and your strong sense of self-determination. The steps that follow entail incorporating more plant-based foods, introducing juicing into your lifestyle, understanding your natural food consumption cycle, and becoming physically active. For more information: www.sheilabrownspeaks.com

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Would you like to be a guest on #Smallbizchat Live?

If you are a small business owner, author, or subject matter expert, we’d love to have you appear as a guest on #Smallbizchat LIVE. Submit you’re a specific topic, name, headshot, Twitter/IG handle, mini bio, website, topic and 3 questions and answers in paragraph form to demonstrate your expertise. To submit your materials to be a guest on #Smallbizchat click here.